Mirror Image Rule And The Breakthrough Of It

"Mirror image rule"is a traditional rule of common law. According this rule, an accept must coincide with each and every term of an offer, just like the very reflection of the offer in a mirror. As a traditional rule of common law,"mirror image rule"has been widely used for a long time and has played an important role. However, the social background of modern contract law has violently changed. In modern commercial activities, standard terms are favored and widely used. Facing of the standard terms, especially the big deal through documents between businessmen,"mirror image rule"increasingly shows its defect, and no longer no longer meet the development and requirements of modern contract law. Facing such a predicament,"the doctring of last shot"came into being. But"the doctring of last shot"did not break"mirror image rule", it is still a traditional solution. According"the doctring of last shot", although a contract is concluded, there are still many problems. Both of"mirror image rule"and"the doctring of last shot"can not meet the requirements of modern contract law, so the breakthrough is imperative."Uniform Commercial Code" (UCC) made the first breakthrough in legislation, in respect of its 2-207 dramatically breaks through the traditional "mirror image rule". UCC section 2-207 was several changed. This paper selects the most widely quoted section of the original UCC section 2-207, the amendment of UCC section 2-207 in 1993 which caused the concern of chinese scholars and the current version that was major revised in 2003 to review ."Mirror image rule"was gradually breaked in German and UK."The doctring of last shot"was most used to solve the conflict of standard terms in early decisions in German. But the traditional solution has been gradually shaken in the jurisprudence and"The knock-out rule"gradually has gradually formed. Britain still favors"The doctring of last shot", but the British court makes some modifications to pursue justice and equity in practice rather than apply"The doctring of last shot"rigidly. Lord Denning has also raised a new theory in a prejudication.In the international unification legislation, the international organizations are active in the development of international uniform legal documents in order to provide solutions for international trade disputes."United Nations Convention on Contracts of International Sales of Goods"(referred to as CISG),"Principles of International Commercial Contracts"(referred to as PICC) and "Principles of European Contract Law" (referred to as PECL) are the main representatives of the international contract law. In this part, the author analysises the breakthrough on"mirror image rule"in these three legal documents, especially the breakthrough in CISG.In 1999,"Contract Law"came into force, in which the rules of offer and acceptance in CISG was used for reference. In 2009,"Supreme People's Court Issues Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Contract Law (II)"(refered to as"Interpretation (II)") became active. The first term of it is the regulation about the establishment of the contract. Compared "Contract Law" with"Interpretation (II)", the presumption of establishment of the contract according to"Interpretation (II)"is more relaxed. Compared to "mirror image rule ", it can suit the economies of scale, mass production and block trade in modern times better. However, this new method is only provided generally in a judicial interpretation and lacks specifics in practice, so it is not perfect. Regarding this, I make three suggestions on improvement...