Study On The Interpretation And Application Of Article55of CISG

The function of Article55of the United Nations Convention on the International Sale ofGoods（CISG）is to fill the gap of an open price contract. It’s open sentence states that thereshould be a contract which has been validly concluded. However, Article14of CISGprovides that price is one of requirements to be sufficiently definitive in an offer. Because ofthe relationship between Article14and55,Courts and Tribunals have to consider whether aproposal can constitute an offer when the price is not fixed, then whether the contract can bevalidly concluded because of the lack of an offer. Courts and Tribunals have different viewswhen they confront the questions above. And in those cases relate to Article55,reasoning andconclusions differ from one another.This paper is divided into four parts: The first part introduces the draft history of Article55and reveals the underlying cause of the existence of Article55. The second part expoundsthe different views of scholars on the interpretation of Article55. The third part analyzescases and three problems the courts and tribunals have to deal with: the scope of the openprice, the premise of Article55and party autonomy. The last part introduces the rules ofinterpretation: Article31~33of Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Article7ofCISG, and reveals the relationship between them. Then this part explains how to interpretArticle55under the guidance of these rules to reach the goal of uniform application.