Title

Why is there an international commercial uniform law rather than nothing? : a postmodern manifesto

Publisher

University of British Columbia

Date Issued

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Program

Law

Description

International uniform commercial law is like the realization of a global dream. It is currently an unavoidable reference point because of the flourishing legal scholarship that lends it confidence and breadth. Thus, certain people see the “Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods”, to cite only one example, as the cornerstone of the creation of an international private law. Others, working with the theory developed by T. Kuhn in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, interpret it as a sign of the birth of a new paradigm underlying international commercial transactions. As well, A. Kassis affirms that it represents the germ of a future amalgamation of all sales laws, while V. Heuze speaks of it in terms of remarkable progress. Faced with such a strike force, I would like to revisit the intellectual act that will reintroduce into uniform law the mystery it has lost and to which it has a right, like other things in life. Thus, I came to ask myself, why is there a uniform international commercial law rather than nothing? This paraphrase of the fundamental metaphysical question formulated by M. Heidegger - "Why are there beings rather than nothing?" - underlies this entire thesis. It expresses the intrinsic though unacknowledged strangeness of uniform law, and, correlatively, the attitude of astonishment that one must adopt toward this juridical field. How am I going to follow-up on this? I would submit that one of the right answers to this question resides in the pursuit of two objectives. The first objective is the following: propose and justify the constitutive elements of a postmodern consciousness of uniform law. The second objective will develop two applications: one will consist in an interpretative schema of uniform law, and the other in a uniformist reading of the Quebec world.

Date Available

2009-09-23

Rights

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

DOI

10.14288/1.0077556

Affiliation

Law, Peter A. Allard School of

ID

1.0077556

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