예술품의 국제거래와 국제물품매매계약에 관한 UN협약

Abstract

International artworks trading is a kind of international trading of goods. Generally, legal issues of an international trading of goods are controlled by agreement of contracting parties. But in the case of no agreement of a governing law or contract details, we need a proper law of the contract. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods(CISG) can be a solution to such a legal hiatus of law. In reality, the choice of governing law is given to the more powerful party. As South Korea is the underdog on the bargaining power in international artworks trading, the chances are we cannot get the superiority in the selection of law. The CISG could be the best alternative plan to the weak party like Korea. The CISG has several exemptions of its application to the international sale of goods, which makes us confused to apply the CISG. Article 2 of CISG says that the goods for personal, family or household use, or by auction, are not subject to the convention. So, we are very confused by this article because most artworks are classified into personal use and transaction by auction is common. However, transaction for personal use usually occurs in domestic artworks transaction. And International trading for personal use can be applied to the convention by the provisory clause about occasion when the seller did not know or ought not to have known that the goods were bought for any such use. International artworks trading commonly uses galleries as an intermediary, which means that they cannot know the buyer’s purpose. Moreover, in the transaction by auction, auction does not play a role of a contract party but an intermediary. So, the article 2 of CISG is not a barrier to using the convention as a norm of international artworks transaction. The CISG has 93 treaty powers as of Dec. 2019 but UK is not included. The CISG has not been predominant despite its huge size because the agreement of parties is preferred. But the importance of CISG as an international standard is increasingly growing as an effort to overcome inequality in international transactions. To promote international artworks trading industry in Korea, it is important for galleries, dealers, and concerned lawyers to understand the CISG and bring it into a contract standard.