유럽공통매매법(CESL)의 법적 특성과 국제상사계약에의 적용가능성

The CESL(Common European Sales Law), published in October 2011, is the result of a long standing project for the European Commission. For over a decade experts and academics have been looking at the issue of European contract laws during which time a number of different approaches and proposals have been developed and considered. The Commission’s current proposal for CESL attempts to resolve barriers to cross-border trade by introducing a new optional contract law. They suggest that these barriers are caused by the divergence of contract laws across the member states which significantly hamper cross border trade, the smooth functioning of the single market and ultimately stifle potential growth within the EU. The aim behind CESL is to provide a comprehensive set of uniform contract law rules covering the practical international contract, which would form part of the national law of each member state as a second regime of contract law. This proposed alternative regime would be available for cross-border B2C contracts and cross-border B2B contracts where at least one of the businesses is a small or medium enterprise. The Commission’s impact assessment on the CESL acknowledges that there are a number of barriers to cross border trade. They argue that by tackling the challenges presented by the divergent contract laws of the member states they will see an increase in cross border trade through reduced transaction costs for traders and increasing choice for consumers.