Officiële Toelichting

The Principles, like any other legal text, be it of a legislative or of a contractual nature, may give rise to doubts as to the precise meaning of their content. The interpretation of the Principles is however different from that of the individual contracts to which they apply. Even if the Principles are considered to bind the parties only at contractual level, i.e. their application is made dependent on their incorporation in individual contracts, they remain an autonomous set of rules worked out with a view to their application in a uniform manner to an indefinite number of contracts of different type entered into in various parts of the world. As a consequence they must be interpreted in a different manner from the terms of each individual contract. The rules for the interpretation of contracts (as well as of statements by or other conduct of the parties) are laid down in Chapter 4. This Article deals with the manner in which the Principles as such are to be interpreted.

The first criterion laid down by this Article for the interpretation of the Principles is that regard is to be had to their ‘international character’. This means that their terms and concepts are to be interpreted autonomously, i.e. in the context of the Principles themselves and not by reference to the meaning which might traditionally be attached to them by a particular domestic law.

Such an approach becomes necessary if it is recalled that the Principles are the result of thorough comparative studies carried out by lawyers coming from totally different cultural and legal backgrounds. When drafting the individual provisions, these experts had to find sufficiently neutral legal language on which they could reach a common understanding. Even in the exceptional cases where terms or concepts peculiar to one or more national laws are employed, the intention was never to use them in their traditional meaning.

By stating that in the interpretation of the Principles regard is to be had to their purposes, this Article makes it clear that they are not to be construed in a strict and literal sense but in the light of the purposes and the rationale underlying the individual provisions as well as the Principles as a whole. The purpose of the individual provisions can be ascertained both from the text itself and from the comments thereon. As to the purposes of the Principles as a whole, this Article, in view of the fact that the Principles' main objective is to provide a uniform framework for international commercial contracts, expressly refers to the need to promote uniformity in their application, i.e. to ensure that in practice they are to the greatest possible extent interpreted and applied in the same way in different countries. As to other purposes, see the remarks contained in the Introduction. See further Article 1.7 which, although addressed to the parties, may also be seen as an expression of the underlying purpose of the Principles as such to promote the observance of good faith and fair dealing in contractual relations.

A number of issues which would fall within the scope of the Principles are not settled expressly by them. In order to determine whether an issue is one that falls within the scope of the Principles even though it is not expressly settled by them, or whether it actually falls outside their scope, regard is to be had first to what is expressly stated either in the text or in the Comments (see, e.g., Comment 3 on Article 1.3; Comment 5 on Article 1.4; Article 2.2.1(2) and (3) and Comment 5 on Article 2.2.1; Comment 5 on Article 2.2.7; Comment 5 on Article 2.2.9; Comment 1 on Article 2.2.10; Article 3.1.1; Comment 1 on Article 6.1.14; Article 9.1.2; Article 9.2.2; Article 9.3.2). A useful additional guide in this respect is the subject-matter index of the Principles.

The need to promote uniformity in the application of the Principles implies that when such gaps arise a solution should be found, whenever possible, within the system of the Principles itself before resorting to domestic laws.

The first step is to attempt to settle the unsolved question through an application by analogy of specific provisions. Thus, Article 6.1.6 on place of performance should also govern restitution. Similarly, the rules laid down in Article 6.1.9 with respect to the case where a monetary obligation is expressed in a currency other than that of the place for payment may also be applied when the monetary obligation is expressed by reference to units of account such as the Special Drawing Right (SDR). If the issue cannot be solved by a mere extension of specific provisions dealing with analogous cases, recourse must be made to their underlying general principles, i.e. to the principles and rules which may be applied on a much wider scale because of their general character. Some of these fundamental principles are expressly stated in the Principles (see, e.g., Articles 1.1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7 and 1.8). Others have to be extracted from specific provisions, i.e. the particular rules contained therein must be analysed in order to see whether they can be considered an expression of a more general principle, and as such capable of being applied also to cases different from those specifically regulated.

Parties are of course always free to agree on a particular national law to which reference should be made for the supplementing of the Principles. A provision of this kind could read ‘This contract is governed by the UNIDROIT Principles supplemented by the law of Country X’, or ‘This contract shall be interpreted and executed in accordance with the UNIDROIT Principles. Questions not expressly settled therein shall be settled in accordance with the law of Country X’ (see the Model Clause in the footnote to the second paragraph of the Preamble).