Some Notes on the Law of International Trade

Abstract

In recent years we have witnessed an unprecedented development of what is being termed — technically somewhat vaguely — as the “law of international trade” or, in some cases, as the “law of world trade”. Questions relating to the substance of the law of international trade and its existence were discussed by an important scientific colloquium sponsored by the International Association of Legal Science in London in 1962 also with a view to the question whether this law was developing and, indeed, existing autonomously and, in substance, independently of the legislative activity of individual states.¹ The colloqium rightly pointed out that legal regulations governing questions of international commercial relations showed some obvious similarity in all states,² in spite of the fact that the legal systems of these states differ in their basic concepts under the impact of the differences existing in their economic and political structure, their historical development and legal traditions.