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An overview of the UNIDROIT PICC, with Stefan Vogenauer

Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC)

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The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, or PICC, were created in 1994 after decades of preparation, against what Oxford author Stefan Vogenauer calls a “romantic background” of a global commercial law, or lex mercatoria. In the following videos, Stefan explains how the PICC can be used as a form of “Esperanto” law for cross-border contracts.

While the UNIDROIT PICC offer a harmonizing global contract law, some objectors may say that as “principles”, they are too vague. Stefan tackles this objection in the video below, and also highlights how some practitioners may be surprised by the contents of the Principles.

But how does the UNIDROIT PICC work in practice? In this next video, Stefan discusses a case study that involves Principles and the Belgian Supreme Court.

While the Principles were first created in 1994, their conception began in the 1960s. But what does the future hold for the UNIDROIT PICC? Stefan discusses this in the video below.

Featured image credit: ‘Oxford – Feel the magic’, by Angel Ganev. CC-by-2.0 via Flickr.

Stefan Vogenauer is Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of Brasenose College. He is Director of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law. Prior to his appointment at Oxford, Professor Vogenauer was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and a part-time Lecturer at the Bucerius Law School. Stefan recently edited the second edition of Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC). Stefan also co-edits the Uniform Law Review (Revue de droit uniforme), a quarterly, bilingual journal focusing on the field of the unification of law.

Miranda Dobson is a Marketing Assistant at Oxford University Press.

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