A Glimpse Through the Kaleidoscope - Faculty of Business and Law ...

LISA SPAGNOLO
The prime driver in choice of law will be the view of the lawyer whose client has
superior bargaining power. The extent to which the CISG is prevalent in domestic law
influences, legal education and dispute work within a jurisdiction will determine
perceived learning costs thus affecting the proportion of lawyers within a jurisdiction
that are amenable to utilizing the CISG. A combination of economic strength in clients
with lawyers that have pro-CISG views will naturally reduce CISG exclusions. The
opposite will follow if bargaining strength is combined with views inclined towards
automatic opt-outs.
How individual lawyers reconcile the different fragments within the kaleidoscope as
they interact with one another provides an interesting scenario for analysis. The
reasons for choice of law decisions and dynamics between counterparties are further
analysed in terms of behavioural economics, psychology, neoclassical economics and
game theory in Kaleidoscope Part II. 91
91
156
Spagnolo, L., “Rats in the Kaleidoscope: Rationality, Irrationality, and the Economics and Psychology
of Opting In and Out of the CISG” (2009) 13 Vindobona Journal 157.
(2009) 13 VJ 135 - 156