[Reproduced from U.N. Document A/CN.9/142/Add. 1 of November 18, 1977. The Working Group on the International Sale of Goods was established in 1969 by the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law. Included in its mandate was to ascertain which modifications of the Hague Convention of 1964 relating to a Uniform Law on the Formation of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods—see 3 I.L.M. 864 (1964)—might render it capable of wider acceptance by countries or different legal, social and economic systems and to elaborate a new text reflecting such modifications. The text reproduced here completes this mandate.

[The Working Group noted that the Commission had deferred until its eleventh session in June 1978 the question of whether the rules on formation and validity of contracts for the international sale of goods should be the subject of a Convention separate from the Convention on the International Sale of Goods—see 16 I.L.M. 1456 (1977). The Working Group requested the Secretariat to prepare an analysis of the drafting problems which would be involved in combining these rules on the formation and validity of contracts with the Convention on the International Sale of Goods and to present that analysis to the Commission in June. The Working Group also noted that in accordance with the procedures established by the Commission the above draft would be circulated to Governments for comments. The Secretary-General was requested to prepare a commentary to facilitate the consideration of the draft by Governments. The Secretary-General was also requested to circulate the draft of a law for the unification of certain rules relating to validity of contracts of international sale of goods prepared by the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law to Governments for their comments. Specifically, they should address the question of whether any matters in the Institute text which had not been included in the above text prepared by the Working Group should, indeed, be included. That text has been reproduced at I.L.M. page 282.]