ABSTRACT
When a case falls within the scope (article 1) of MC (or WSC), the court of a contracting state applies the Convention to what is, ex hypothesi, an international contract, without resorting to normal rules of the conflict of laws. That is because a scope rule such as article 1 is a unilateral conflicts rule in the lex fori of a contracting state 1 : whenever a court in a contracting state characterises the case before it as a contract of the kind in question (defined by article 1), it applies the Convention as enacted in the lex fori.
