The course offers an introduction to the legal aspects of transacting business across national borders in a world divided into sovereign states. It presents how to identify legal and legally relevant business risks and the techniques developed to address them on commercial contracts, how to determine essential terms and to analyze the most important clauses used in international contracts. The course specifically addresses principles of international commercial contracts and examines in some detail the International Convention on the Sale of Goods (“CISG”). In addition the course will address basics of intellectual property protection internationally, considering its increasing importance in nowadays business environment.

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to
- (level 1) Identify main characteristics of international contracts
- (level 2) Describe the main notions of private international law
- (level 3) Determine central issues and structure on international commercial contracts
- (level 4) Analyze objectives and contents of main international treaties
- (level 5) Combine negotiation and drafting tools necessary for addressing the complexity of international commercial contracts
- (level 6) Assess legally relevant business risks associated with transacting business across national borders