Internationality of contracts

Most jurisdictions permit contractual parties to select a competent forum or an applicable law to govern their contract if the contract is international in character. However, there is no certainty as to what giver an agreement internationality. Some scholars claim to exclude from party autonomy any contract in which the forum has an "interest". (Such as Kincaid from New Zealand)This argument goes too far to be accepted by most commentators. The current most popular argument is that some objective connection with more than one country is enough to spesify a contract as international. The next issue will be what amounts to "objective tie" or "objective connection". The test could be based on factual issues such as the different places of residence or nationalities or the parties, or it can look at the economic effect of the transaction. In summary, following factual connections can be taken into consideration: (1) the contractual parties have their personal connection with different States. The personal connection here includes different concepts, such as place of business adopted in UN Vienna Sales Convention 1980 and the earlier Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods 1964; domicile and habitual residence in the EU Brussels Regulation and the Rome Convention. It is pointed out that nationality adopted in Frence Cor de cassation has recently regarded a weak factor to decide internationality of contracts nowadays.(2) the activities relating to the contract are carried out abroad. These activities include performance(delivery of goods, provision of services, and payment of purchase money), and contracting.(3) the location of the property involved in the contracts. There is also a radical view that the single fact that the parties have chosen the foreign law or foreign forum will be enough to make a contract international, disregarding all the other elements are pointing to one nation. This possibility was denied in practice by the Hague Sales Convention 1955, as well as Hague Sales Convention 1986. It is said the permission of this argument will unreasonable expende the parties' autonomy which might lead to abuse. It provides the parties too much power to challenge state's authority, and enable them to escape some rules that they are not suppose to escape in their domestic law.