The choice of law agreement as a gateway to the applicability of the CISG

The broad recognition of party autonomy around the globe has progressively determined that choice of law agreements are - nowadays - a powerful tool of transaction planning. It is therefore a common occurrence that international sales contracts (potentially) governed by the CISG contain a pactum de lege utenda. Since a scrutiny on such choice of law agreements is in some instances required in order to determine the very same applicability of the CISG, the question that arises is how this scrutiny should be conducted. In this paper this conundrum will be investigated by taking into consideration the particular nature of a choice of law agreement and its autonomous standing vis-à-vis the international sales contract to which it refers to. This will lead to draw attention to the private international law of the forum as the source to be relied upon. In this perspective and in order to understand the practical implications of a conflict of laws approach, an analysis will be conducted on the relevant provisions of the Rome I Regulation, which is the regime to be employed by the courts of the majority of EU Member States, as (possibly) supplemented by the recent Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts.