    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 31 (Monday, August 9, 1993)]
    [Page 1585]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Message to the Senate Transmitting a United Nations Convention on
    International Trade Law

     August 6, 1993

    To the Senate of the United States:

        With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to
    accession, I transmit herewith the United Nations Convention on the
    Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods done at New York on
    June 14, 1974, and the Protocol amending the Convention done at Vienna
    on April 11, 1980. Also transmitted for the information of the Senate is
    the report of the Department of State with respect to the Convention.
        This is the second Convention in the field of international sales of
    goods law produced by the United Nations Commission on International
    Trade Law (UNCITRAL) that has been transmitted to the Senate for its
    advice and consent. The first, the 1980 United Nations Convention on
    Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, was ratified by the
    United States and entered into force for this country on January 1,
    1988. Both of these Conventions establish uniform international
    standards in the commercial law of sales of goods in order to facilitate
    commerce and trade. Both benefit the United States by removing
    artificial impediments to commerce that arise from differences between
    the national legal systems that govern international sales of goods.
        The Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International
    Law, on which 11 national legal organizations are represented, in May
    1989, and the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, in
    August 1989, endorsed U.S. accession to the Convention and amending
    Protocol, subject to a U.S. declaration permitted under Article XII of
    the Protocol. The declaration is set forth with reasons in the
    accompanying report of the Department of State.
        I recommend that the Senate promptly give its advice and consent to
    accession to this Convention together with its amending Protocol.
                                                William J. Clinton
    The White House,
    August 6, 1993.