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The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods(the “CISG”) is limitedly applied to contracts for the international sale of goods. A contract for the sale of goods is deemed to be international when the parties’ places of business are in different states, which is called ‘CISG’s internationality’ or ‘CISG’s international character’. CISG can be also applied when the rules of private international law lead to the laws of a contracting state. As CISG does not define the concept of “place of business”, we need to refer to court decisions or arbitral awards to clearly understand its concept. UNCITRAL has established a reporting system for case law on UNCITRAL texts(“CLOUT”). CLOUT was established in order to assist judges, arbitrators, lawyers, and parties to business transactions, by making available decisions of courts and arbitral tribunals interpreting UNCITRAL texts. According to CLOUT cases, the nationality of the parties is not considered in determining the application of CISG, and the parties’ civil or commercial character is irrelevant. Korea’s Foreign Trade Act, however, distinguish between foreign trade and domestic trade by means of movement of goods. As the criteria of Korea’s Foreign Trade Act for foreign trade is different from those of CISG, careful attention is required. The basic principle of contractual freedom(“party autonomy”) is recognized in CISG by permitting the parties to exclude the application of CISG or derogate from or vary the effect of any its provision. In addition, CISG may be also applied as the law applicable to the contract if so chosen by the parties.

Interest groups and other organizations are crucial vehicles for voter mobilization, but variations in their capacities are not well understood. To clarify the ways in which vote mobilization capacities vary, I analyze vote mobilization in two private-sector industrial unions supporting the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The Japanese Federation of Textile, Chemical, Food, Commercial Service and General Workers’ Union (UA Zensen), has a very large membership but mobilizes few votes. The Confederation of Japan Automobile Worker’s Unions (JAW), on the other hand, has fewer members but mobilizes more votes. In this article, I argue that unions whose constituent units operate company towns are most successful in mobilizing votes. Organizational capacity ?independent of membership size ? matters in the electoral arena. Using data from House of Councillors elections, I show that those industrial unions that include many enterprises with company towns have advantage in voter mobilization.

Gaining international clout is an important motivation in pursuing monetary integration, as small country merge into a larger entity that can project more global power. We provide evidence to that effect using survey data from Kenya pertaining to public support for the proposed East African Monetary Union. We show that Kenyans prefer a larger union with more members for the purpose of gaining global clout. However, not all potential member countries are equally welcomed. Larger and more stable countries are favored over fragile states.

Since 1980, Thailand’s monarchy and military have enjoyed a partnership of power with the latter as a junior affiliate ? a highly “monarchized military.” However, after 1992, direct military influence across the country diminished, and after the 2006 and 2014 coups, the military regained enormous clout. The country’s post-2019 facade democracy represents the continuation of a tutelary regime involving palace-endorsed military intervention in politics and apparent electoral governance. However, the armed forces-influenced government faces growing domestic challenges. This study examines Thailand’s military in late 2023. 2023 was profoundly significant because a new civilian government entered office that year, which might challenge monarchy-military primacy. The study chiefly asks: To what extent has the monarchy-military partnership clothed itself under the appearance of democracy (while indirectly interfering in it) to sustain its power, and what are the principal challenges this partnership faces? The study finds that in late 2023, Thailand remained a facade democracy, characterized by electoral authoritarianism and lorded over by monarchy and military ? a situation the two institutions preferred to maintain.

This essay examines the domestic and external roots of Turkey’s activism in the Middle East through the lens of role theory. Within this context, the essay falls into three sections. In the first part, the conceptual tools that are going to be used in decoding the roots of Turkish activism will be examined. The second section will discuss the national role conceptions of Turkish foreign policy elites for the Middle East, while the third section will examine the expectations of external actors about Turkey’s role in the region. In the empirical sections of the essay, the methodology will involve a close examination of both Turkish foreign policy elites’ and external actors’ speeches, which are assumed to deliver cues about Turkey’s role conceptions in the Middle East.