Under Article 8(3) of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), parties’ statements, prior negotiations and other external circumstances may be used to assess the presence of subjective or objective intent that can, in turn, be used to interpret contractual terms in international sales contracts governed by the CISG. However, parties to the contract can, through the adoption of an ‘entire agreement’ or ‘merger’ clause, opt out of this rule under Article 8(3) and restrict these interpretative tools in any manner as they see fit, depending on the requirements of their contract. Since the CISG does not explicitly address merger clauses and their effects, the CISG Advisory Council, in its Opinion no. 3, has provided a test to determine how the scope of a merger clause is to be determined. However, this test presents certain conceptual and practical limitations that render it inadequate for use in international commercial contracts. This article aims to analyse this test and the methods that have been used to interpret merger clauses under other uniform legal instruments and cases in common law jurisdictions. On this basis, the article proposes a test that attempts to fully capture the conceptual intent behind including merger clauses while ensuring that the parties are in the driver’s seat while determining their scope and effect.

中文翻译：

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解释受《销售公约》管辖的合同中的合并条款：划定外在证据的使用范围

根据《联合国国际货物销售合同公约》（CISG）第 8 条第（3）款，当事人的声明、事先谈判和其他外部情况可用于评估主观或客观意图的存在，进而可能, 用于解释受 CISG 管辖的国际销售合同中的合同条款。但是，合同各方可以通过采用“完整协议”或“合并”条款，根据第 8 条第 3 款选择退出该规则，并以他们认为合适的任何方式限制这些解释工具，具体取决于他们的合同要求。由于 CISG 没有明确处理合并条款及其影响，因此 CISG 咨询委员会在其第 1 号意见中。3，提供了一个测试来确定如何确定合并条款的范围。然而，该测试存在某些概念和实际限制，使其不适用于国际商业合同。本文旨在分析该测试以及在普通法司法管辖区其他统一法律文书和案例中用于解释合并条款的方法。在此基础上，本文提出了一项测试，试图充分捕捉包括合并条款背后的概念意图，同时确保各方在确定其范围和效果时处于主导地位。