JEAIL > Volume 19(1); 2026 > Notes & Comments
Research Paper
Published online: May 30, 2026
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2026.19.1.05

National Courts as Enforcers of International Treaties: Analysis of “Homeward Trend” in Korea’s CISG Adjudication

Soojin Nam & Jamie Yoonsoo Kim
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
107 Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02450 Korea
Corresponding Author: soojin.nam@hufs.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright YIJUN Institute of International Law
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Abstract
This article examines three recent Korean Supreme Court decisions—Texsus (2023), Weihai Jinnuo (2024), and Injection-Moulding (2025)—that mark an inflection point in Korea’s application of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Earlier Korean cases often bypassed the Convention’s analytical framework in favor of familiar domestic law, particularly when filling ‘gaps’ not expressly resolved by the Convention. Such practices, known as the ‘homeward trend,’ threatened the treaty’s core purpose of providing uniformity and certainty in international sales law. The recent trilogy course-corrects this trend by formally establishing a two-step gap-filling framework within the CISG’s own analytical architecture, while largely sustaining lower-court outcomes and replacing domestic doctrine-laden reasoning with one grounded in the Convention itself. With the rise in CISG cases in Korea since 2022, these decisions reflect growing judicial commitment to the Convention’s autonomous nature and demonstrate how a domestic court can evolve into a more faithful enforcer of an international treaty.

Keywords : CISG, Gap-filling, Homeward Trend, Korean Supreme Court, Texsus, Weihai Jinnuo, Injection-Moulding

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