Notes on Conflict of Laws

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 2009

Agenda Internacional

The term «private international law» lacks a universally agreed definition. This is hardly surprising, since it is often given different meanings in different legal cultures or systems. In the North American common law tradition, for example, it is generally if narrowly equated with conflicts of laws-that is, the specialized principles and rules of national law used by domestic courts to determine which of several competing laws applies to disputes involving people in different countries or of different nationalities or to transactions which cross international boundaries. In such situations, for example, courts can choose to apply the law of the forum, the law of the individual's nationality, or the law of the site of the transaction or occurrence. Most U.S. practitioners and judges think of «private international law» as referring to these choices of law rules. A broader view, typically held by those individuals trained in civil law systems, expands the definition to include the provisions of domestic (national) law governing the exercise of domestic jurisdiction over people, property and transactions in transborder situations, as well as the enforcement of foreign judgments. Here, the main questions tend to focus on the permissible scope of domestic court authority to hear disputes involving foreigners and foreign transactions and to recognize and enforce judgments resulting from adjudications in foreign courts. In many countries, these provisions are comprehensively codified. All three areas-jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement of judgments-remain at the heart of most private international law endeavors in one way or another. Private international law conventions, for example, generally aim in one way or another at coordinating these issues between sovereign states. However, many experienced transnational practitioners (and perhaps international lawyers more generally) today find even this broader definition increasingly-and misleadingly-restrictive. If one takes into account recent developments in the various international organizations

COMMENTARIES ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW VOL. 2, ISSUE 2, WINTER 2016 EDITOR’S NOTES We are pleased to present the second issue of Commentaries on Private International Law, the newsletter of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Private International Law Interest Group (PILIG). As readers of the newsletter know, the name of our newsletter, Commentaries, represents a modest tribute to one of the founding fathers of modern PIL, Joseph Story, by borrowing the name of his seminal book “Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, foreign and domestic,” and only replacing “Conflict of Laws” with “Private International Law” to better reflect the broader object of our discipline today. The primary purpose of our newsletter is to communicate news on PIL. Accordingly, the newsletter attempts to transmit information on new developments on PIL rather than provide substantive analysis, with a view to providing specific and concise raw information that our readers can then use in their daily work. These new developments on PIL may include information on new laws, rules and regulations; new judicial and arbitral decisions; new treaties and conventions; new scholarly work; new conferences; proposed new pieces of legislation; and the like.

LLM Subject - 2015 - Los Andes University, Faculty of Law, Summer Course. Feel free to use it with due acknowledgment. About the Subject: This course will take you step by step through the fundamental elements of International Law, understood in its broadest sense to encompass public international law, private international and international economic law. It will provide you with a detailed understanding of the norms, doctrines and institutions of international law, giving you a relevant and rigorous language and set of techniques with which to analyse and assess world politics, world economics and world history. However, just as you will learn to bring international law to bear on politics, economics history, you will also be encouraged, at the same time, to reverse this relationship, bringing politics, economics and history to bear on international law, in order to think more critically about the discipline and its effects. Is international law always a force for good, or is it possible that international law might have contributed to the construction and sustenance of the very problems it is called upon to solve? In order to equip you with a doctrinal, normative and institutional understanding of international law, and with the tools to apply this knowledge critically, we will be paying special attention to the question of how the doctrine, norms and institutions of international law influence not only international relations but also our daily domestic life.

2017

I. Comparative law Comparative law was traditionally defined narrowly as the comparison of different legal systems. Today, it is understood more broadly as that academic discipline that deals with the diversity and plurality of legal systems. This encompasses three strands. The first one is the comparison of legal rules and orders of different legal systems, including the recognition, explanation and sometimes evaluation of similarities and differences, and, if desired, the determination of the better law. A second strand of comparative law is dedicated to analysing the mutual interactions and influences between legal ordersespecially through so-called legal transplants. A third strand, finally, concerns the development of a general understanding of law and legal theory on the basis of individual legal phenomena. All these strands exist both in a pure and an applied variant. Whereas pure comparative law analyses aims merely at the acquisition of knowledge, applied comparative law wants to make such knowledge useful for projects of adjudication and legislation (either legal harmonisation and unification, or domestic law reform). Just as comparative law encompasses a variety of strands, it also encompasses a variety of methods. Comparative law was once confined to the comparison of black letter rules. This was followed by calls for functional comparative laws: legal rules and institution should be compared with regard to their functions, and two institutions are functionally equivalent and thus comparable if they fulfil the same function, even if they are doctrinally different. In addition, and sometimes opposition, much contemporary comparative law is

2002

It was the sense of the meeting that we do one thing very well, and that we should continue to do it. That one thing is publication of International Legal Theory. Tim Sellers and Francesco Parisi will continue as editors. I will repeat their plea that all members of our Interest Group consider sending their scholarly efforts especially work that is in an early stage of development and only lightly documented to the editors for vetting in ILT. Members who are intrigued by the draft material enclosed with this or any future issue of ILT should also consider writing up their reactions for publication.

Encyclopedia of Private International Law, 2017