Citizendia

Conflict of laws
Preliminary matters
Characterisation  · Incidental question
Renvoi  · Choice of law
Conflict of laws in the U.S.
Public policy  · Hague Conference
Definitional elements
State  · Jurisdiction  · Procedure
Forum non conveniens  · Lex causae
Lex fori  · Forum shopping
Lis alibi pendens
Connecting factors
Domicile  · Lex domicilii
Habitual residence
Nationality  · Lex patriae
Lex loci arbitri  · Lex situs
Lex loci contractus
Lex loci delicti commissi  · Lex loci actus
Lex loci solutionis  · Proper law
Lex loci celebrationis
Choice of law clause  · Dépeçage
Forum selection clause
Substantive legal areas
Status  · Capacity  · Contract  · Tort
Marriage  · Nullity  · Divorce
Get divorce  · Talaq divorce
Property  · Succession
Trusts
Enforcement
Enforcement of foreign judgments
Mareva injunctions  · Anti-suit injunctions

Conflict of laws (or private international law) is that branch of international law and intranational interstate law that regulates all lawsuits involving a "foreign" law element where different judgments will result depending on which jurisdiction's laws are applied as the lex causae. In Conflict of Laws, characterisation is the second stage in the procedure to resolve a Lawsuit involving a foreign law element In the Roman Conflict of Laws, an incidental question is a legal issue that arises in connection with the major cause of action in a Lawsuit. In Conflict of Laws, renvoi (from the French, meaning "send back" or "to return unopened" is a subset of the Choice of law rules Choice of law is a procedural stage in the litigation of a case involving the Conflict of laws when it is necessary to reconcile the differences between the laws of The Choice of law rules in the Conflict of Laws in the United States have diverged from the traditional rules applied internationally Public policy is the body of fundamental principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. The Hague Conference on Private International Law (or HCCH for Hague Conference/Conférence de la Haye is the preeminent organisation in the area of Private international law The term State has several meanings in law in Private international law and Conflict of laws, State can refer to a well-defined jurisdiction with its own set In Law, jurisdiction (from the Latin ius iuris meaning "law" and dicere meaning "to speak" is the practical Authority In all Lawsuits involving Conflict of Laws, questions of procedure as opposed to substance are always determined by the Lex fori, i In the Conflict of laws, lex causae ( Latin: Lex + Causa, "cause the law" is the law or laws chosen by the Forum court from In Conflict of Laws, the Latin term lex fori literally means the "law of the forum" and it is distinguished from the lex causae which is the law the Forum shopping is the informal name given to the practice adopted by some Litigants to get their Legal case heard in the Court thought most likely The principle of lis alibi pendens (literally "dispute elsewhere pending" applies both in municipal Public international law, and Private international law In Conflict of Laws, domicile (sometimes termed domicil in the U The lex domicilii is the Latin term for "law of the domicile" in the Conflict of Laws. In the Conflict of Laws, habitual residence is the standard civil law connecting factor used to select the Lex causae in cases characterised Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty The term lex patriae is Latin for the law of Nationality in the Conflict of Laws which is the system of Public law applied to The lex loci arbitri is the Latin term for "law of the place where Arbitration is to take place" in the Conflict of Laws. The term lex situs ( Latin) refers to the Law of the place in which Property is situated for the purposes of the Conflict of laws The lex loci contractus is the Latin term for "law of the place where the contract is made" in the Conflict of Laws. The lex loci delicti commissi is the Latin term for "law of the place where the tort was committed" in the Conflict of laws. lex loci actus law of the place where the act occurred that gave rise to the legal claim The lex loci solutionis is the Latin term for "law of the place where relevant performance occurs" in the Conflict of Laws. The Doctrine of the Proper Law is applied in the Choice of law stage of a Lawsuit involving the Conflict of Laws. The lex loci celebrationis is the Latin term for "law of the place where the marriage is celebrated" in the Conflict of Laws. A choice of law clause or proper law clause in a contract is one in which the parties specify which Law (i In Law, dépeçage refers to the concept in the Conflict of laws whereby different issues within a particular case may be governed by the laws of different states A forum selection clause in a contract with a Conflict of Laws element allows the parties to agree that any Litigation resulting from that contract will A person's status is a set of social conditions or relationships created and vested in an individual by an act of Law rather than by the consensual acts of the Discussion As an aspect of the Social contract between a state and its Citizens the state adopts a role of protector to the weaker and more vulnerable members In the Conflict of Laws, the validity of a Contract with one or more foreign law elements will be decided by reference to the so-called " Proper law In Conflict of Laws, the Choice of law rules for Tort are intended to select the Lex causae by which to determine the nature and scope In Conflict of laws, the issue of Marriage has assumed increasing public policy significance in a world of increasing multi-ethnic multi-cultural Community In Conflict of Laws, the issue of nullity (known as Annulment in the United States) in Family Law inspires a wide response among the laws In modern Society, the role of marriage and its termination through Divorce have become political issues See also Get (divorce document For the religious process see Get (divorce document A get or gett ( גט) is In Sunni Islamic Law there are two forms of divorce known as the talaq and its less well-regulated Sunni version of Triple talaq. In Conflict of Laws, the subject of Property Law follows the terminology of the civil law systems out of Comity. In the Conflict of Laws, the subject of Succession deals with all procedural matters relevant to estates containing a "foreign element" whether that element In Conflict of Laws, the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on Their Recognition was concluded on 1 July 1985 and entered In the Conflict of Laws, issues relevant to the enforcement of foreign Judgments are frequently regulated by Bilateral Treaty or Multilateral The Mareva injunction (variously known also as a freezing order, Mareva order or Mareva regime) in Commonwealth jurisdictions is a court In the area of Conflict of law, anti-suit injunction is an order issued by a court or Arbitral tribunal that prevents an opposing party from commencing International law is the term commonly used for referring to the system of implicit and explicit agreements that bind together nation-states in adherence to recognized values and standards In law a lawsuit is a civil action brought before a Court in which the party commencing the action the Plaintiff, seeks a legal or equitable remedy In the Conflict of laws, lex causae ( Latin: Lex + Causa, "cause the law" is the law or laws chosen by the Forum court from

In civil law systems, private international law is a branch of the internal legal system dealing with the determination of which state law is applicable to situations crossing over the borders of one particular state and involving a "foreign element" (élément d'extranéité), (collisions of law, conflict of laws). Civil law or Romano-Germanic law or Continental law is the predominant system of law in the world. Lato sensu (at large) it also includes international civil procedure and international commercial arbitration (collisions of jurisdiction, conflict of jurisdictions), as well as citizenship law (which strictly speaking is part of public law). Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the process that Courts will follow when hearing cases of a civil nature (a " Civil action " as opposed to Arbitration, a form of Alternative dispute resolution (ADR is a legal technique for the resolution of Disputes outside the Courts wherein the Nationality law is the branch of a country's legal system wherein legislation custom and court precedent combine to define the ways in which that country's Nationality and Public law is a theory of law governing the relationship between Individuals ( Citizens companies) and the State.

There are two major streams of legal thought on the nature of conflict of laws. One group of researchers regard Conflict of Laws as a part of international law, claiming that its norms are uniform, universal and obligatory for all states. This stream of legal thought in Conflict of Laws is called "universalism". Other researchers maintain the view that each State creates its own unique norms of Conflict of Laws pursuing its own policy. This theory is called "particularism" in Conflict of Laws.

Private international law is divided on two major areas:

In common law systems, conflict of laws, firstly, is concerned with determining whether the proposed forum has jurisdiction to adjudicate and is the appropriate venue for dealing with the dispute, and, secondly, with determining which of the competing state's laws are to be applied to resolve the dispute. In Law, jurisdiction (from the Latin ius iuris meaning "law" and dicere meaning "to speak" is the practical Authority Venue is the location where a case is heard In the United States, the venue is either a county (for cases in state court or a district or division (for cases in federal court The term State has several meanings in law in Private international law and Conflict of laws, State can refer to a well-defined jurisdiction with its own set It also deals with the enforcement of foreign judgments. In the Conflict of Laws, issues relevant to the enforcement of foreign Judgments are frequently regulated by Bilateral Treaty or Multilateral

Contents

Terminology

Its three different names — conflict of laws, private international law, and international private law — are generally interchangeable, although none of them is wholly accurate or properly descriptive. The term conflict of laws is primarily used in jurisdictions of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition (United States, England, Canada, Australia, etc. ); private international law is used in France (droit international privé) as well as in Italy, the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-countries and Greece; international private law is used in Germany and the other German-speaking countries (internationales Privatrecht)

Within local federal systems where inter-state legal conflicts require resolution, (such as in the United States), the term conflict of laws is preferred simply because such cases are not an international issue. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Hence the term conflict of laws is a more general term for a legal process for resolving similar disputes, regardless whether the relevant legal systems are international or inter-state, though this term is also criticised as being misleading in that the object is the resolution of conflicts between competing systems rather than "conflict" itself. In Policy debate, a resolution or topic is a normative statement which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates The term conflict of laws is usually used by common law countries, while for civil law countries the term private international law is more appropriate. The term private international law was coined by American lawyer and judge Joseph Story, but was abandoned subsequently by common law scholars and embraced by civil law lawyers. Joseph Story ( September 18, 1779 &ndash September 10, 1845) was an American Lawyer and Jurist who served on

History

The first instances of conflict of laws in the Western legal tradition can be traced to Greek law. Ancient Greeks dealt straightforwardly with multistate problems, and did not create choice-of-law rules. Ancient Greek law is a branch of comparative jurisprudence relating to the laws and legal institutions of Ancient Greece. Leading solutions varied between the creation of courts for international cases, or application of local law, on the grounds that it was equally available to citizens of all states. [1].

More significant developments can be traced to Roman law. Roman law is the legal system of Ancient Rome. As used in the West the term commonly refers to legal developments prior to the Roman/Byzantine state's adopting Roman civil law (jus civile) being inapplicable to non-citizens, special tribunals had jurisdiction to deal with multistate cases. The officers of these specialized tribunals were known as the praetor peregrini. Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities the commander of an Army, either before The Praetor peregrini did not select a jurisdiction whose rules of law should apply. Instead, they "applied" the "jus gentium. " The jus gentium was a flexible and loosely-defined body of law based on international norms. Thus the praetor peregrini essentially created new substantive law for each case. [2] Today, this is called a "substantive" solution to the choice-of-law issue.

An early private international law was established in classical Islamic law and jurisprudence as a result of the vast Muslim conquests and maritime explorations during the early Middle Ages giving rise to various conflicts of laws. International law is the term commonly used for referring to the system of implicit and explicit agreements that bind together nation-states in adherence to recognized values and standards Sharia ( Arabic: ar شريعة) is the body of Islamic Religious law. Fiqh ( Arabic: فقه, fɪqəh is Islamic Jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the Sharia Islamic law—based directly on the The initial Arab Muslim conquests (632–732 (فتح Fatah, literally opening, also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab This is a sub-article of Islamic economic jurisprudence and Muslim world. A will, for example, was "not enforced even if its provisions accorded with Islamic law if it violated the law of the testator. In Common law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the Testator) regulates the rights of others over his or her Property A testator is a person who has written and executed a last will and testament that is in effect at the time of his/her death " Islamic jurists also developed elaborate rules for private international law regarding issues such as contracts and property, family relations and child custody, legal procedure and jurisdiction, religious conversion, and the return of aliens to an enemy country from the Muslim world. Ulema ( ar علماء,, singular ar عالِم,, "scholar" refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual Islamic family relations concerns both the close family as well as the more distant families Child custody and '''guardianship''' are Legal terms which are sometimes used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a Parent and his In Law, jurisdiction (from the Latin ius iuris meaning "law" and dicere meaning "to speak" is the practical Authority Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religious identity or a change from one religious identity to another In US law, an alien is a legal term for a person, either a corporation or a human who is not a United States national. The term Muslim world (or Islamic world) has several meanings The religious laws and courts of other religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, were also usually accommodated in classical Islamic law, as exemplified in al-Andalus, the Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman Empire. In some Religions law can be thought of as the ordering principle of Reality; Knowledge as revealed by God defining and governing all human affairs A court is a forum used by a power base to adjudicate disputes and dispense civil, labour administrative and criminal Justice under its Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Al-Andalus (الأندلس was the Arabic name given to those parts of the Iberian Peninsula governed by Muslims or The Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent mainly took place from the 11th to the 17th centuries though earlier Muslim conquests made limited inroads into the region beginning The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish [3]

The modern conflict of laws is generally considered to have begun in Northern Italy during the late Middle Ages and in particular at trading cities such as Genoa, Piza and Venice. Related categories Central Italy Southern Italy Insular Italy Northeast Italy Genoa ( Genova, ˈdʒɛːnova in Italian; Zena in Genoese and Ligurian; Genua in Latin and archaically in English Pizza (ˈpiːtsə, in Italian:) is a popular dish made with an Oven -baked flat generally round Bread that is covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the The need to adjudicate issues involving commercial transactions between traders belonging to different cities led to the development of the theory of statuta, whereby certain city laws would be considered as statuta personalia "following" the person whereby it may act, and other city laws would be considered as statuta realia, resulting in application of the law of the city where e. g. the res would be located (cf. lex rei sitae).

Maritime law was also a great driver of international legal rules; providing for the enforcement of contracts, the protection of shipwrecked sailors and property, and the maintaining of harbours. Admiralty law (also referred to as maritime law) is a distinct body of Law which governs maritime questions and offenses [4]

The modern field of conflicts emerged in the United States during the 19th century with the publishing of Joseph Story's treatise on the Conflict of Laws in 1834. Joseph Story ( September 18, 1779 &ndash September 10, 1845) was an American Lawyer and Jurist who served on Story's work had a great influence on the subsequent development of the field in England such as those written by A.V. Dicey. Albert Venn Dicey (February 4 1835 &ndash April 7 1922 was a British Jurist and constitutional theorist who wrote An Introduction to the Study of Much of the English law then became the basis for conflict of laws for most commonwealth countries.

The stages in a conflict case

  1. The court must first decide whether it has jurisdiction and, if so, whether it is the appropriate venue given the problem of forum shopping. Forum shopping is the informal name given to the practice adopted by some Litigants to get their Legal case heard in the Court thought most likely
  2. The next step is the characterisation of the cause of action into its component legal categories which may sometimes involve an incidental question (also note the distinction between procedural and substantive laws). In Conflict of Laws, characterisation is the second stage in the procedure to resolve a Lawsuit involving a foreign law element In the Roman Conflict of Laws, an incidental question is a legal issue that arises in connection with the major cause of action in a Lawsuit. In all Lawsuits involving Conflict of Laws, questions of procedure as opposed to substance are always determined by the Lex fori, i
  3. Each legal category has one or more choice of law rules to determine which of the competing laws should be applied to each issue. Choice of law is a procedural stage in the litigation of a case involving the Conflict of laws when it is necessary to reconcile the differences between the laws of A key element in this may be the rules on renvoi. In Conflict of Laws, renvoi (from the French, meaning "send back" or "to return unopened" is a subset of the Choice of law rules
  4. Once it has been decided which laws to apply, those laws must be proved before the forum court and applied to reach a judgment.
  5. The successful party must then enforce the judgment which will first involve the task of securing cross-border recognition of the judgment. In non-legal contexts a judgment is a balanced weighing up of evidence preparatory to making a decision

In those states with an underdeveloped set of Conflict rules, decisions on jurisdiction tend to be made on an ad hoc basis, with such choice of law rules as have been developed embedded into each subject area of private law and tending to favour the application of the lex fori or local law. Private law (Civil law is that part of a Legal system that involves relationships between individuals In Conflict of Laws, the Latin term lex fori literally means the "law of the forum" and it is distinguished from the lex causae which is the law the In states with a more mature system, the set of Conflict rules stands apart from the local private civil law and adopts a more international point of view both in its terminology and concepts. For example, in the European Union, all major jurisdictional matters are regulated under the Brussels Regime, e. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The Brussels Regime is a set of rules regulating the allocation of jurisdiction in international legal disputes of a civil or commercial nature involving g. the rule of lis alibi pendens from Brussels 1 Regulation applies in the Member States and its interpretation is controlled by the European Court of Justice rather than by local courts. The principle of lis alibi pendens (literally "dispute elsewhere pending" applies both in municipal Public international law, and Private international law A Member State of the European Union is any one of the twenty-seven sovereign Nation states that have acceded the European Union (EU since its De facto This article refers to the European Union court not the European Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe The Court of Justice That and other elements of the Conflict rules are produced supranationally and implemented by treaty or convention. Supranationalism is a method of decision-making in political communities wherein power is democratically entrusted to independent experienced appointed personalities or to representatives A Treaty is an agreement under International law entered into by actors in international law namely States and International organizations. Because these rules are directly connected with aspects of sovereignty and the extraterritorial application of laws in the courts of the signatory states, they take on a flavour of public rather than private law because each state is compromising the usual expectations of their own citizens that they will have access to their local courts, and that local laws will apply in those local courts. Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself Public law is a theory of law governing the relationship between Individuals ( Citizens companies) and the State. Such aspects of public policy have direct constitutional significance whether applied in the European context or in federated nations such as the United States, Canada, and Australia where the courts have to contend not only with jurisdiction and law conflicts between the constituent states or territories, but also as between state and federal courts, and as between constituent states and relevant laws from other states outside the federation. Public policy is the body of fundamental principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. A constitution is a system for government often Codified as a written document that establishes the rules and principles of an autonomous political entity A federation ( Latin: foedus, covenant is a union comprising a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central ("federal" Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics.

Choice of law rules

Courts faced with a choice of law issue have a two-stage process:

  1. the court will apply the law of the forum (lex fori) to all procedural matters (including, self-evidently, the choice of law rules); and
  2. it counts the factors that connect or link the legal issues to the laws of potentially relevant states and applies the laws that have the greatest connection, e. g. the law of nationality (lex patriae) or domicile (lex domicilii) will define legal status and capacity, the law of the state in which land is situated (lex situs) will be applied to determine all questions of title, the law of the place where a transaction physically takes place or of the occurrence that gave rise to the litigation (lex loci actus) will often be the controlling law selected when the matter is substantive, but the proper law has become a more common choice. Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty The term lex patriae is Latin for the law of Nationality in the Conflict of Laws which is the system of Public law applied to In Conflict of Laws, domicile (sometimes termed domicil in the U The lex domicilii is the Latin term for "law of the domicile" in the Conflict of Laws. A person's status is a set of social conditions or relationships created and vested in an individual by an act of Law rather than by the consensual acts of the Discussion As an aspect of the Social contract between a state and its Citizens the state adopts a role of protector to the weaker and more vulnerable members The term lex situs ( Latin) refers to the Law of the place in which Property is situated for the purposes of the Conflict of laws Title is a legal term for a bundle of rights in a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or an equitable interest The rights The Doctrine of the Proper Law is applied in the Choice of law stage of a Lawsuit involving the Conflict of Laws.

For example, suppose that Alexandre who has a French nationality and residence in Germany, corresponds with Bob who has American nationality, domicile in Arizona, and residence in Austria, over the internet. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks They agree to the joint purchase of land in Switzerland, currently owned by Heidi who is a Swiss national, but they never physically meet, executing initial contract documents by using fax machines, followed by a postal exchange of hard copies. Fax (short for facsimile, from Latin fac simile, "make similar" i Alexandre pays his share of the deposit but, before the transaction is completed, Bob admits that although he has capacity to buy land under his lex domicilii and the law of his residence, he is too young to own land under Swiss law. The rules to determine which courts would have jurisdiction and which laws would be applied to each aspect of the case are defined in each state's laws so, in theory, no matter which court in which country actually accepts the case, the outcome will be the same (albeit that the measure of damages might differ from country to country which is why forum shopping is such a problem). In reality, however, moves to harmonise the conflictual system have not reached the point where standardisation of outcome can be guaranteed.

Conflict of law rules in matrimonial cases

In divorce cases, when a Court is attempting to distribute marital property, if the divorcing couple is local and the property is local, then the Court applies its domestic law lex fori. The work of the Judge, and the lawyers in the case becomes much more complicated if foreign elements are thrown into the mix, such as the place of marriage is different than the territory where divorce was filed, or the parties nationality and residence do not match. Or there is property in foreign jurisdictions, or the parties have changed residence several times during the marriage. These are just a few examples, and each time a spouse invokes the application of foreign law, the process of divorce slows down, as the parties are directed to brief the issue of conflict of laws, hire foreign attorneys to write legal opinions, and translations of the foreign law are required, at an extensive cost to both sides.

Different jurisdictions follow different sets of rules, as outlined below. Before embarking on a conflict of law analysis, the Court must determine whether a property agreement governs the relationship between the parties. The property agreement must satisfy all formalities required in the Country where enforcement is sought.

Whereas commercial agreements or prenuptial agreements generally do not require legal formalities to be observed, when married couples enter a property agreement, stringent requirements are imposed, including notarization, witnesses, special acknowledgment forms, and in some countries, it must be filed (or docketed) with a domestic Court, and the terms must be “so ordered” by a Judge. This is done in order to ensure that no undue influence or oppression has been exerted by one spouse against the other. Upon presenting a property agreement between spouses to a Court of divorce, that Court will generally assure itself of the following factors: signatures, legal formalities, intent, later intent, free will, no oppression, reasonableness and fairness, consideration, performance, reliance, later repudiation in writing or by conduct, and whatever else concepts of contractual bargaining apply in the context.

In the absence of a valid and enforceable agreement, here’s how the conflict of law rules work:

Note that Lex Fori also applies to all procedural relief (as opposed to substantive relief). Thus, issues such as the ability to grant pretrial relief, procedure and form, as well as statutes of limitations are classified as “procedure” and are always subject to domestic law where the divorce case is pending.

Pre-dispute provisions

Many contracts and other forms of legally binding agreement include a jurisdiction or arbitration clause specifying the parties' choice of venue for any litigation (called a forum selection clause). In the Conflict of Laws, the validity of a Contract with one or more foreign law elements will be decided by reference to the so-called " Proper law Arbitration, a form of Alternative dispute resolution (ADR is a legal technique for the resolution of Disputes outside the Courts wherein the A forum selection clause in a contract with a Conflict of Laws element allows the parties to agree that any Litigation resulting from that contract will Then, choice of law clauses may specify which laws the court or tribunal should apply to each aspect of the dispute. A choice of law clause or proper law clause in a contract is one in which the parties specify which Law (i This matches the substantive policy of freedom of contract. Freedom of contract or contractualism is the idea that individuals should be free to bargain among themselves the terms of their own contracts without government interference Judges have accepted that the principle of party autonomy allows the parties to select the law most appropriate to their transaction. Obviously, this judicial acceptance of subjective intent excludes the traditional reliance on objective connecting factors, but it does work well in practice.

The status of foreign law

Generally, when the court is to apply a foreign law, it must be proved by foreign law experts. It cannot merely be pleaded, as the court has no expertise in the laws of foreign countries nor in how they might be applied in a foreign court. Such foreign law may be considered no more than evidence, rather than law because of the issue of sovereignty. The Law of evidence governs the use of Testimony (eg oral or written statements such as an Affidavit) and exhibits (e If the local court is actually giving extraterritorial effect to a foreign law, it is less than sovereign and so acting in a way that is potentially unconstitutional. The theoretical responses to this issue are:

On the one hand, this notion is used to describe the situation where a local court applies a rule other than the Lex fori (local law).

On the other hand, it could mean that the rule is being applied to a factual situation that occurred beyond the territory of its state of origin. As an example of this situation, one can think of an American court applying British tort statutes and case law to a car accident that took place in London where both the driver and the victim are British citizens but the lawsuit was brought in before the American courts because the driver's insurer is American. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. One can then argue that since the factual situation is within the British territory, where an American judge applies the English Law, he does not give an extraterritorial application to the foreign rule. In fact, one can also argue that the American judge, had he applied American Law, would be doing so in an extraterritorial fashion.

Once the lex causae has been selected, it will be respected except when it appears to contravene an overriding mandatory rule of the lex fori. In the Conflict of laws, lex causae ( Latin: Lex + Causa, "cause the law" is the law or laws chosen by the Forum court from Each judge is the guardian of his own principles of ordre public (public order) and the parties cannot, by their own act, oust the fundamental principles of the local municipal law which generally underpin areas such as labour law, insurance, competition regulation, agency rules, embargoes, import-export regulations, and securities exchange regulations. Furthermore, the lex fori will prevail in cases where an application of the lex causae would otherwise result in a fundamentally immoral outcome, or give extraterritorial effect to confiscatory or other territorially limited laws. Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus i

In some countries, there is occasional evidence of parochialism when courts have determined that if the foreign law cannot be proved to a "satisfactory standard", then local law may be applied. In the United Kingdom, in the absence of evidence being led, the foreign law is presumed to be the same as the lex fori. Similarly, judges might assume in default of express evidence to the contrary that the place where the cause of action arose would provide certain basic protections, e. g. that the foreign court would provide a remedy to someone who was injured due to the negligence of another. Finally, some American courts have held that local law will be applied if the injury occurred in an "uncivilized place that has no law or legal system. "[7]

If the case has been submitted to arbitration rather than a national court, say because of a forum selection clause, an arbitrator may decide not to apply local mandatory policies in the face of a choice of law by the parties if this would defeat their commercial objectives. Arbitration, a form of Alternative dispute resolution (ADR is a legal technique for the resolution of Disputes outside the Courts wherein the However, the arbitral award may be challenged in the country where it was made or where enforcement is sought by one of the parties on the ground that the relevant ordre public should have been applied. If the lex loci arbitri has been ignored, but there was no real and substantial connection between the place of arbitration and the agreement made by the parties, a court in which enforcement is sought may well accept the tribunal's decision. The lex loci arbitri is the Latin term for "law of the place where Arbitration is to take place" in the Conflict of Laws. But if the appeal is to the courts in the state where the arbitration was held, the judge cannot ignore the mandatory provisions of the lex fori.

Harmonisation

To apply one national legal system as against another may never be an entirely satisfactory approach. The parties' interests may always be better protected by applying a law conceived with international realities in mind. The Hague Conference on Private International Law is a treaty organisation that oversees conventions designed to develop a uniform system. The Hague Conference on Private International Law (or HCCH for Hague Conference/Conférence de la Haye is the preeminent organisation in the area of Private international law The deliberations of the conference have recently been the subject of controversy over the extent of cross-border jurisdiction on electronic commerce and defamation issues. Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce' or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic There is a general recognition that there is a need for an international law of contracts: for example, many nations have ratified the Vienna Convention on the International Sale of Goods, the Rome Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations offers less specialised uniformity, and there is support for the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, a private restatement, all of which represent continuing efforts to produce international standards as the internet and other technologies encourage ever more interstate commerce. In Conflict of Laws, the Rome Convention is the Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and it opened for signature in Rome The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, also known as UNIDROIT, is an independent Intergovernmental organisation But other branches of the law are less well served and the dominant trend remains the role of the forum law rather than a supranational system for Conflict purposes. Even the EU, which has institutions capable of creating uniform rules with direct effect, has failed to produce a universal system for the common market. Direct effect should not be confused with Vertical effect and debates over the Horizontal effect of the British Human Rights Act Nevertheless, the Treaty of Amsterdam does confer authority on the Community's institutions to legislate by Council Regulation in this area with supranational effect. Article 177 would give the Court of Justice jurisdiction to interpret and apply their principles so, if the political will arises, uniformity may gradually emerge in letter. Whether the domestic courts of the Member States would be consistent in applying those letters is speculative.

References

  1. ^ Juenger, Friedrich K. (1993). Choice of Law and Multistate Justice. Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer, 6-7. ISBN 0-7923-1469-7.  
  2. ^ Id at 8-10.
  3. ^ Weeramantry, Judge Christopher G. (1997), Justice Without Frontiers: Furthering Human Rights, Brill Publishers, p. Founded in 1683 in Leiden, The Netherlands, Brill (known as E 138, ISBN 9041102418 
  4. ^   "International Law". Catholic Encyclopedia. The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language Encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia (1913). New York: Robert Appleton Company.  
  5. ^ S. 7(1)(b) of New Zealand Matrimonial Property Act
  6. ^ Section 15 of the Spouses (Property Relations) Law of 1973
  7. ^ Walton v. Arabian American Oil Co. , 233 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1956)

Further reading

See also

External links

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