Traditionally, conflict of law rules designate only national substantive law as the applicable law. Many unifying and harmonizing substantive law instruments of both States and non-State organizations, however, are designed specifically for application to cross-border relationships. Achieving this objective is, generally, hindered by conflict of law rules. The requirements which non-national law needs to fulfil in order to be accepted as the law governing a cross-border relationship deserve clarification. Not only uniform law, such as the CISG and the envisaged European substantive law instrument for the law of obligations, but, particularly, instruments which are aimed at harmonizing substantive law, challenge the established systems of conflict of laws. In seeking a positive approach towards the application of a law other than national law various aspects need to be considered: (1) is the decision taken by a court or an arbitral tribunal; (2) what field of law (contract/delict/tort or family relationships) is involved; and (3) the objective or subjective (choice by the parties) designation of the applicable law.

Traditionally, conflict of law rules designate only national substantive law as the applicable law. Many unifying and harmonizing substantive law instruments of both States and non-State organizations, however, are designed specifically for application to cross-border relationships. Achieving this objective is, generally, hindered by conflict of law rules. The requirements which non-national law needs to fulfil in order to be accepted as the law governing a cross-border relationship deserve clarification. Not only uniform law, such as the CISG and the envisaged European substantive law instrument for the law of obligations, but, particularly, instruments which are aimed at harmonizing substantive law, challenge the established systems of conflict of laws. In seeking a positive approach towards the application of a law other than national law various aspects need to be considered: (1) is the decision taken by a court or an arbitral tribunal; (2) what field of law (contract/delict/tort or family relationships) is involved; and (3) the objective or subjective (choice by the parties) designation of the applicable law.

Examining the constitutional foundations of European contract law, this book provides a thorough assessment of the extent of the European Union's competence to regulate contracts and offers a comprehensive comparative study of the contract law framework in the United States.

According to some commentators, forum shopping is an “evil” that must be eradicated. It has been suggested that the unification of substantive law through international conventions constitutes one way to achieve this outcome. This book shows that the drafting of uniform substantive law convention cannot prevent forum shopping. The reasons are classified into two main categories: convention-extrinsic and convention-intrinsic reasons. The former category comprises those reasons upon which uniform substantive law conventions do not have an impact at all. These reasons range from the costs of access to justice to the bias of potential adjudicators to the enforceability of judgments. The convention-intrinsic reasons, on the other hand, are reasons that relate to the nature and design of uniform substantive law conventions, and include their limited substantive and international spheres of application as well as their limited scope of application, the need to provide for reservations, etc. This book also focuses on another reason why forum shopping cannot be overcome: the impossibility of ensuring uniform applications and interpretations of the various uniform substantive law conventions.

This book compares the two golden ages of private international law (PIL): the first is the era of Story and Savigny in the nineteenth century, while the second comprises the last fifty years. The period between 1970 and 2020 has been one of rapid changes and dense legislative responses, exemplified by the adoption of over one hundred national PIL codifications and almost as many international or regional conventions and regulations. These instruments provide a rich source for this book’s incisive and instructive comparisons and a fertile ground for a reliable assessment of the progress of PIL as a discipline. This book skillfully uncovers and meticulously documents the gradual—and largely unnoticed—transition of PIL from the idealism of the nineteenth century to the pragmatic eclecticism and pluralism of the twenty-first century.

The 1999 Montreal Convention is the most recent in-force treaty to regulate several important aspects of international air carrier liability in a uniform manner. This book examines in detail to what extent the 1999 Montreal Convention’s aim of uniformity has been achieved. To this end, it scrutinizes the exact scope of this aim and analyses the factors that may have prevented it from being fully achieved. It studies the wording of the treaty and its predecessors, their travaux préparatoires, the judicial decisions of numerous civil and common law jurisdictions, as well as various other interpretative tools. Among many others, themes addressed in this study include: exclusivity; the autonomy of terms used; translation issues; accident; bodily injury; damage; delay; consumer rights; the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; hermeneutics; the Warsaw System; regional air law (including EU Regulation 261/2004); and algorithms. The study also suggests ways to reduce the fragmentation of the 1999 Montreal Convention with a series of directly applicable recommendations, and an analysis of what Artificial Intelligence could mean for the future. This book, which is intended to be practical, is aimed at all lawyers well-versed in aviation law as well as aviation enthusiasts. They will find it a useful tool for interpreting the 1999 Montreal Convention in a manner consistent with its ambition, as well as recent case law from all continents on hot topics.

Winner of the 2016–2018 KG Idman Prize. This monograph seeks the optimal way to promote compatibility between systems of proprietary security rights in Europe, focusing on security rights over tangible movables and receivables. Based on comparative research, it proposes how best to tackle cross-border problems impeding trade and finance, notably uncertainty of enforceability and unexpected loss of security rights. It offers an extensive analysis of the academic literature of more recent years that has appeared in English, German, the Scandinavian languages and Finnish. The author organises the concrete means of promoting compatibility into a centralised substantive approach, a centralised conflicts-approach, a local conflicts-approach and a local substantive approach. The centralised approaches develop EU law, and the local approaches Member State laws. The substantive approaches unify or harmonise substantive law, while the conflicts approaches rely on private international law. The author proposes determining the optimal way to promote compatibility by objective-based division of labour between the four approaches. The objectives developed for that purpose are derived from the economic functions of security rights, the conditions for legal evolution and a transnational conception of justice. This book is an important contribution to the future of secured transactions law in Europe and more widely. It will be of interest to academics, policymakers and legal practitioners involved in this field.

European private law has hitherto tended to be conceptualised firmly around ideas of unity and harmony. Yet the discourse within other areas of European law, notably constitutional law scholarship, visibly adopts pluralist perspectives. This book seeks to bridge the gap between 'public' and 'private' law by looking at European private law from various pluralist positions and by investigating old and new ways in which to understand legal pluralism in general. It fills a gap in the wide literature on legal pluralism, as the first book entirely dedicated to offering an insight into legal pluralism from the vantage point of the private law domain. The book addresses critically issues such as what pluralism really means in private law and what conceptions of pluralism it embodies, including discussion about the outer boundaries of any of the pluralist understandings. Contributions address comparative, critical, historical, theoretical and normative aspects. The book provides an opportunity to engage innovatively with problematic conceptual issues which inform the work of European private law scholars, including the debate on the Common Frame of Reference Poject of the European Commision.