Private International Law
The true Roman ius gentium, deciding over matters of Roman citizenship, and the role of the jurist known as the praetor peregrinus, who settled disputes between Roman and non-Roman citizens within the Empire, covered the personal, commercial, contractual and legal relations between Roman and foreign citizens. Private international law became more significant and demanding in medieval commerce. The 14th century scholar Bartolus de Saxoferrato from Bologna in northern Italy contributed to the Statutist Doctrine - the codification of legal relations - in international private law. He prescribed - as if it were a codification - the applicability of local or foreign rules in conflicts of laws, and is among the first to publish on the topic.
Saxoferrato as a teacher.
Choice of law The principal and still valuable
author on private international law was the 19th century German professor
Friedrich Carl von Savigny.
In modern developments Von Savigny's idealism and his limited realism concerning the issues in society
have given rise to pragmatic solutions (cf. Albert A. Ehrenzweig's words, that "conflicts doctrine
has always been 'universalist' and this universalism has always been an illusion"),
in recognition of the fact that private international law is case driven. The lex fori approach in choice of law rules is professed by Ehrenzweig; local law has to be applied, if only - as is the West-European translation - because judges aren't capable of applying foreign law in any concrete manner.
Universally, but in particular in the United Kingdom, Dicey and Morris's
On the conflict of laws
is of preeminent interest; it is even said to be "the prince of legal textbooks".
Albert Venn Dicey (1835-1922),
Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, published his Treatise on the Rules for the Selection of the Parties to an Action in 1870 and The Law of Domicil in 1879. The latter was expanded and reissued in 1896 as Digest of the Law of England with Reference to the Conflict of Laws; this manual was enlarged and edited several times. In 1949 John H.C. Morris (1910-1984) contributed to the revival of Dicey's work, "preventing it from dying a natural death", by taking care of the 6th to 10th editions. In 2000 the 13th edition of this seminal textbook was published.
France
Dutch interest In the Netherlands, irrespective of the originality and importance of
T.M.C. Asser nor of his Schets
van het internationaal
privaatregt (1880),
Het internationaal burgerlijk recht in Nederland (1917, 1st edition) by the Groningen professor and Supreme
Court President Jan Kosters was widespread in use. Other key scholars in the discipline of private
international law in the Netherlands are D. Josephus Jitta, I. Henri Hijmans, R.D. Kollewijn, E.M. Meijers
(Leiden University, lecturer at the Hague
Academy of International Law on "L'histoire des principes
fondamentaux du droit international privé a partir du moyen age specialement dans l'Europe occidentale"
(Recueil des Cours, 1934-III, pp. 547-686),
J.G. Sauveplanne, C.C.A. Voskuil (who directed the
T.M.C. Asser Institute,
a Dutch research organization on international and European law), A.V.M. Struycken (on the influence of the European integration upon the development
of private international law (Recueil des Cours 1992-I, pp. 257-384),
Dutch member
of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law),
H.U. Jesserun d'Oliveira (also known for
his scholarship on poetry), M.V. Polak (codification issues, member of the Peace Palace Library Support Foundation),
Th.M. de Boer (codification issues), and L. Strikwerda (Groningen professor and Supreme Court Judge, member of the
Peace Palace Library Support Foundation).
Private International Law has inextricably been connected with the city of The Hague.
Tobias Asser founded the Hague Conference on International Private Law in 1893, an instrument for successful negotiations on the convergence and
unification of systems of civil and commercial law of the various countries, and the basis for codification of
private international law.
Asser was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 for his efforts in this field. The first Secretary General
of the Conference was M.H. van Hoogstraten, father of the present director of
the Peace Palace. The
Hague Conference on International Private Law publishes Actes et Documents of its sessions.
In his System des heutigen Römischen Rechts
he drafted a system of general and
internationally applicable rules on legal relations in order to solve conflicts of laws. Later P.S. Mancini added the element of nationality.
English translation of Von Savigny's main work, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts.
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