Abstract
The doctrine of private international law, too, is basically divided into two major groups of opinion, namely a universalist trend and a trend which may be defined as one of a “natioonal” private international law. Both these groups can be, naturally, Subdivided, but, on the whole, we may say that in the proper doctrine of private international law the opinion has prevailed, that contemporary private international law is independent in every state and that, therefore, there are as many private international laws in the world, as there are individual states. The majority of this opinion represents a reaction to the weak points of the internationalist and universalist concepts we have partly discussed when dealing with the doctrine of public international law and which we shall yet discuss in connection With The doctrine of private international law. The opinion, which is critical of the universalism of some of the doctrinal trend’s in public international law, proceeds from the fact that the sphere of public international law as that branch of law, which governs relations between sovereign states, is separate from the sphere of private international law, which governs relationships between non-sovereign subjects involving a foreign element. There is yet the additional fact that the overwhelming majority of the rules of private international law is to be found among the rulers of municipal law. Thus we must distinguish between the two categories both on the basis of the differences in the social relationships they govern and on the basis of the differences in their formal sources; this is an argument which has been used in particular after private international law had been made positive.. According to the majority of the opinion underlining that private international law is inseparable from the whole body of law of the individual state, the law of every state constitutes a closed set of rules; this opinion is manifested especially with respect to the fundamental questions of the application of the foreign element in the law, which takes place on the basis of the rules governing conflict of laws1 Thus, when speaking of the doctrine of private international law, we may justly speak of a latent controversy or conflict between “universalists” and “nationalists”. However, this controversy does not mean that some “nationalists” have not tried to give the solutions they recommend for individual types of cases as much of a universal character as posible.
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References
See Part Six of the present study and the author’s study “Podstata a povaha aplikace cizfho priva” (“The Substance and Nature of the Application of Foreign Law”), Studie z mezinórodniho priva (Studies in International Law), vol. 13, pp. 41–66.
See Part Two of the present study, Chapter 4, sub-chapters 19 and 2A. Also Gutzwiller, Einfluss Savignys p. 12,
L. von Ba r, Das internationale Privat-und Strafrecht,Hannover, 1862, Internationales Privatrecht, Leipzig, 1882, Lehrbuch des internationalen Privat-und Strafrechts,Stuttgart, 1892, and Theorie und Praxis des internationalen Privatrechts,Hannover, 1889.
L. von Bar,Theorie und Praxis des internationalen Privatrechts,p. 4: Völkerrecht und internationales Privatrecht sind Teile des internationalen Rechts; beide beruhen auf der gemeinsamen Grundlage des Verkehrs der Staaten und es gibt Materien,welche man ebenso gut diesem wie jenem zuweisen könnte….
P ill e t, Traité pratique,p. 20, where the author stresses that all conflict rules of private international law represent conflicts of sovereignties.
We cannot, in this connection, reproduce all of Pillet’s rather complex theory. Pillet considered some laws to be personal (permanent), others territorial (general, universal). The solution of conflict of laws rested in distinguishing whether one or the other group of rules was involved; it is noteworthy that Pillet chose as the distinguishing criterion the social purpose of the law, which was to be determined with the help of an analysis of the intent of the legislator, the character of the respective rule, etc,
The speculative nature of this procedure naturally evoked sharp criticism by later French authors, especially Henri Batiffol, which is undoubtedly — at least in part — justified.
A. Weis s, Traité théoretique, 6 vols, 2nd ed., Paris, 1907-1913; Manuel de droit international privé, 9th ed., Paris, 1925.
This is also true of other French and Belgian authors of the same period, such as Surville, Audinet or Laurent.
See his La méthode du droit international privé, the Hague. 1890. E. Z i t e 1 m a n n, Internationales Privatrecht, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1897,
It is practically impossible to find a corresponding English term and I have therefore used the original German term. Ibid.,Vol. I, p. 73.
E. Frankenstein, Internationales Privatrecht. (Grenzrecht), 4 vols., Berlin, 1926–1936; “Projet d’un Code Européen de droit international privé”, Biblioteca Visseria.na, 1950, Vol. XVI, etc.
See his Einführung in die allgemeinen Lehren des internationalen Privatrechts,Zurich, 1956, pp. 134 ff.
See F. Kuhn,-Ober Inhalt,Natur und Methode des internationalen Privatrechts. Abhandlungen zum internationalen Privatrech,Munich—Leipzig, 1928, Vol. 1, pp. 268 ff.:“Wir erkennen… dass der Staat bei Festsetzung seines internationalen Privatrechts nicht mit unbegrenzter Will kür verfahren darf dass gewisse Schranken existieren müssen an welcher er… international gebunden ist. Offenbar sind diese völkerrechtlichen Schranken sehr weiter Natur. Sie sind nicht aus allgemeinen Prinzipien abzuleiten, sondern der internationaler tJbung und Rechtsüberzeugung zu_entnehmen. Sie bestehen aus dem Komplex derjenigen Regeln, welche im Gemeinschaftsinteresse der Kulturstaaten bei Aufstellung von_Kollisionsnormen übereinstimmend beobachtet würden, und auf deren Beihaltung die Staatengemeinschaft ein: erworben hat…”.
T. Niemeyer, Das internationale Privatrecht des bürgerlichen Gesetzbuches, Berlin, 1901.
M. elchio.r, Die Grundlagen, B.erliri-Leipzig, 1932.
LewaId, Handbuch -des internationalen Privatrechts,Vol. I, Basel, 1950, p 29: “Das geltende Völkerrecht enthält weder materiallrechtliche Bestire-,nàgèn’nioch 9Jorzhen,” die aenchì nur die Staaten anweisen, ihren
Gesetzen in der Materie einen bestimmten Inhalt zu geben… demnach ist jedes internationales Privatrecht oder richtiger gesagt jedes einzelne internationale Privatrecht Teil der einzelstaatlichen Rechtsordnung….
See Recueil des Cours,1939, Vol. 69.
This is true of such prominent authors as M. Wolff, Nussbaum, Raape, Schnitzer, Wengler, or Neuhaus.
This problem is discussed in the author’s study “Podstata a povaha aplikace cizího prava” (“The Substance and Nature of the Application of Foreign Law”), Studie z mezindrodniho prâva (Studies in International Law), Vol. 13, and Part Six of the present book.
See, in particular, E. Bar ti n, Principes de droit international privé, 3 vols., Paris, 1930-1935.
See, in particular, his Traité de droit international privé français,Paris, 5 vols., Cours de droit international privé,Paris, 1949, et al.
See in particular, his Précis de droit international privé,5th ed., 1948, and the 8th edition of this work, published in 1962 in revised form by Y. Loussouarn.
See, in particular, his Les conflicts des lois en matière de contrats,Paris, 1938, Traité élémentaire de droit international privé,1st ed., 1948, Aspects philosophiques du droit international privé,Paris, 1956, “Principes de droit international privé”, Recueil des Cours,1959, Vol. 97, etc.
See, in particular, his monographLa théorie du renvoi en droit international privé,Paris, 1958.
It is a transposition of Nussbaum’s term Heimwärtsstreben,explaining the tendency of every court to apply primarily its own substantive law, into American terminology.
A detailed analysis of their doctrine in this respect is to be found in Part Six of the present book and in the author’s article quoted in footnote 27 of this chapter.
For example, states with large-scale immigration have an interest in subjecting the legal relationships of the immigrants to the law of their new domicil or place of residence, while the states from which these people emigrate are interested in subjecting their relationships to the law of their citizenship which they usually keep although they have changed their domicil.
See in particular A. Ehr en z w ei g,“The Lex Fori — the Basic Rule in the Conflict of Laws”, Michigan Law Review,1960 (58, No. 5, pp. 637 ff.; “The Lex Fori in the Conflict of Laws — Exception or Rule?”, Rocky Mountain Law Review,Vol. 32, No. 1,
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Kalensky, P. (1971). The Main Concepts of the Doctrine of Private International Law. In: Luby, Š., Kunz, O. (eds) Trends of Private International Law. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9590-4_9
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