History of Private International Law

Development in the 1100s :- A fundamental tenet of conflict of laws, That foreign

law, in suitable occasions, should be applied to foreign issues’, was First
acknowledged by Western legal Systems in the twelfth century. Prior to Then,
personal law predominated, which Meant that each person’s relevant rules Were
determined by the community to Which they belonged. The goal of this Corpus of
law was initially to simply Decide which jurisdiction’s law would be The most
equitable to apply. But, as time Went on, the law began to prefer more Precise
principles.
Development in the 1300s :- Bartolus de Saxoferrato , a law professor,
Meticulously compiled these laws around The middle of the fourteenth century,
and His work was often quoted for the next Several centuries.
Development in the 1600s :- The jurisprudence of conflict of laws was Further
developed in the seventeenth Century by several Dutch legal academics, Including
Christian Rodenburg, Paulus Voet, Johannes Voel, and Ulrik Huber. They Made
two major conceptual advances: **Firstly, they argued that because Countries are
completely sovereign Inside their boundaries, they cannot be Forced to apply
international law in Domestic courts.**Secondly, for international conflicts of Law
to function rationally, states must act with courtesy while upholding the laws of
others since doing so is in their shared best interest.
Development in the 1700s :- Important questions in the area of conflict Of laws
have existed in the US at least since The Constitution’s drafting in 1779. For
Instance, there was uncertainty over the Body of law that would be used by the
Newly established federal courts in Instances involving parties from various States
(a type of case specifically subject to The jurisdiction of federal courts as per
Article III of the US Constitution). Over 100 Cases dealt with similar difficulties in
the First two decades after the Constitution’s Passage, while the phrase “conflict
of Laws” was not then in use.
Development in the 1800s :-The eighteenth century witnessed the beginnings of
significant international cooperation on the subject of conflict of laws in addition
to domestic advancements in this area. Five South American nations sent
representatives to the first international conference on the subject, which was
held in Lima in 1887 and 1888 but failed to result in an enforceable agreement.
The First South American Congress of private international law, which took place
in Montevideo from August 1888 to February 1889, resulted in the first significant
multilateral accords on the subject of conflict of laws. Eight treaties were drafted
by the seven South American countries involved at the Montevideo conference,
which essentially embraced Friedrich Carl von Savigny's theories and based their
determination of applicable law on four different forms of factual connections
(domicile, location of object, location of transaction, location of court).
Development in the 1900s :- Soon after, Tobias Asser convened an international
conference in the Hague, Netherlands, in 1893. Thereafter, conferences were
held in 1894, 1900, and 1904. These conferences, like their counterparts in
Montevideo, resulted in several multilateral agreements on numerous themes
related to conflict of laws. Subsequently, the frequency of these gatherings
decreased, with the following conventions taking place in 1925 and 1928. The
sixteen participating governments formed a permanent organisation for
international cooperation on conflict-of-laws matters during the seventh
conference in The Hague, which took place in 1951. The Hague Conference on
Private International Law (IICCII) is the name of the organisation nowadays. By the
end of 2020. HCCH had 86 member states. In the latter part of the 20th century,
as interest in the subject grew, the European Union started to take steps to unify
conflict of law jurisprudence across its member states. The first of them was the
1968 Brussels Convention, which addressed the issue of jurisdiction for disputes
involving multiple countries. The Rome Convention. which addressed choice-of-
law guidelines for contract disputes among EU member states, came after this in
1980.
Development in the 2000sv:- The EU passed the Rome II Regulation to handle
the choice of law in tort cases and the Rome III Regulation to address the choice
of law in divorce issues in 2009 and 2010, respectively.