Rechtswahlfreiheit im europäischen Kollisionsrecht

Abstract

During the last couple of years the European legislator has devoted much attention to private international law. Numerous regulations, proposals for regulations and green papers indicate that the entire field will be fully harmonized in a few years. However, since the European legislator has decided to proceed in many “small steps” rather than one “big step” it is unclear whether the growing European private international law is coherent and consistent. Do the pertaining regulations, proposals and green papers deal with the same problems in the same way? Do they provide for general principles which claim application and which are designed in essentially the same way in different branches of private international law? Since all regulations, proposals and green papers that have been adopted or submitted so far allow the parties in one form or another to choose the applicable law the contribution sheds lights on these questions using party autonomy as an example. It argues that the pertaining rules – despite differences in detail – define the object of party autonomy as well as the formal requirements and the restrictions in essentially the same way. Party autonomy is therefore about to develop into a general principle of European private international law.