Lunchtime Seminar: Theoretical Reflection on Choice of Law for Torts or Non-contractual Obligation

As the sphere of our social life expands dramatically due to globalization, the number of international tort cases is increasing. Although the choice-of-law issues for torts are not ignorable, the current rules in different jurisdictions are far from satisfactory in this field. First, as seen in the cases regarding the so-called Corporate Duty of vigilance regulations, they have not been successful enough in dealing with such serious issues, and second, theoretical reflections have not been addressed enough for clarifying any choice of law rules possible to lead to appropriate solutions.

With these unsatisfactory situations in mind, this talk sheds critical light on the axiom of traditional private international law theory, viz the unity of the applicable law. Why must the law applicable for torts be always deemed as the single regime?

In this talk, after pointing out problems of this dogma, we would like to propose a way to reconstruct the choice of law theory for tort (and then more broadly non-contractual obligations in general) by accepting the possible plurality of the competent laws governing a tort case.

It bridges traditional methodology with the American conflict of laws revolution (especially Currie’s and Ehrenzweig’ ideas), joins it with the public international law regarding the legislative jurisdiction. Then, criticizing the theory of applying the overriding mandatory rules of third countries, it recovers the substance of that formally problematic theory into a re-theorized general framework of the choice of law for non-contractual obligations. 

SPEAKER