Issue 3 – Conflict of Laws

The newest situation of RabelsZ has simply been launched. It accommodates the contributions to the symposium in honor of Jürgen Basedow that was held in Hamburg in November 2024. The desk of contents is offered right here. All content material is Open Entry: CC BY 4.0 and extra articles can be found On-line First.

Eva-Maria Kieninger, Konrad Duden and Ralf Michaels, Preface to the Symposium Situation, pp. 409–410, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0046

Hannah L. Buxbaum, The New Unilateralism in EU Cross-Border Regulation: Targets, Strategies, Establishment, oo. 411–431, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0043

For years, Europe was a website of resistance to regulatory unilateralism, notably as practiced by the USA. At present, although, there are indicators of a strong unilateralism at work in EU regulatory practices. To some extent it merely mirrors practices adopted in the USA and elsewhere: Like different lawmakers, the EU has begun to behave unilaterally the place crucial to attain efficient regulation of its personal markets and to guard native pursuits. In different respects, although, the brand new unilateralism within the EU presents fairly otherwise. First, the EU more and more makes use of its personal laws to not advance purely native regulatory pursuits, however quite to attain worldwide or world objectives – classically a extra multilateral goal. Second, beneath EU legislation particular person rules specifically substantive areas are embedded in a bigger framework of norms and values that declare common attraction. In each of those regards, the EU model of unilateralism seems extra benign than purely »self-interested« unilateralism. It however raises vital questions on the best way that native legal guidelines and establishments are used to undertaking regulatory energy within the worldwide enviornment. The objective of this text is to discover these questions. It begins by describing the traits of this new unilateralism, when it comes to each its doctrinal foundations and its regulatory aims. It then focuses on one explicit mechanism: the adequacy regime established beneath EU knowledge safety legislation.

Dagmar Coester-Waltjen, Einheitsrecht – prinzipiell oder sektoral? [Uniform Law – a Principle- or Sector-based Approach?], pp. 432–450, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0040

The aim of this text is to shed some gentle on the doable way forward for uniform legislation. However the doable hinderances and difficulties confronted by unification actions, particularly a doable lack of curiosity in such actions, the article considers the query of which actors are and might be concerned in authorized unification and what sorts of uniform legislation could be anticipated. The rising involvement of personal actors (the so-called industrial strategy) and the focus on totally different sorts of sentimental legislation promise an growing diploma of sectoral initiatives that includes a purposeful strategy. Nevertheless, it’s important to proceed work on normal rules which have applicability in particular areas of legislation; such rules are wanted as interpretative aids and serve an vital gap-filling operate. Jürgen Basedow really helpful maintaining normal rules in thoughts already on the stage of formulating a sectoral undertaking. Thus, it may be anticipated that each the idea of rules and a sectoral strategy will play an vital function additionally sooner or later.

Christian Kohler, Zur Außenprivatrechtspolitik der Europäischen Union, [On the External Policy of the European Union in the Field of Private Law], pp 451–482, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0041

The coverage of the European Union within the area of personal legislation is primarily geared toward shaping the inner market, however it additionally impacts relations with non-EU states in a wide range of methods as regards each regulatory non-public legislation and the battle of legal guidelines. The EU’s underlying »exterior non-public legislation coverage« is pursued in two methods. First, authorized devices embrace unilateral scope guidelines which deliver individuals or occasions in third states inside the scope of the measure and which ought to promote the regulatory aims at situation. Second, agreements on non-public legislation issues are concluded by or on behalf of the EU with third states. Nevertheless, institutional weaknesses and the Union’s infamous lack of competence make it tough to develop a coherent exterior non-public legislation coverage. Within the area of battle of legal guidelines, the conclusion of multilateral agreements makes the unilateral extension of EU guidelines to conditions involving third states not redundant. There isn’t any discernible political will to increase the Union’s powers within the area of personal legislation and thereby change the situations beneath which the EU’s exterior non-public legislation coverage is at present shaped.

Matteo Fornasier, Modelle europäischer Privatrechtsharmonisierung. Die prozedurale Harmonisierung als neue Type der Rechtsvereinheitlichung in der EU? [Harmonization of Private Law in Europe. Procedural Harmonization as a New Path Towards the Approximation of National Laws in the EU?], pp. 483–505, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0042

The article affords an outline on the number of regulatory approaches in the direction of the harmonization of personal legislation in Europe, masking each detrimental and constructive harmonization, together with full, minimal, and optionally available harmonization. Specific consideration is dedicated to what seems to be a brand new mannequin of harmonization, which is referred to on this article as procedural harmonization. Procedural harmonization happens the place the EU legislature or, in some instances, the EU Courtroom of Justice confines itself to setting frequent European procedural requirements for the safety of sure particular person rights, with out harmonizing the substance of these rights. The article attracts on quite a lot of examples from EU employment legislation, which is a crucial factor of the system of EU non-public legislation, although it’s usually marginalized in European non-public legislation discourse.

Herbert Kronke, Weil Wissenschaft Wissen schafft: Zu Jürgen Basedows »Uniform Regulation« [Because Scholarship Generates Knowledge: On Jürgen Basedow’s »Uniform Law«], pp 506–521, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsZ-2025-0045

The article highlights the revolutionary nature of Basedow’s third main monograph relative to different »trendy classics« on uniform legislation, noting specifically its mixture of (virtually) encyclopaedic protection, systematic construction, and demanding evaluation, incorporating well-known central matters together with commentary on quite a few uniform authorized devices. As well as, there are new and shocking components awaiting comparative industrial legislation students, resembling the subject of »detrimental harmonization«. The writer of the article additionally discusses hypotheses, arguments, and conclusions with reference to perpetual themes of transnational legislation, resembling the selection between a traditional worldwide treaty or the now frequent various of a smooth legislation instrument, the dynamic of mutual affect between uniform legislation and non-uniform nationwide legislation, and the connection of uniform legislation and personal worldwide legislation. Lastly, the article seems at institutional, cultural, and financial framework situations and – politically decided – obstacles to the event of contemporary uniform legislation, as felt by the establishments, in addition to specialists concerned of their work.

The difficulty additionally accommodates a number of critiques of literature within the fields of comparative non-public and personal worldwide legislation and on associated matters (pp. 522–610).