Global Governance and Private International Law

Worldwide economic integration and the need that many associate with this for global governance have presented private international law with the challenge of a supranational unification of this discipline. Several arguments speak in favour of this: on the one hand, the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital across borders that the unification of the rules on international jurisdiction, conflicts of laws and recognition of foreign judgments necessarily engenders and, on the other hand, the increased regulation of those phenomena that it enables, on the basis of a proper balancing of the interests at stake, undertaken on an international scale. Indeed, there has been no lack of initiatives to this purpose, notably those undertaken within the scope of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Nonetheless, States have often proved reluctant to adhere to these initiatives, and few international conventions in the area of private international law have as yet succeeded in attaining a truly global reach. Only in 2019, after more than twenty years of preparatory work, was it possible to conclude an international convention intended to ensure the worldwide recognition of foreign judgments on civil and commercial matters; but even this was only achieved at the expense of significant restrictions on the Convention’s substantive scope of application. This state of affairs is not unrelated to the tendency for a retreat to protectionism and unilateralism, which has recently emerged in several parts of the world. At the same time, in the light of the problems posed by the globalisation of the economy, it remains far from clear what direction the unification of private international law should take, and similarly the way it should be reconciled with preserving the diversity and plurality of national legal systems. This article seeks to identify the main origins of and possible pathways to resolving these issues