Convergence and Divergence in the EU’s Judicial Cooperation in Civil Matters: Pleading for a Consolidation through a Uniform European Conflict’s Codification
Católica Graduate Legal Research Conference 2014 – Conference Proceedings, pp. 175-198, Elsa Vaz de Sequeira, and Gonçalo de Almeida Ribeiro, eds., 2015
25 Pages Posted: 22 Jul 2015
Abstract
Since the entering into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU massively made use of its competence in the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters, mainly, through introducing regulations. All these regulations involved a great convergence of the Member States’ national laws on private international law and international civil procedural law. But at the same time, they constitute a massive body of provisions which, especially for practitioners such as lawyers and judges as well as interested parties, is difficult to survey. And ironically, the more unification of the Member States' law is achieved, the more incoherencies between the regulations at the EU level occur. The different regulations give different answers on the same questions and they overlap. The first part of this essay tries to explain the incoherencies within two groups: systematic incoherencies and conceptual incoherencies. The second part discusses and scribes the consolidation of the existing EU regulations in civil matters within one uniform codification.
Note: This contribution is published in the Max Planck Private Law Research Paper Series with the permission of the rights owners, Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law, Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Escola de Lisboa, and Católica Global School of Law.
Keywords: European private international law, European law of civil procedure, codification, regulations
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation