Private International Law Festival 24-25 September 2026: Registration Open

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Breakdown of the Rules-Based International Order
– What Role for Private International Law?

Following the first Private International Law Festival in 2022 (conference report),  on 24-25 September 2026, the University of Edinburgh Law School and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, generously supported by the Lindemann Foundation, will cohost the second Private International Law Festival at Edinburgh University’s splendid Playfair Library in Edinburgh. Two days of conflict of laws, plus a Ceilidh!

The program is here, a flyer is here. As to the Ceilidh, no prior expertise is expected, but you can take a look here.

Registration is open until August 28, please register here.

 

 

ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 3/2026

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A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available and includes contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, legal unification, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here: https://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/zeup. 

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Out Now: Calliess & Renner, Rome Regulations: Commentary (4th Edition)

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Kluwer Law International has just released the fourth edition of Rome Regulations: Commentary, edited by Gralf-Peter Calliess and Moritz Renner, offering an article-by-article “German-style” analysis of the Rome I, II, and III Regulations. This landmark work has long been recognized as a leading authority on EU conflict-of-laws rules, and the new edition brings the commentary fully up to date.
The updated volume incorporates developments since 2020, most notably landmark CJEU rulings that have advanced a common European understanding of the Regulations’ key provisions. It also addresses the post-Brexit landscape of EU-UK relations in private international law, and, reflecting a growing practical concern, the increasing intersection of economic sanctions regimes with overriding mandatory provisions.
More information is available at the publisher’s website.

【Out Now】Silberman’s Hague Academy General Course: The Counter-Revolution in U.S. Private International Law: From Standards to Rules?

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For anyone who begins studying private international law – particularly from a civil law perspective – one of the first concepts encountered, after Savigny’s ‘Copernican Revolution’, is the American ‘Choice-of-Law Revolution’. Since the late 1950s, American courts and scholars have progressively abandoned the rigid territorial methodology embodied in the First Restatement of Conflict of Laws in favour of more flexible approaches based on standards and policy-oriented analyses. The pioneering contributions of Brainerd Currie, David Cavers, Robert Leflar, and William Baxter, among others, fundamentally reshaped American conflicts law and made the United States a laboratory of modern choice-of-law theory.

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New Publication: Second Edition of the Elgar’s Research Handbook on EU PIL

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While much of Europe slows down for August, there is still some fresh academic news to share: the publication of the second edition of the *Research Handbook on EU Private International Law*, edited by Youseph Farah, of the University of East Anglia and Elisabetta Bergamini, of the University of Udine, and published by Edward Elgar Publishing as part of the *Research Handbooks in European Law* series.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the new edition brings together civil-law and common-law perspectives to examine some of the most important questions and continuing challenges in EU private international law. Alongside the traditional fields of jurisdiction, contractual and non-contractual obligations, the Handbook addresses significant developments in family law, parental responsibility and cross-border succession.

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CfP: 3rd International Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society” – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 4-6 November 2026

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Call for Papers: 3rd International Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society” – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 4-6 November 2026

 

 

This Call for Papers has been kindly shared with us by Inez Lopes / University of Brasilia (UnB) and Fabricio B. Pasquot Polido / University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)

Following the previous editions hosted by the University of Brasilia in 2019 and 2024, the Third Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society”, will be held from 4 to 6 November 2026 at the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brasil. The theme of the 2026 edition is:

“Jurisdiction and Transnational Access to Justice between New Technologies and ‘The Human Side of Artificial Intelligence’” Read more

AMEDIP: Annual seminar to take place from 15 to 16 October 2026 (in Spanish)

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The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) will be holding its XLIX Seminar entitled “Towards a new codification of Private International Law in Mexico” (Hacia una nueva codificación del Derecho Internacional Privado en México) from 15 to 16 October 2026. The venue of the seminar will be the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (Mérida, Mexico).

This edition of the seminar will primarily focus on the draft bill on Private International Law for the state of Yucatán, an initiative presented by AMEDIP to the authorities of that state. This draft breaks from previous practice, according to which state PIL rules are contained in civil codes, by suggesting the adoption of a standalone Act (available here). Read more

Out now: Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law by Tine Van Hof

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The publisher’s blurb, including a discount code, is as follows:

Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law  

Conflicts in International Child Abduction Cases

Tine Van Hof

This book examines the relationship between two legal fields when courts decide on cross-border child abduction. While private international law prioritises the child’s prompt return and applies the best interests principle in abstracto, children’s rights law demands an in concreto, individualised assessment of the child’s best interests. These differing approaches can lead to legal friction in practice.

Through a detailed analysis of legal instruments and supranational case law, the book explores how these conflicts arise and how they might be resolved.

Offering clear recommendations for lawmakers, international organisations, and courts, the book provides a roadmap for fostering constructive relationships between legal fields. It is an essential resource for scholars of private international law, judges and practitioners in cross-border family law, and policymakers working at the intersection of international law and children’s rights.

 

Tine Van Hof is a legal researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

 

Jun 2026   |   9781509977055   |   288pp   |   Hbk   |    RRP: £90

Discount Price: £72

Order online at www.hartpublishing.co.uk  – use the code GLR BD8 to get 20% off!

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New Empirical Study in Comparative Law: “The Reasons Highest Courts Give: England, France, Germany; 1880–89 and 2007–16”

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This post has kindly been provided by Markus Lieberknecht (University of Osnabrück).

It is our great pleasure to bring to readers’ attention the publication of the article “The Reasons Highest Courts Give: England, France, Germany; 1880–89 and 2007–16”, co-authored by Holger Spamann (Harvard Law School), Stefan Vogenauer and Jasper Kunstreich (MPI Hamburg), Heinrich Nemeczek (Scalable Capital) and Markus Lieberknecht (Osnabrück University), in The Journal of Legal Studies.

One of the core debates in comparative law concerns the characteristics, extent, and development of the common/civil law divide. In this context, it is a familiar trope that common and civil lawyers reason differently, but that the systems are converging. However, the empirical basis for such claims is thin to nonexistent. To address this paucity of data-backed research, we present the first systematic quantitative comparison of three paragon jurisdictions of common law (England) and civil law (France and Germany), and across two centuries (1880–89 vs. 2007–16). Specifically, we analyze the use of legal authorities (cases, statutes, and literature) in 40 representative opinions of each apex court in each of the two decades we surveyed.

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Perspectives Contentieuses Internationales (PCI), Volume 6

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The following announcement was kindly shared with us by Fabienne Jault-Seseke.

logo PCI

The 6th issue of Perspectives contentieuses internationales has been released and is online.

It contains seven articles related to the consolidation of cross-border litigation. These articles form the first part of the proceedings of a conference held in Toulouse in November 2025. The second part will be published in Volume 7. Volume 6 also includes two further articles, one on the law applicable to air transport and one of theclassification, and three short notes (focus).

Here is the list of papers, along with their abstracts.

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