SIDIBlog, the blog of the Italian Society of International Law (SIDI-ISIL), has launched an online symposium on the codification of Private International Law at the EU level. Here is the English presentation of the event:

Scholars have been wondering about the possibility of elaborating a legal instrument regulating the “general part” of European Private International Law (a hypothetical future – not yet scheduled – “Rome 0” Regulation). In the context of a sectorial progress of the legal instruments enacted so far on the basis of Article 81 of the TFEU, one wonders if civil and commercial matters could form the subject for such a codification in European private international law. In the context of the civil judicial cooperation of the European Union, the same term “codification” deserves a reflection.

Some of these questions have lastly been addressed in the volume Brauchen wir eine Rom 0- Verordnung?, which collects the contributions of distinguished Private International Law scholars who participated to the conference held in Bayreuth in June 2012, devoted to this topic (but it is worth mentioning also a previous book entitled Quelle architecture pour un code européen de droit international privé?, edited by M. Fallon, P. Lagarde and S. Poillot Peruzzetto, including an embryon de règlement portant Code europeén de droit international privé, drafted by Prof. Paul Lagarde and published also in RabelsZ, 2011, 673 ff.). Similarly, in December 2012, and following its previous resolution of 7 September 2010, the European Parliament published a document entitled Current gaps and future perspectives in European private international law: towards a code on private international law?

With the […] post of Prof. Francesco Salerno, the SIDIBlog intends to start a debate on the above mentioned issues, trusting to host, in the coming weeks, the contributions of other Italian and foreign scholars and practitioners, in order to discuss the matters raised by the hypothetical “Rome 0” Regulation.

As mentioned in the presentation, the first post of the symposium (in Italian) is authored by Prof. Francesco Salerno (Univ. of Ferrara), and touches upon several aspects of the envisaged codification, analysing it both under a general perspective and in the light of specific issues.  Subsequent posts in different languages, written by scholars from various jurisdictions, will be published in the coming weeks. Interested readers may follow the debate on this page of SIDIBlog, which will collect all the contributions. Comments to the posts and additional proposals for contributions are most welcome: editors of SIDIBlog may be contacted here.