40
pages
English
Documents
Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe Tout savoir sur nos offres
40
pages
English
Ebook
Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe Tout savoir sur nos offres
Overriding rules
NICOLAS SOUBEYRAND
under the limited supervision of
PROFESSOR T. STRUYCKEN
Norme di applicazione necesseria
lois d'application immédiate
SUPER-MANDATORY
RULES
internationally mandatory rules
HISTORY
CONCEPT
PROSPECT
Super-mandatory rules
Mandatory Rules
LOIS DE POLICE
2000 - 2001
LL.M. in
EUROPEAN BUSINESS LAW Eingriffsnormen
PALLAS CONSORTIUMPALLAS PROGRAMME
DISSERTATION UNDER LIMITED SUPERVISION
DISSERTATION MENTOR:
Professeur T. Struycken
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen
Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid
PO Box 9049
6500 KK NIJMEGEN
Fax: 024 361 2090
E-mail: t.struycken@jur.kun.nl
STUDENT:
Nicolas Soubeyrand
22 Rue de boyer
69160 TASSIN LA DEMI LUNE
FRANCE
E-mail: n.soubeyrand@juristes.com
SUBJECT :
Supermandatory rules: concept, history, prospect OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: CONCEPT 7
§1: Doctrine 7
A- The integration of lois de police in the current PIL system 7
B- The inconsistence of the lois de police 9
1. Lois de police and public order, two separate notions ? 10
2. Lois de police, an economical reasoning ? 11
§2: Lois de police as a particular method of PIL 13
A- Research of an identifying criterion 13
1. Formal criterion 13
2. Technical Criterion 14
a. Lois de police et territorial laws 14
b. Lois de police and public order 15
3. Finalist Criterion 15
a. Lois de police and political laws 15
b. Lois de police and immediately applicable law 15
B- Particularities of the lois de police 16
1. The identification of the scope of jurisdiction of a loi de police 17
2. Application of foreign lois de police 18
§3: Application 19
A- Application of local lois de police 19
B- foreign lois de police 20
1. Application of lois de police applicable pursuant the conflict rule 20
2. lois de police of a third country 21
C- Conflict between lois de police 22
1. Conflict between a local and a foreign lois de police 22
2. Conflict between foreign lois de police 22
CHAPTER 2: PROSPECT 24
§1: Effects of the Rome Treaty 24
A- Primary Legislation 24
B- Secondary Le26
1. Internal effects 26
a. Positive effect: harmonisation of lois de police 26
b. Negative effect : mutual recognition and equivalence 27
2. External effect 27
§2: Effects of EC Conventions 28
A- The Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations 28
1. Common rules for all member States 29
a. The administrative lois de police 29
i. Article 7 (1) 29
ii. Article 7 (2) 30
b. Protective lois de police 30
2. Towards a uniform application of the concept 32
B- The Brussels Convention 32
CONCLUSION 34
I N T R O D U C T I O N
“The whole system [the contemporary European conflict law] might appear
complicated, sometimes sophisticated, inappropriately eclectic in the eyes of an American
conflict lawyer. It is. Yet the system is inspired, as a whole, by considerations expressing real
concern for “multistate policies” as such, or for the “maintenance of interstate and
international order”, or for “accommodations between nations… in a growing sense of world
community”. Europeans do not pretend to save the world with such a choice of law system.
But we are reasonably satisfied with it and try to improve it constantly without a spirit of
1exclusiveness and dogmatism” .
Under the many questions raised in the field of Private International Law (P.I.L.) is the
issue of “mandatory rules”. Choice-of-law rules set out to determine the law applicable
without ruling on the litigation; this, under an identified connecting factor regardless the
content of the law to be applied. Nevertheless, the set of conflict rules may be limited by the
intervention, either of substantive rules, or public order rules, or “loi d’application
2immédiate” (immediately applicable law) among which take place the “lois de police” or
“mandatory rules”.
The P.I.L. category of mandatory rules should not be confused with that used whilst
3dealing with domestic matters . Here, the issue of vocabulary is therefore paramount. In
domestic matters, “mandatory rules” (ius cogens, règle impératives) are those that the parties
to a contract cannot exclude, alter or limit in contrast with dispositive rules (ius disposium,
règles supplétives) that are those to be applied when the parties have not expressed their
intention to regulate a given situation. Facing an international relationship, the choice-of-law
rule is limited by “mandatory rules” that will intervene directly to govern the relationship
entirely or partly whatever the law applicable. This latter mechanism has been distinguished
1 Evrigenis, “Interest analysis: a continental Perspective,” 46 Ohio St. L. J.
2 Expression used by Phocion Francescakis in La théorie du renvoi et les conflits de systèmes en droit
international privé, 1958.
3 Even if the distinction is not always clear since a rule can be mandatory in both situations. Some authors such
as Arnaud Nuyts (L’application des lois de police dans l’espace, Revue critique de droit international privé 88,
(1), janvier – mars 1999, p. 36) or Trevor C. Hartley (Mandatory rules in international contracts: the Common
Law approach, p. 345) consider PIL mandatory rules as a sub-category of mandatory rules.
14by terming those rules “super-mandatory rules” , “overriding rules” or “internationally
5mandatory rules” in the Common Law system or “lois de police” on the continent.
The conceptualisation of this category of rules is attributed to Phocion Francescakis.
“Police” derived from the Greek word politeia to which Littré gave the meaning of
“organisation of the State”. Francescakis himself defined lois de police as rules whose
application is necessary for the safeguard of political, social and economical organisation of
6the State .
This definition is not satisfying. Its weakness has been shown by Loussouarn and
Bourel who held that there is no difference in nature between lois de police and other rules. In
modern States any rules try practically to guarantee economical or social interest… Actually
the difference between lois de police and the others is a question of degree which renders the
clash much more difficult. Any attempt to systematize is necessarily bound to fail. Being a
question of degree, of measurement, the qualification of lois de police can only stem from a
7concrete analysis of each legal provision .
One could prefer a more practically-oriented definition given by a Common Law
8writer, Thomas G. Guedj , who distinguishes two elements in a loi de police:
- the purpose and the content of the concerned rules aim at, envision the very
factual pattern of the case at hand; and
- such purpose and content mandate its application.
For its credit, this definition is not limited to a number of State organisational goals.
The protection of the organisation of the State is also guarantee by the concept of
public order which, like mandatory rules, will prevail over the law designated by the conflict
rule. However, public order is said to have a negative function. Indeed the forum facing the
application of a foreign law designated by the conflict rules may consider the content or the
result of its application that may be invidious or obnoxious. Accordingly in order to set aside
4 Roy Goode, Commercial Law, 1995, p. 1112.
5 Also called overriding statutes, self-limiting rules.
6 « Lois dont l’application est nécessaire pour la sauvegarde de l’organisation politique, social et économique du
pays », Répertoire Dalloz, droit international privé, V° Conflit de lois, n° 137.
7 ème Loussouarn et Bourel, Précis Dalloz, Droit international privé, 5 édition, p. 124.
8 American Journal of Comparative Law, The Theory of the Lois de police, A Functional Trend In Continental
Private International Law—A Comparative Analysis With Modern American Theories, Volume XXXIX, 1991,
N°4, p. 666.
2forumthis law, the will raise the exception of international public order and apply the local
rule to regulate the case at hand. The distinction with lois de police takes place essentially in
the method. The application of international public order assumes the application of the
conflict rule and the determination of the content of the law applicable whereas a loi de police
would be applied immediately notwithstanding the conflict rule. However, the boundary
between the two concepts is not clear-cut. There are some overlaps due to the use made by
judges, for instance in France, who expressly apply “public order rules” immediately, before
the discovery of the foreign applicable law. This phenomenon had led some author to object
9the reality of the existence of the lois de police and prefer to gather every rules under the
label of public order but this thought is not received by the majority of the academics so that
the concept of lois de police still exists and even grows up