The Conflict of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law

Authors

Ernst RabelFollow

Files

Description

Full application of comparative methods to the law of conflicts requires a working plan of some magnitude. We ought to take stock of the conflicts rules existing in the different countries of the world, state their similarities or dissimilarities, and investigate their purposes and effects. The solutions thus ascertained should moreover be subjected to an estimation of their usefulness, by the standards appropriate to their natural objective. Conflicts rules have to place private life and business relations upon the legal background suitable to satisfactory intercourse among states and nations. They are valuable to the extent that their practical functioning, rather than their legal appearance, serves this purpose.

To meet the challenge of this program with limited forces is a risky undertaking. Nevertheless it has to be attempted. The conditions of the law of conflicts are deplorable. It may be said, to the reader's and my own consolation, that the staggering provincialism apparent in the international family law presented in this volume is not equaled in other parts. But if conflicts problems have been cultivated by men of the highest erudition, idealism, and endeavor, they have also been the object of prejudice and dogmatism. Suggestions of almost all needed ideas may be found, but little agreement on a sound choice. The courts of this country dealing with a wealth of interstate cases have prevailingly shown sincere respect for foreign legislation and applied an accomplished method of comparative research. But this admirable attitude, which is the most outstanding model for the practice of private international law, suffers exceptions, and in the field of international relations throughout the world, despite enormous efforts, the simple truth that harmony presupposes mutual understanding and tolerance, has not prevailed in conflicts law more than in foreign affairs.

Publication Date

1945

Publisher

The University of Michigan Press, Callaghan & Company

City

Ann Arbor, Chicago

Keywords

Yntema (Hessel), Conflicts rules, Conflicts Law, Personal law, Marriage, Foreign marriages, Requirements, Property, Effects, Divorce, Foreign divorce, Parent and child, Annulment, Adoption, Parents

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | Conflict of Laws | Family Law | Property Law and Real Estate

Comments

Published under the auspices of the University of Michigan Law School (which, however, assumes no responsibility for the views expressed) with the aid of funds derived from gifts to the University of Michigan by William W. Cook.

Recommended Citation

Rabel, Ernst, The Conflict of Laws: A Comparative Study. Vol. 1. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1945.