Between Facilitating Trade and Fostering the Public Interest: a Fork in the Road for EU Private International Law?

This project focuses on the interests that the law of transnational civil procedure (or ‘private international law’) in the European Union promotes. Recent scholarly and institutional debates have demonstrated an acute tension between the interests of trade and commerce within the Single Market on the one hand, and the public interest on the other. The project will advance the debate by exploring the origins of this tension, and reinvigorating the debate by revisiting it from the novel viewpoint of moral philosophy.

Keywords:Private international law, Role in society, Trade versus public interest, European Union

Disciplines:Legal theory, jurisprudence and legal interpretation, Litigation, adjudication and dispute resolution, International private law, European law, Human rights law