Values on the horizon: Did the loss of innocence of conflict of laws change the relationship to the foreign?

Abstract

While the complexity of the methodological and legislative-technical apparatus of conflict of laws has, in the eyes of its critics, created an aura of impermeability, they are, in fact, instruments through which a relationship to the foreign is conveyed and articulated. However, conflict of laws is not an immutable system of rules but rather a technique that undergoes varying degrees of development depending on the changing premises on which it is built. These are notably defined by different approaches to the values that frame the conflicts resolution. Depending on these values, the available instruments of conflict of laws are used to achieve different objectives. This results not only in a confluence of different methods but also in changes within a particular method. Against the backdrop of the value transformations of conflict of laws, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the abandonment of methodological purism of conflict of laws necessarily entails the abandonment of relational purism towards the foreign. By contrast, insofar as transformations within the dominant multilateral method are concerned, it is argued that the changes in value orientation have not led to a fundamental change in the nature of the relationship to the foreign.