The Law Applicable to Succession, Between Unity and Splitting of the Relevant Legal Regime

The author comments on a recent judgment by the Corte di Cassazione (Sezioni Unite Civili) touching upon particularly significant issues of private international law in matters of succession. A central issue in the judgment under review lies in the role of renvoi as an instrument of coordination between national conflict-of-laws systems. This is particularly critical in succession matters, in cases where the choice-of-law rules of the countries concerned are inspired by the opposite systems of unity rather than splitting of succession. Alongside renvoi, the judgment under review touches upon other important issues of private international law, such as characterization and the requirements for a valid optio legis by the deceased. As the author notes, while the case, due to temporal reasons, was decided pursuant to Italian private international law rules in matters of succession, comparable results would have probably been reached based on the choice-of-law rules embodied in the European Succession Regulation No. 650/2012.