La Convention européenne des droits de l’homme et les conflits de lois : synthèse de dix ans de jurisprudence européenne

Abstract

The European Court of Human Rights, whose jurisprudence is presented here, is not a court specialising in private international law. However it applies the norms deriving from the European Convention on Human Rights to applications by litigants complaining of any type of national legal rules, including the rules of private international law. There are cases decided by the European Court in all fields of private international law, out of which the cases relating to the field of choice of law are presented here. The cases decided during the last ten years can be classified in cases on the human rights control of (1) equality before the national rules of choice of law, (2) the public policy exception, (3) fraus legis, and (4) the methodological choice between the application, to a status acquired abroad, of the forum’s own rules of choice of law, or, alternatively, the method of recognition of the result of the application of the foreign rules of choice of law. The case-law of the European Court has had, on the whole, a moderate – and moderating – effect on national choice of law rules.

Keywords

• european human rights law
• principle of equality
• public policy
• fraus legis
• method of recognition