PARTY AUTONOMY IN THE HAGUE CONVENTION ON THE LAW APPLICABLE TO AGENCY

Abstract

The research is relevant due to development of transboundary private legal relations, including agency, recourse to party autonomy and the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Agency (the Hague Convention of 1978) potential of practical application. The goal is to analyze the party autonomy standards stipulated by the Hague Convention of 1978, to assess the place of the indicated norms within the system of international norms regarding party autonomy and to make conclusions on potential of its practical application. The main specific legal methods are historical and comparative. Due to insufficient scientific elaboration on the matter the main materials were the international treaty norms, including different language versions and translations, and profound travaux préparatoires enabling to clear up the contents of the norms. The main results include the following conclusions. Firstly, in spite of standpoint widespread in Russian jurisprudence the Hague Convention of 1978 acknowledges party autonomy for two legal relations and stipulates liberal standard for agent and principal relations and strict - for the agents authority in principal and third party relations. Secondly, the Hague Convention of 1978 has the potential of practical application as a part of lex fori of its states parties by court and as a collection of internationally accepted norms by international commercial arbitration. In conclusion the author stresses that it is important for Russian participants of international civil intercourse to have the right perception of the Hague Convention of 1978 norms when choosing a forum for disputes arising out of their international agency agreements.

Keywords

• autonomy of will
• choice of applicable law
• choice of law agreement
• choice of law clause
• agency agreement
• agent’s authority
• conflict of laws