Rome II and Tort Conflicts: A Missed Opportunity Abstract Contents

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SYMEON C. SYMEONIDES ROME II AND TORT CONFLICTS B. Structure. ................................................8 C. Certainty vs. Flexibility......................................8 D. Jurisdiction-Selection or Content-Oriented Law-Selection. . . . . . . . . . 9 E. State or National Interests...................................12 F. Issue-by-Issue Analysis and Dépeçage. ........................13 IV. THE GENERAL RULE.............................................15 V. THE EXCEPTIONS................................................20 A. The List.................................................20 B. The Common Habitual-Residence Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 C. The General Escape........................................24 1. The Closer-Connection Escape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 2. The Pre-existing Relationship Exception.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 D. Compensation for Traffic Accidents.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 VI. PRODUCT LIABILITY.............................................34 VII. ENVIRONMENTAL TORTS. .......................................37 VIII. RULES OF “SAFETY AND CONDUCT”...............................39 IX. PARTY AUTONOMY. ............................................43 X. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS..........................................44 1. The English text of the Regulation can be found in the Official Journal of the European Union, 2007 O.J. (L 199) 40. Excerpts discussed in this essay are reproduced in an Appendix at ???, infra. 2. ROME II, closing sentence. See also Treaty establishing the European Community, art. 249(2). 3. ROME II, art. 32. I. INTRODUCTION On July 11, 2007, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted “Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 on the Law Applicable to 1 Non-Contractual Obligations” known as “Rome II.” In European Union parlance, 2 a regulation is “binding . . . and directly applicable” in all member countries without the need for implementing national legislation in each individual country. The 3 Regulation is scheduled to go into effect on January 11, 2009. It will preempt the 4 national choice-of-law rules of the European Union’s member states on noncontractual obligations arising from torts or delicts and from other acts or facts. 5 Unlike some other regulations which apply only within the European Union, Rome II will have “universal application,” in the sense that it will cover torts occurring both within and outside the Union, and it may lead to the application of the law of a nonmember state. Rome II is a dramatic step in the federalization or “Europeanization” 4. Rome II will not apply to Denmark. See ROME II, recital (40), art. 1(4). 5. Among the non-contractual obligations arising from acts other than torts are those arising from unjust enrichment, negotiorum gestio, and culpa in contrahendo. Rome II covers these obligations in arts. 10-12. This essay does not discuss these articles. 56 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW (2008) PAGE 2 OF 46
SYMEON C. SYMEONIDES ROME II AND TORT CONFLICTS of private international law (PIL) in the EU member states, a step that has been aptly characterized as the European conflicts revolution. 6 7 This essay discusses the main provisions of Rome II on tort conflicts. The fact that the essay’s author has spent the last three decades laboring in the American conflicts vineyard, inevitably influences his views on the subject. Nevertheless, to the extent this essay criticizes Rome II, it is not—at least not consciously—for failing to emulate any American models, but rather for failing to take full advantage of the richness, sophistication, and progress of modern European PIL. Indeed, while American conflicts law was stumbling through a loud “revolution” and then engaging 8 in endless navel-gazing about how to end it, European PIL was going through a quiet evolution, gradually repairing the old system and producing several noteworthy PIL 9 10 11 12 13 codifications, among them the Belgian, Dutch, English, German, and Swiss, to mention just a few. Unfortunately, Rome II does not compare favorably with these 6. Johan Meeusen, Instrumentalisation of Private International Law in the European Union: Toward a European Conflicts Revolution? 9 EUR. J. MIGR.& L. 287 (2007). 7. For other discussions of Rome II, including earlier versions, see, e.g., Janeen M. Carruthers & Elizabeth B. Crawford, Variations on a Theme of Rome II: Reflections on Proposed Choice of Law Rules for Non-contractual Obligations, 9 EDINBURGH L. REV. 65, 238 (2005;) Peter Hay, Contemporary Approaches to Non-Contractual Obligations in Private International Law (Conflict of Laws) and the European Community’s “Rome II” Regulation, EUROPEAN LEGAL FORUM I-137 (4-2007); Cyril Nourissat & Edouard Treppoz, Quelques observations sur leavened-projet de proposition de reglement du Conseil sur la loi applicable aux obligations non contractuelles Rome II , 45 J. DR. INT’L 130 (2003); Willibald Posch, The “Draft Regulation Rome II” in 2004: Its Past and Future Perspectives, 6 YBK PRIV. INT’L L. 129 (2004); Ansgar Staudinger, Rome II and Traffic Accidents, EUROPEAN LEGAL FORUM 61 (4- 2005); Peter Stone, The Rome II Proposal on the Law Applicable to Non-contractual Obligations, EUROPEAN LEGAL FORUM 213 (4-2004); von Gerhard Wagner, Internationales Deliktsrecht, die Arbeiten an der Rom II Verordnung und der Europäische Deliktsgerichtsstand, IPRAX 372 (2006); Russell J. Weintraub, Rome II and the Tension Between Predictability and Flexibility, 19 RIV. DIR. INT’LE PRIV. E PROCESS 561 (2005). 8. See SYMEON C. SYMEONIDES, THE AMERICAN CHOICE-OF-LAW REVOLUTION: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE (2006) [hereinafter THE CHOICE-OF-LAW REVOLUTION]. 9. See CODE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL PRIVÉ (Loi du 16 juillet 2004, Moniteur Belge 27 Juillet 2004 (1), hereafter “BELGIAN PIL CODE.” 10. See ACT OF 11 APRIL 2001REGARDING CONFLICT OF LAWS ON TORTS, Staatsblad 2001, 190, effective 1 June 2001 (hereafter “DUTCH PIL ACT”). For English translation with an Introductory Note by P. Vlas, see NETHERLANDS INT’L L. REV. 221 (2003-2). 11. See PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) ACT OF 1995 (c 42), 8 November 1995, hereafter cited as “ENGLISH PIL ACT.” 12. See FEDERAL ACTS OF 1986 AND 1999 FOR THE REVISION OF PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW (AMENDING THE INTRODUCTORY LAW TO THE CIVIL CODE (EGBGB)) (Transl. by Wegen, 27 I.L.M. 1, 18 (1988), and Hay, 47 AM. J. COMP. L. 650 (1999)), hereafter referred to as EGBGB. 13. See FEDERAL LAW OF 18 DECEMBER, 1987 ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW (Transl. by Cornu, Hankins & Symeonides, 37 AM. J. COMP. L. 193 (1989), hereafter cited as “SWISS PIL ACT.” 56 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW (2008) PAGE 3 OF 46
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