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17 - A Period of Reckoning

Private International Law during the Time of the League of Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2025

By
Roxana Banu
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Edited by
Robert Kolb  and
Momchil Milanov
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
Robert Kolb
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Momchil Milanov
Affiliation:
International Court of Justice
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Summary

It is often assumed that private international law is disconnected from geopolitical events. Scholars of private international law assume this because they generally perceive their field as neutral and apolitical. Scholars of public international law are unaware that the two fields were enmeshed in geopolitical debates. This chapter revisits the history of private international law to expose the reckoning of a variety of actors with the way in which the field was impacted by and could respond to the geopolitical events of the day. Puzzles surrounding questions of jurisdiction and choice of law would be used to translate aspects of state succession, conflicts of nationality, vested rights, statelessness, capitulations, conflict of laws and jurisdiction in the mandates or the extraterritorial application of Russian and then Nazi laws, into familiar questions of private international law. Some of these interwar questions have contemporary parallels. Engaging with the history of private international law can offer valuable lessons when considering private international law’s current role in geopolitical events.

Keywords

vested rightsstatelessnesscapitulationsconflict of laws and jurisdictionterritorialityrecognition
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 555 - 588
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Baty, Thomas, ‘Protectorates and mandates’, British Yearbook of International Law, 2 (1922) 109–21.Google Scholar
Cassin, René, ‘Interdiction du commerce et des relations économiques avec l’ennemi’, Revue de droit international privé, 14 (1918) 5–43, 388–420; 15 (1919) 38–66.Google Scholar
Cybichowski, S., ‘La compétence des tribunaux à raison d’infractions commises hors du territoire’, Recueil des cours, 12 (1926) 251–376.Google Scholar
Dickinson, Edwin, ‘Recognition cases 1925–1930’, American Journal of International Law, 25 (1931) 214–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donke, Martin, International Loans and the Conflict of Laws. A Comparative Survey of Recent Cases (London: Sweet & Maxwell 1937).Google Scholar
FitzGerald, Vessey, ‘Indian and Far Eastern cases on the conflict of laws, 1928–1933’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 16 (1934) 116–30.Google Scholar
Goadby, Frederic, International and Inter-religious Private Law in Palestine (Jerusalem: Hamadpis 1926).Google Scholar
Hudson, Manley, and Feller, A.H., ‘The international unification of laws concerning bills of exchange’, Harvard Law Review, 44 (1931) 333–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Arthur, ‘Coordination between the League and the Pan American Union in regard to codification’, American Journal of International Law, 22 (1928) 590–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, R.W., ‘Dominion and colonial cases on the conflict of laws for the quinquennium 1928–1932’, Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 16 (1934) 104–15.Google Scholar
Lewis, Malcolm M., ‘Domicile as a test of enemy character’, British Yearbook of International Law, 4 (1924) 60–78.Google Scholar
Louis-Lucas, Pierre, ‘Les conflits des nationalités’, Recueil des cours, 64 (1938) 5–67.Google Scholar
McNair, Arnold, Essays and Lectures upon Some Legal Effects of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1920) (followed by further editions).Google Scholar
Pillet, A., ‘La théorie générale des droits acquis’, Recueil des cours, 8 (1925) 489–532.Google Scholar
Read, Horace Emerson, Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in the Common Law Countries of the British Commonwealth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1938).Google Scholar
Ruiz Fabri, Hélène, and Michel, Erpelding, The Mixed Arbitral Tribunals, 1919–1939. An Experiment in the International Adjudication of Private Rights (Baden-Baden: Nomos 2023).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valéry, Jules, ‘Des influences probables de la guerre mondiale sur l’avenir du droit privé international’, Revue de droit international privé, 15 (1919) 1–37.Google Scholar
van Asbeck, Frederik Mari, ‘Le régime des étrangers dans les colonies’, Recueil des cours, 61 (1937) 5–94.Google Scholar
Visscher, Fernand, ‘Les conflits des lois en matière de droit aérien’, Recueil des cours, 48 (1934) 285–382.Google Scholar
Wortley, B.A., ‘Problèmes soulevés en droit international privé par la législation sur l’expropriation’, Recueil des cours, 67 (1939) 345–426.Google Scholar

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