Philosophical Aspects of Private International Law: Nature, Concept and Substance

Abstract

Private International Law (PIL) is characterized by a large spectrum of thoughts, schools and concepts in its substantiation. Their appearance is explained by dif­ferent extent of influence on law of philosophy, ethics, religious and political trends in social development. Pointing out the backwardness of domestic doc­trine in philosophical approach to Private International Law, the author analyzes the essence, nature and content of PIL, envisaging its evolution towards more and more complicated “natively immune” method of regulation, namely the con­flict of laws method, which was historically the first one for this field of law. Meanwhile, the factual processes having occurred in Private International Law are making more and more evident philosophical “essence” of phenomenon un­der consideration: these are penetration of “axiological” approach into conflict of laws regulation, intensive application of “flexible”principles for the purposes of determining the applicable law, and the quest for the “most favourable law” or evaluation of the choice of law by using “consequentialism” theories, etc.