Revue Critique de Droit International Privé: Issue 1 of 2025

The first issue of the Revue critique de droit international privé for 2025 has been published. It features the proceedings of the international conference held in honour of the distinguished Austrian-American conflicts scholar Albert A. Ehrenzweig, which took place in Vienna in June 2024 under the scientific coordination of Matthias Lehmann and Florian Heindler.

In addition, this issue includes a critical analysis of a French Report prepared by the Cour de cassation on the handling of Private International Law (PIL) cases before that court, alongside numerous case notes discussing recent PIL decisions  from both by the CJEU and the French Cour de cassation.

In the first article, Matthias Lehmann (University of Vienna) offers a compelling analysis of Albert A. Ehrenzweig’s intellectual legacy in private international law (Albert A. Ehrenzweig: un géant du droit international privé).

With Albert Ehrenzweig, Austria lost one of its undoubtably greatest legal talents. But one’s loss was another’s gain, that of the US. This simple zero sum is worth emphasising at a time when the hatred against migrants is rising yet again on both sides of the Atlantic. Ehrenzweig brought to the US plenty of ideas from his native Austria. Among them is the abstract consideration of legal problems and the strictly logical approach to their solution, which is particularly helpful in areas such as conflicts of jurisdiction or conflicts of laws. He also brought with him a great deal of interest and knowledge in the area of psychology, which was en vogue in his days in Vienna.

In the second contribution, Florian Heindler (Sigmund Freud Privat University) examines Ehrenzweig’s comparative methodology and its implications for integrating conflict-of-laws rules in determining international jurisdiction in civil matters (Albert Armin Ehrenzweig : la méthode comparative et l’intégration du droit des conflits de lois dans la détermination de la compétence internationale en matière de juridiction civile).

Ehrenzweig’s work deserves attention – primarily because of its topicality – beyond its historical-bibliographical interest and its link the question of remedy for past injustices. Two methodological cornerstones of his work on the conflict of law must be emphasised. Firstly, transatlantic dialogue: Ehrenzweig frequently sought to align “European learning and experience” with the “pragmatic approach” and “technique of recording daily experiences”. He was endowed with the particular ability to address discussions in the US and in Europe so as to bridge the gaps between European and US private international law, thus bringing the highly divided US and European legal systems closer together. The second theme is linked to the integrated thinking of Ehrenzweig which shaped his theories in the area of conflict of laws. Indeed, Ehrenzweig was also famous tort lawyer, where he demonstrated out-of-the-box thinking, also characteristic of his way of conducting legal research. Illustrating this talent, most prominently, is his publication on “a proper law in a proper forum” (“jurisdictional approach”).

In the third article, Andrew D. Bradt (University of California, Berkeley School of Law) delves into Ehrenzweig’s opinion and impact on the Restatement of the conflict of laws in the United States (Albert Ehrenzweig, Berkeley, et la question du Restatement des conflits de lois).

Like his fellow realists, Ehrenzweig eschewed metaphysical dogma, viewing choice of law in a more “pluralistic” way, as a matter for the law of the forum, so that applying a different state’s law to a case is less a choice of foreign law than an expression of forum law and policy. In this respect, his campaign against Restatements of choice of law voices concerns that remain pertinent as the American Law Institute enters its second decade of its efforts to create a Third Restatement.

The fourth article, authored by Chris Thomale (University of Vienna), investigates Ehrenzweig’s legal scholarship approach, with a focus on the treatment of moral data (Datum et Substance – L’approche des données morales d’Albert Ehrenzweig).

The changing, almost fluid nature of Ehrenzweig’s legal scholarship between three modalities of claims about the law has opened up his work to much undeserved criticism, which calls for a new and instructive look at the very epistemological substance of his findings. Moreover, the contemporary re-politization of private law could also be a call for its re-moralization, raising exactly the same moral data questions that were on Ehrenzweig’s mind. In this respect, too, Ehrenzweig’s moral data approach offers a helpful heuristic to describe and understand these developments.

In the fifth article, Jeremy Heymann (University of jean Moulin Lyon 3) reflects on Ehrenzweig’s doctrinal legacy and its relevance for the development of EU private international law (La doctrine d’Ehrenzweig. Une pensée en héritage pour le droit international privé européen)

All too often reduced by his detractors, at least over the European side of the Atlantic, to his plea for the « proper law of the forum » – and all too often misread –, Ehrenzweig’s thinking calls to be reconsidered. His very distinctive unilateralist approach to the conflict of laws is well in tune with the method posited, in numerous judgments, by the Court of Justice of the European Union and more generally by the EU legislator.

Finally, in the sixth contribution, David Messner-Kreuzbauer (University of Graz) explores the substantive (tort) law approach in Ehrenzweig’s work, tracing its influence from Vienna to the US academia (L’argument de l’«évolution substantielle» en tant qu’héritage du droit international privé d’Albert Armin Ehrenzweig. Continuités de Vienne à Berkeley).

Albert Armin Ehrenzweig has been portrayed as a “European Legal Realist”, and is remembered for the fact-oriented data approach as well as a preference for the lex fori. This article presents a slightly different Ehrenzweig: a Viennese judge and academic who went to the United States formed by strong ideas about substantive (tort) law, by the jurisprudence of interests and with a keen sense for moral psychology. His thoughts may have great value in navigating a contemporary task: bringing together contemporary private international law with the evolution of substantive (tort) law in recent decades

These contributions will also be available in English.

The full table of contents is available here.