EAPIL Winter School – Highlights from the Webinar Ahead of the 2026 Edition
The third edition of the EAPIL Winter School will take place in Como between 2 and 6 February 2026. The upcoming edition’s general topic is Values in Private International Law.
Day 1 will be about the protection of weaker contractual parties. The concerns surrounding torts will be dealt with in Day 2. Day 3, on “vulnerable people”, will address the current challenges the arise in relation with children and with adults who are unable to protect their interests. Day 4 will revolve around the relationships between the values underlying EU texts and those inspiring developments in other regions and worldwide. On Day 5 the focus will shift to a selection of specific fields, such as poverty, and issues at the crossroads of business and human rights.
Registrations are open until 20 January 2026. Detailed information about the program, the registration process and the fees can be found here.
For further inquiries: eapilws@gmail.com.
The Seminar: A Report
Silvia Marino, the Coordinator of the School, made a general presentation of the initiative.
Gilles Cuniberti (Methods in Private International Law: Protecting People and Values) introduced a provocative scene, where the traditional neutrality of private international law will be confronted with the more recent trends of colouring it with new values.
Javier Carrascosa González and Maria Asunción Cebrian Salvat (Consumer) distinguished between ‘traditional’ consumer contracts and ‘new consumers’, including so-called ‘professional consumers’, that represents a challenge to the traditional protective approach.
For Erik Sinander (Worker and Collective Rights) the differences in national laws question the potential role of private international law in the fragmentation and on its methods and advanced possible litigation strategies in industrial actions, where the harm is not accidental, but on purpose.
Anna Wysocka-Bar (Passenger) recalled the high number of legal acts regulating the right of the passengers, and their diverse natures, the consequential difficulties in coordination and in the identification of the role of the Rome I regulation.
Thomas Kadner Graziano (Torts Victims as Vulnerable Parties? and Product Liability) spoke about the protection of the victims of torts. Challenging the interpretation of the Court of Justice of the European Union of Article 7 point 2 of the Brussels I bis regulation, in personality rights the identification of the person and the right to be protected is not immediate, thus weakening the traditional views of tortfeasors and victims. Under the products liability, he disclosed the discussion of real cases related to the role of consumer protection in Article 7 point 2 of the regulation.
Eva-Maria Kieninger (Environmental Claims) shed some light on the importance of choice of law in environmental claims due to the different liability (strict of by fault) that can be envisaged in national legislations and announced a discussion on the current practice in climate change litigation.
Cristina González Beilfuss (Vulnerable Adults) previewed a discussion of the EU proposals on the protection of vulnerable adults, in the light of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities triggering a favourable approach to voluntary measures.
Sara De Vido (Women) proposed a critical conversation on private international law categories, making use of feminist and gender theories to imbalance the person. Discussing the very same term woman, she faces cross-border cases on violence.
For Laura Carpaneto (Children and Parenthood) the developing concept of parentage/parenthood/filiation questions its very foundations, starting from the principle that identity of the mother of a child is always certain. In the reproductive market, the risk of commodification of children is real.
Javier Carrascosa González (Mothers and Children in Surrogacy) followed this path, stressing that the legal protection that private international law shall offer mechanisms to prevent children from being treated as objects and the exploitation and deception of the women involved.
Hans van Loon (The EU in the HCCH) opened the presentation of Day 4, illustrating the main features of the impact of the EU private international law in the HCCH Conventions. After the accession of other non-European countries, more synergy and complementarity between global and regional are needed.
In a similar vein, Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (The EU and Third Countries) focussed on the conceptualisation of private international law in other regions, such as South America and Asia. The connections must be global and regional, so that the values discussed in other regional system can develop a global private international law shape.
A common point can be the legal treatment of immigrants and the quest for integration. Hans van Loon and Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (Migrants and Integration) distinguished different kind of immigration, asylum seekers and refugees, protected by international conventions, and labours migrants, in need of a different system of protection.
Recalling the fundamental values enshrined in Article 2 TEU, Johan Meeusen (Minorities: Equality through Private International Law) stressed the significance of equality for conflict of laws in a broad sense. In the lecture, he aims to analyse the inclusion of minority groups through adequate private international law instruments.
Geert van Calster (Business and Human Rights) discussed forum shopping and applicable law as a clear help in business and human rights litigation, as the recent English judgment in Municipio shows. At the same time, jurisdictional battles bleed claimants in human rights cases of scarce resources when they cannot have their claim funded.
Stefano Dominelli (The Right of Nature) showed new frontiers, related to the attribution to legal personality to the nature, or to some parts of it. The potential recognition of a legal status imposes original solutions in the cross-border protection of the environment, that can lead to extraterritoriality.
Finally, Cristina González Beilfuss showed a macro perspective to the topic of Poverty in Private International Law. She left us three questions for future discussion: whether the theme is present in the private international law-related aspects reflections; whether conflict of laws can fight poverties, for example with measures in cooperation with authorities; whether it is partly responsible for inequality and poverty.
— Attendees and lecturers of the second edition.
Still Unsure whether to Attend? See What a Past Attendee Thinks of His Experience!
Paul Lorenz Eichmüller, who took part in the 2025 edition, speaks of the EAPIL Winter School as an opportunity to meet an “enormous variety of speakers with their diverse expertise”, and “devote fully to private international law for an entire week”.
This is, he adds, an “experience which I can definitely recommend to everyone who wants to take their private international la skills to the next level”.
— Paul Lorenz Eichmüller and Fabian Pollitzer on the shores of Lake Como