New Spanish Open-Access Book on Private International Family Law

The author of this post is  Javier Carrascosa González who is a Professor of Private International Law at the University of Murcia.

A new book under the title “Libre circulación de personas y libre circulación de las familias: análisis de derecho internacional privado” (“Free movement of persons and free movement of families: analysis of private international law”, written by Isabel Lorente Martínez, who is a senior lecturer in private international law at the University of Almería) has been published by Atelier publishing house, Spain, 2026. The full text of the book can be accessed here.

This book is set to become, in a very short period of time, one of the classic reference works in academic literature on European private international law in the 21st century. As a matter of fact, this book marks both an end and a beginning at the same time. Firstly, it represents the end of a narrow and restrictive stance taken by the CJEU by viewing private international law merely as one of many tools serving the free movement of persons. However, it also marks the beginning of a new era in which private international law is, precisely, the only tool that guarantees the free movement of persons within the EU.

To achieve free movement of persons, European private international law is full of resources: the mutual recognition of legal situations relating to individuals and families, free circulation of judgments between the member States, and conflict-of-laws rules aimed at applying the law of the individual’s country of origin. Consequently, the private international law has become the essential instrument for achieving the fundamental right of free movement and residence of “every citizen of the Union” within the territory of the Member States, in accordance with Article 21 TFEU.

Lorente Martínez offers a rigorous analysis of the subject. The book takes its starting point from the classic statement by the great French legal scholar Antoine Pillet that it would be totally unreasonable for a person considered ‘married’ in one country to become ‘single’ simply by crossing a border. The work examines the role of private international law in preventing such discontinuity in the recognition of foreign private law situations. Her analysis is structured around the different ways in which those legal situations concerning individuals may arise: situations not yet created, situations arising ope legis (by full operation of law), situations established through judicial decisions and finally, hybrid-decision taken by non-judicial authorities such as marriage or birth certificates.

This classification enables the author to distinguish the main techniques designed to ensure their cross-border continuity: conflict-of-laws rules, the recognition and enforcement of judicial decisions, and the naked mutual recognition principle. Rather than presenting these mechanisms as interchangeable manifestations of a general “principle of recognition”, the book explains the specific function of each one of those.

Not only does this study encompass an analysis extending to EU private international law, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Spanish system of private international law, but the book pays particular attention to the impact of the right to respect for private and family life on the movement of personal and family situations within the European Union.

A central part of the book is devoted to the case-law rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union. According to the author, the Court has progressively linked European citizenship and freedom of movement with the cross-border continuity of those personal and family situations created in an EU Member State. The most recent manifestation of this development is the judgment in Cupriak-Trojan, C-713/23, which was discussed in an online symposium on this blog that can be read here.

The book provides a systematic account of the aforementioned transformation. Its main contribution lies in demonstrating that the free movement of persons does not depend solely on the removal of migration barriers, but also on the possibility for their family relationships and legal status to cross borders alongside them.