The codification of private international law in Europe - could the Community learn from the experience of mixed jurisdictions

‘The approximation of civil law and common law in Europe is no longer a “project of the future” but very much an enterprise of the present’. Against this background, choosing to focus on European private international law issues within a conference on mixed jurisdictions could seem surprising in the light of the efforts underway to create a new European ius commune. Indeed the harmonisation of private law in Europe is presented by its proponents as a way of abolishing (albeit within a purely European context) private international law which, given the latter’s ‘inadequacies’, is deemed to be insufficient for fostering the internal market. It is not the aim of this article to enter into the debate on the merits of this argument. Nevertheless whether or not it would be in fact beneficial to do away with private international law in Europe, one has to recognise that the unification of substantive law is progressively going ahead – could this