Part 1 General and Special Reports, 2 The Story of Party Autonomy

Abstract

This chapter discusses the principle of party autonomy. The term ‘party autonomy’ as used in this book is a shorthand expression for the notion that parties to a multistate contract should be allowed, within certain parameters and limitations, to agree in advance on which law will govern the contract. This notion is now considered a universal principle of private international law (PIL) or conflicts law. In 2015, the year in which the Hague Conference on Private International Law adopted the Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts, only eleven of the 161 countries surveyed did not adhere to this principle. It has been characterized as ‘perhaps the most widely accepted private international rule of our time’, a ‘fundamental right’, and an ‘irresistible’ principle that belongs to ‘the common core’ of nearly all legal systems. Naturally, there are significant variations from one legal system to the next about not only the exact scope, modalities, parameters, and limitations of this principle, but also about its theoretical source and justification. The chapter then traces the historical origins and subsequent evolution of the basic principle.