Party Autonomy in International Property Law - Peace Palace Library

A. General Aspects of Party Autonomy
There are several reasons that the lex situs rule is undisputed and universally
accepted. First of all, the place where the goods are situated is a very
obvious connecting factor for determining which proprietary rights law is
applicable. In addition, the link with the law of the place where the goods
are situated serves the interest of facilitating international private law
transactions, since third parties should be able to rely on the assumption
that goods situated in a country are governed by the law of that country,
among other things because proprietary rights law systems typically form
a closed system (numerus clausus). Furthermore, universal applicability of
the lex situs rule makes for harmonised decisions – which in German law
is called Entscheidungseinklang – and thus also for legal certainty. 10
The principle of party autonomy is at odds with these proprietary rights
principles. This is expressed very clearly once again, for example, in the
Outline Edition of the Draft Common Frame of Reference, published in
2009 by the Study Group on a European Civil Code and the Research
Group on EC Private Law:
‘The principle of party autonomy has to be considerably modified in
property law. Because proprietary rights affect third parties generally,
the parties to a transaction are not free to create their own basic rules
as they wish. They cannot, for example, define for themselves basic
concepts like ‘possession’. Nor are they free to modify the basic rules
on how ownership can be acquired, transferred or lost.’ 11
het goederenrechtelijke regime met betrekking tot een zaak beheerst door het
recht van de staat op welks grondgebied de zaak zich bevindt.’).
10
See for example G.C. Venturini, Property, in: Kurt Lipstein & R. David a.o.
(eds.), International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (Volume III, Private
International Law, Chapter 21), Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1976;
Kurt Siehr, Internationales Sachenrecht. Rechtsvergleichendes zu seiner Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart und Zukunft, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft
(ZvglRWiss) 2005, p. 145-162.
11
Christian von Bar a.o. (eds.), Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European
Private Law. Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). Outline
Edition, München: Sellier. European law publishers 2009, Principle no. 14,
p. 70.
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Jeroen van der Weide
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