Party Autonomy in International Property Law - Peace Palace Library

6.
Party Autonomy in French and Belgian Law
The Interconnection between Substantive Property Law
and Private International Law
Vincent Sagaert *
6.1. Introduction
The issue of the scope of party autonomy within the field of property law is
one of the most challenging questions in property law. As is often the case
in life, the most challenging issues are also the most complicated ones.
This contribution is thus limited in its ambitions. It does not aim to be the
final word as to whether party autonomy is ‘a general principle of modern
property law’, as is proclaimed by some scholars: 1 this would require the
scope of a PhD thesis. 2 Nor will we deal with the legal-economic arguments
that are at stake. 3
We will stick to certain developments of the subject matter in French
and Belgian law, both in substantive law and in private international law
(hereafter: PIL). It is hoped that these developments might lead to further
research in the field of the interconnection between substantive law and
private international law in these legal systems.
*
Professor of Private Law, University of Leuven; Professor of Property Law,
University of Antwerp, Barrister at the Brussels Bar.
1
T.W. Merrill and H.E. Smith, The Property / ​Contract Interface, Yale L.J. 2000,
69.
2
See recently B. Akkermans, The principle of numerus clausus in European
private law, Antwerp, Intersentia, 2008, 657 p; T.H.D. Struycken, De numerus
clausus in het goederenrecht, Deventer, Kluwer, 2007, 870 p.
3
B. Depoorter, Fragmentation of Property: the law and economics of the anticommons,
Dissertation University of Ghent, Gent, 2003, 136.
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