Party Autonomy in International Property Law - Peace Palace Library

D. Assignment; Financial Instruments; Insolvency Law
who think that Article 14 in its present version does not apply to third
parties in the first place. 9 Indeed, there is no hope of them finding their
preference codified in the present version, whereas other solutions – the
law of the underlying transaction between assignor and assignee or the law
of the assigned claim – can be accommodated in the present text. 10 Therefore,
under cover of a discussion on the scope of Article 14, there may in
fact rage a dispute concerning whether this or that conflict rule would be
the appropriate substantive policy for the third-party issue. It seems helpful
in this situation to take a step back by asking how the opposing views as
to the scope of Article 14 fit in with accepted standards of interpretation
of European Community and Union law.
10.2. Statutory interpretation of European Law
The legislative output under the European treaties has the character of
statutes. It is therefore basically recognised that the usual methods of
statutory interpretation can be employed here, particularly to regulations
on matters of private law, as these regulate directly the rights and duties
of the citizens and often replace existing Member State law, such as the
Rome I Regulation does. The four classical roads on which to establish
the meaning of a statutory rule are: first, to ask what the text, the wording
of the rule, actually says; second, to ask what the legislator meant to say,
judging from the legislative history of the rule; third, to determine how the
rule best fits with existing or even prospective neighbouring law: in other
words, whether it fosters or disturbs the coherence of the legal system; and
fourth, to assess what the rule is to achieve: namely, its purpose. 11 The
European Court of Justice has repeatedly, and quite recently, expressly af-
9
Sigman / ​Kieninger (note 5) 51; Bauer (note 5) 283-293.
10
See Flessner (note 6) 39.
11
See in detail Arnull, The European Union and its Court of Justice, 2d ed.,
Oxford 2006, p. 607-620; Weatherill / ​Beaumont, EU Law, 3d ed., London 1999,
p. 184-192; Waelbroeck, in: Commentaire Mégret, Le droit de la communauté
économique, 2ème éd., Bruxelles 1993, vol. 10, Article 164 nr. 10-23;
Riesenhuber, Europäische Methodenlehre, 2. Aufl., Berlin 2010, §§ 1 and 11;
Henninger, Europäisches Privatrecht und Methode, Tübingen, p. 264-322;
Langenbucher, Europarechtliche Methodenlehre, in: Langenbucher (ed.),
Europarechtliche Bezüge des Privatrechts, 2. Aufl., Baden-Baden 2008, § 1;
Vogenauer, Die Auslegung von Gesetzen in England und auf dem Kontinent,
Tübingen 2002, p. 344-429; Kropholler, Die Auslegung von EG-Verordnungen
210
Axel Flessner
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