The Unification Of Choice-of-law Rules In Matters Of The Property Consequences Of Registered Partnerships In The European Union

Recently,the European Union Council adopted COUNCIL REGULATION(EU)2016/1104 of 24 June 2016 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of jurisdiction,applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matter of the property consequences of registered partnerships(hereinafter(EU)2016/1104 Regulation).This EU document coordinated and unified EU member states' international private jurisdiction,applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions on the property consequences of registered partnership,not only reflecting the characterization and popularization of such disputes within EU,but also foreshadowing to other countries and regions the spread and development of this phenomenon.Although most of the world's states,including China,have not yet enacted any substantive law on registered partnership and property consequences matters under it,their courts will inevitably face such f cases in their trial practice because of the openness and pervasiveness of international interaction.Therefore,this thesis attempts to take the(EU)2016/1104 Regulation as an example and study its' choice-of-law rules in property consequence matters of foreign registered partnership,aimed at providing helpful suggestions for the Chinese people's courts to decide the applicable law in same or similar cases.This thesis is divided into the following four parts.The first part introduces the research background,research significance,research status at home and abroad,research content,research methods and innovations of this thesis.The second part focuses on the causes and representations of conflicts of laws on property consequences matters of registered partnership and the theoretical solutions thereof.The causes involves four aspects.Firstly,each member state enjoys the independent judicial sovereignty.Secondly,a large number of registered partnerships have been formed between natural persons from different countries.Thirdly,there are differences in the law rules in such property consequences matters between EU member states.Fourthly,in order to achieve the goal of European's integration,a member states needs to recognize the validity of other member states' domestic laws on such matters in their own regions to some degree.Then the thesis summarizes the representations of conflicts of substantive law and conflicts of conflict law.To solve the conflict of laws in this field theoretically,there are “unified substantive law” way and “unified conflict law” way for EU to choose from.Furtherly,there are "supranational law" way,"international law" way and "domestic law" way to achieve unity.As result,the European Union Council chose "supranational law" way and adopted(EU)2016/1104 Regulation.The third part mainly studys the unification of the choice-of-law rules in property consequences matters of registered partnership under(EU)2016/1104 Regulation.including its background,applicable scope and effect,choice-of-law rules and the principles reflected.This regulation provides three-layer choice-of-law rules.The first layer is overriding mandatory provisions,the second is the law chosen by parties and the last layer is the law which belongs to the nation according to whose law the parties established their registered partnership.These rules reflects the principles of limited party autonomy,universal application and unity of the applicable law,and protecting the third party in good faith.The fourth part sets forth the beneficial enlightenments it provides for People's Courts to determine the applicable law for such matters in the future: firstly,its necessary to determine applicable law for property consequence matters of foreign registered partnership.Considering that China has not enacted specific choice-of-law rules,the courts can flexibly identify such matters,including classifying “registered partnership” into “marriage”,interpreting “marriage” broadly in International Private law,embedding the theory of contractual relationship,looking for the largest common between the facts of a case and the existing choice-of-law rules,or apply the principle of “the closest connection”.Once a foreign law is decided to be applied,“public order reservation” should be applied cautiously.