Research in international private law

Our staff offers expertise in all areas of international private law, also known as private international law or the conflict of laws.

In providing rules to govern personal and business relationships which have a foreign element, international private law is an increasingly significant area of law. Important subjects include:

• Jurisdiction - which court has authority to hear a case?
• Choice of law - which law should a court seek to apply to a cross-border legal problem?
• Judgment enforcement - the extent to which any legal system will recognise and give effect to the decrees of a foreign system.

Increasingly IPL operates on a harmonised European or global basis, and these subjects are of immense practical importance today, both in the cross-border family law sphere (e.g. marriage, divorce, parental responsibility matters, international child abduction, cross-border adoption, cross-border surrogacy etc) and cross-border commercial law sphere (e.g. problems of civil and commercial jurisdiction, contract, personal injury, insolvency, property and succession matters, and foreign judgment enforcement).

Professor Carruthers welcomes enquiries about collaborative research projects in any aspect of international private law, as well as from prospective research students.