The international conference focused on the different rules of private international law on conflict of laws of the EU Member States

On 4 and 5 April, the third International Conference on Rights in Rem Private International Law in the European Union was held in the Board Room of the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the Rovira i Virgili University. Conflict rules on rights in rem in the EU: status quo and proposals for the future, led by the Associate Professor of Private International Law, Maria Font i Mas, from the Department of Private, Procedural and Financial Law of the URV.

In these closing days of the project “Regime of rights in rem over tangible property in European private international law: issues of international jurisdiction and applicable law”, the research presented focused on the different rules of private international law on conflict of laws of the EU Member States, as there is no conflict rule regulated at the European level.

The widespread use of the lex rei sitae in a comparative landscape does not satisfy the wide variety of rights in rem in cross-border relationships or with an element of internationality over immovable property, movable property that may be in transit or depending on the type of goods (means of transport) or security rights; to which are added the real rights over cryptocurrencies or digital goods. In the different roundtables, alternative proposals to the lex situs in a future proposal for a European Regulation were discussed, as well as the applicability of peremptory norms and mobile conflict, among others.

The papers were presented by European internationalists of recognized prestige such as F. Garcimartín of the Grupe européen de droit International privé (GEDIP); E.-M. Kieninger, G. Cuniberti, A. Patrao, I. Heredia, J. Carruthers and Jonathan Schenk, from the Working Gourp on International Property Law of the EAPIL (European Association of Private International Law);  other invited scholars such as G. Palao Moreno, M. Pertegás Sender, A. Font i Segura, N. Magallón Elósegui, R. Miquel Sala, B. Añoveros Terradas, S. Ferrazzi, B. Van Houtet, B.S. Jiménez-Gómez. Members of the research team of the project of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (ref. PID2020-112609GB-I00) Ch.A. Whytock, P. Franzina, I. Kunda, I. Pretelli, J.M. Fontanellas i Morell, C. Parra Rodríguez, C. González Beilfuss, D. Marín Consarnau, Ángel Serrano de Nicolás, V. Andreeva and S. Canales Gutiérrez.

The conference could be followed online in hybrid mode, to which professional jurists and academics from different Spanish, European and Latin American universities registered.