The Applicable Law in Tort - Chapter 4 - EU-PIL: European Union Private International Law in Contract and Tort

Joseph Lookofsky is the Professor of Obligations and Private International Law at the University of Copenhagen. He is a native of New York, USA, where he began his professional career as in-house legal counsel for United Artists Corporation. He went to Denmark in 1973, studied Danish law, and joined the University Law Faculty in 1981. Professor Lookofsky has taught at Duke University Law School and has been a Visiting Scholar at New York University School of Law.

Ketilbjørn Hertz is Legal Advisor with the Ministry of Justice, Denmark. He received degrees from the University of Copenhagen, cand.jur. in 1993 and Ph.D. in law in 1998. In 2007 he completed the Cycle international court at the Ecole nationale d' administration in Strasbourg, France.

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Originally from EU-PIL: European Union Private International Law in Contract and Tort

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4.1. Introduction
If a party takes steps to commence civil litigation in a non-contractual matter, a two-step process similar to that in inter-national contractual disputes is likely to be involved. First, the court must determine whether it has jurisdiction to adjudicate (Ch. 2). Then, assuming the court is competent, it must choose the substantive law to be applied in the dispute (see as regards contractual matters Ch. 3). This chapter is devoted to the choice of law in non-contractual (tort) matters and in particular the Rome II Regulation which sets forth an EU-wide regime for the choice of law in such disputes.

4.1.1. From National Law to the Rome II Regulation
National rules
In Europe, the law applicable to tort (delictual) conflicts has traditionally been determined by national choice-of-law rules. In some European States, these national choice-of-law rules have been judge-made. In other jurisdictions, the applicable conflicts rules have been laid down by statute.