As the deadline set by SDG 8 to eradicate forced labor by 2025 approaches, various community proposals aimed at combating slavery both within and beyond the community borders are emerging. The proposal for a Regulation on products made with forced labor, currently under legislative process, will serve as the starting point for reviewing the objective set by Ursula Von der Leyen of not allowing the trade of manufactured products originating from forced labor in the European market. This is not a regulation that can be analyzed independently, so the review of the proposal will require us to consider other norms that the EU is implementing in its fight against slavery, especially those related to due diligence, which are being processed in parallel to the text under analysis. While there are advantages to this approach, it does not hide the difficulties involved in such a comprehensive undertaking as proposed by the EU legislator.
This article analyzes the recent principles on digital assets that have been developed under the auspices of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, UNIDROIT (2023). The objective of the UNIDROIT Principles on Digital Assets is to provide both national and international relations with soft law standards that can facilitate transactions in digital assets, particularly if States decide to introduce laws into their legal systems that are consistent with the UNIDROIT Principles. Given that academics from different legal cultures have collaborated in the project that gave rise to the UNIDROIT Principles, as well as experts from different international organizations as observers, a study of the legal content of the UNIDROIT Principles is highly relevant.
a recent media case in Spain has revealed a new context of surrogacy with two new variables: on the one hand, reproductive material from a family member is used; on the other hand, that family member has died. In this context, the validity of the mortis causa provision of donation of reproductive material for these cases, the conclusion of the surrogacy contract, and the eventual establishment of the parenthood with the deceased biological father, as well as with the intentional parties, are analysed.
The Spanish legal system lacks a true system of interregional law. The dispersion of the conflict rule, especially as a result of the irruption of European rules, has transformed the internal structure of our system of private international law, based on the principle of unity of solutions. This fragmentation of sources is precisely what causes the effectiveness of the arbitrated solution to resolve conflicts of laws, generating uncertainty and a lack of predictability, both of which are further increased by the significant growth of the plurality of internal rules. The Spanish conflict system must therefore be reformed in order to, abandoning the pretension of establishing a unitary or common system for all categories of conflicts of laws, by applying the criteria used in private international law to internal conflicts of laws, reinforce the advantages and resolve the problems of the civil abode as the keystone of the system.
Much has been discussed about Private International Law's (PIL) conflict revolution, the intellectual movement that challenged some of the fundamental principles of the discipline. Far less attention had been paid to PIL's revolutionary potential: its ability to bring about change in the world. In recent times, scholars have increasingly been exploring how PIL can contribute to addressing pressing issues of our times, from environmental crisis to human rights violations. Yet, a crucial question remains unanswered: can PIL truly drive change? In this article, I aim to answer this question. I summarize some of the most recent 'crisis-solving' proposals within PIL and identify their common features. I assess how these proposals interact with PIL's key features: technical language, focus on differences, private nature, and market orientation. I show that these proposals not only come into direct conflict with PIL's key features but also that their potential to produce change is inherently limited by them. I conclude that no meaningful change (or 'revolution') can be achieved through PIL until PIL's fundamental assumptions are revisited too.
