重回冲突法确定性?--美国《冲突法重述(第三版)》草案初探

Return to the Certainty of Conflicts Law?--Comments on the Draft Restatement(Third)of Conflict of Laws

美国法学会2014年启动了《冲突法重述(第三版)》的编撰项目,迄今数章的草案已然成型。新版本的编撰以基于柯里教授"法律适用意愿分析说"的"两步分析模式"为指导,主要旨在系统提炼"冲突法革命"以来司法实践锤炼成型的新规则。相对于《冲突法重述(第二版)》中的法律选择规则,新规则细分不同争点,更加具体而微;具体规则后不再普遍带有例外条款,以凸显规则的确定性;法律选择的目的定位为找寻"最适当的法律",而非"最重要联系"的法域。但是,新版本为法官摆脱具体规则的束缚主要提供了两条通道,一般例外条款和法律选择方法,旨在增加法律选择规则的适当灵活性和实现个案公平。新版本是否找到了冲突法确定性和灵活性的"黄金分割点",尚有待最终定稿及其司法实践揭晓答案。

The American Law Institute initiated drafting of the Restatement(Third)of Conflict of Laws in 2014.The drafts of several chapters have been approved until now.The new restatement adopts the“two-step model”based on the Professor Currie’s“governmental interest analysis”and mainly aims to systemically generalize the new rules developed in judicial practices since the beginning of conflicts“revolution”.In contrast to the choice-of-law rules of the Restatement(Second)of Conflict of Laws,the new rules differentiate issues and become more concrete and particular;the escape clause no longer frequently follows the specific rules in order to enhance the certainty;the choice of law endeavors to select the most appropriate law rather the state with which the dispute has the most significant relationship.However,the new restatement provides at least two approaches for users to depart from the specific choice-of-law rules.One is the general escape clause.The other is the choice-of-law model.The two approaches inject some flexibility to specific rules and help courts to achieve individual justice.If the new restatement obtains the“golden mean”between certainty and flexibility,the answer will appear in the final draft and its practices.