For Students
In its choice of the applicable law, the court that exercises jurisdiction determines which law to apply to a case that involves foreign parties, foreign transactions, or a number of foreign elements. In a simple world, the court would always apply its own law, the law of the forum (known in Latin as the lex fori). Indeed, some modern methodologies, particularly in the United States, favour the lex fori approach. Classic theories of conflicts law were territorially oriented. The German jurist and legal scholar Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779–1861) sought to identify the law where, “according to its nature,” the ...(100 of 7294 words)