Il trattamento processuale delle norme sui conflitti di leggi dell'Unione europea

The enquiry focuses on the issues that arise when applying the rules on the conflict of laws adopted by the EU in the context of Italian civil procedure. Initially, we describe, on one hand, which peculiarities characterize civil procedure as a context in which rules are applied. On the other hand, we examine how EU law guides the interpretation of Member States’ domestic rules and, among them, of procedural rules. Thus, we set the existence of a duty to apply the rules of civil procedure in light of the effet utile assigned to EU conflict-of-laws rules whenever the latter are evoked in the judicial context. Moving on, the research focuses on the legal instruments adopted by the EU in the filed of private international law, inferring the common legal principles that are therein enshrined and with which we are able to elaborate a general system of EU’s private international law. The focus, then, shifts on the core of the research, retracing the dynamics which govern the application the conflict-of-laws rule in the context of the Italian civil procedure, beginning with its introduction in the procedural debate and ending with the extension of the power of the Supreme Court of Cassation to review the interpretation of the conflict-of-laws provision adopted by the inferior judge. Here, we provide a solution to each of the issues described when the conflict-of-laws rules applied by the judge belong to the EU legal system. Lastly, we elaborate a method in order to identify a solution, in the interpretation of the afore-mentioned rules, that reduces the friction between EU private international law and domestic procedural law, distinguishing on whether or not the domestic procedural rule allows for at least an interpretation that is consistent with EU private international law