Problems of the Applicable Law Determining in Intestate Succession Cases in Russia and Foreign Countries

The article refers to the issues of applicable law determination for intestate succession cases in Russia and is seeking for feasible solutions basing on foreign experience. The goal of the research consists in finding the ways to improve the Russian private international law in force. For the purpose, the authors have conducted a comparative analysis of the advantages and the disadvantages of the Russian and foreign legal acts containing intestate succession conflict of laws rules. The introduction focuses on the essence of the difficulties related to the unification of intestate succession legal regulation. The main part of the article outlines the imperfections of the Civil code of the Russian Federation, such as dépéçage of the conflict of laws rule and connecting factor of last residence that does not always allow to apply the law that is really connected to the hereditary relation. The following part provides the insights of the intestate succession conflict of laws regulation in the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Succession to the Estates of Deceased Persons concluded on August 1st, 1989 and in Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession. The conflict of laws regulation of these acts leads to the conclusion that the valid article 1224 of the Russian Civil code could be improved. For instance, the authors suggest to apply the closest connection principle and to implement the principle of the unity of the succession in Russian private international law