The Arrival of International Private Law

International organizations are creating a substantive international private law, which is quite different from what has been known as "private international law," that is, conflicts-of-law doctrines. This international private law covers not only commercial and contract doctrines but also trusts and estates, family law, arbitration, and civil procedure. The differences between creating global private law or creating regional private law primarily concern questions of present tactics. The more crucial difference is among strategies that involve substantive international private law, international choice-of-law rules, and merchant law (lex mercatoria). Each of these strategies is being pursued, and each has its supporters. The use of substantive international private law involves a high-risk, high-reward strategy. Effective international choice-of-law rules requires finding, reading, and reaching a common interpretation and understanding. Lex mercatoria, on the other hand, can be derived from several sources and therefore has built-in ambiguities.