Troubles with Conflict of Law Rules - Qualification and Renvoi from the Point of View of the New Czech Act on Private International Law

The new Czech Act on Private International Law, adopted under No. 91/2012 Coll., entered into force on 1 January 2014. Contrary to the old Act on Private International Law (Act No. 97/1963 Coll.), the new law contains regulation of many general issues of private international law, which have not been covered by the former Act. For example, the new PIL Act contains express provisions on overriding mandatory rules, preliminary question, qualification, application of foreign law etc. Obviously, the application of the new PIL Act is limited by the European (EU) legislation and international conventions. This paper is focused on analysis of two problems connected with the application of the conflict- of-law rules: characterization (or qualification) and renvoi. Both questions are considered to be the classic problems of private international law. In this paper, the new Czech regulation of characterization (§ 20) and renvoi (§ 21) is analyzed. According to the author, the characterization is primarily a matter of method, and not only the rare case of conflicts of characterization. The central issue of this paper is how the new PIL Act follows the doctrinal development, how is the purpose of characterization and renvoi reflected in the Czech legal theory; and also how to use these provisions in specific conflict cases.