LECTURE OF PROFESSOR SLAVKO ĐORĐEVIĆ “ADAPTATION, TRANSPOSITION AND SUBSTITUTION IN PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW”

On 5th October 2012, Dr. Hans van Loon, then Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, officially opened the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions, during the 10th jubilee International Conference on Private International Law (held on 4-5 October 2012 at the Faculty of Law University of Niš). The Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions is located on the premises of the Law Faculty in Niš.

ABOUT THE CENTER	ABOUT THE HAGUE CONVENTIONS ON PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW	VISION AND MISSION	ACTUALITIES	CONTACT	PHOTO GALLERY
		Hague Conference on Private International Law

On Monday, 28 April 2014, the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions at the Faculty of Law in Niš organized a lecture on the topic “Adaptation, Transposition and Substitution in Private International Law”. Upon the invitation of Prof. Mirko Živković, the lecture was given by dr.iur.sci. Slavko Đorđević, Assistant Professor of the Law Faculty in Kragujevac and a member of the Working Group assembled by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia to draft a new Private International Law Act. Adaptation, transposition and substation as the legal institutes have not been subject to extensive scientific consideration in the domestic Private International Law doctrine and they are largely considered to be terra incognita for Serbian legal practitioners. For these reasons, it has been a real pleasure to hear some new ideas presented by Professor Đorđević, who has devoted a significant part of his academic career to exploring these issues. As a matter of fact, these three legal institutes (in author’s opinion) were the subject matter of his doctoral thesis, defended in 2010 at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade (under the mentorship of Professor Gašo Knežević).

In the presentation, Professor Slavko Đorđević first pointed out the historical development of these institutes, thereupon referring to the practical problems which may be resolved by their application and providing specific and interesting examples thereof. As opposed to the prevailing standpoints in the domestic Private International Law doctrine and the views of some scholars in the international literature, Professor Đorđević believes that each of these legal institutes has distinctive features.

Professor Slavko Đorđević also explained that the cumulative application of different laws to the same legal relationship (or its various aspects) can occur not only due to different conflict rules governing the legal relation but also on the basis of the international jurisdiction rules.

At the end of his lecture, Professor Đorđević presented original ideas for resolving these issues in practice. In fact, Serbian judges are not explicitly authorized by legislator to modify the conflict rules or make new substantive law rules in order to rectify the contradictory or unfair result arising from the application of different laws. However, despite the lack of an explicit legal provision, Professor Đorđević asserts that such authority generally stems from the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, as it is based on the rule of law principle (Article 3 of the Constitution), the principle of equality (Article 21 of the Constitution) and the principle of direct applicability of the norms on human and minority rights (Article 18 of the Constitution).

By courtesy of Professor Slavko Đorđević, the PowerPoint presentation of his lecture may be downloaded here.