Religious values and conflict of laws : old problems and new perspectives

The wide evolution of private international law is currently recalling attention to the general aspects of the discipline. Europeanization and globalisation of sources of private international law do not preclude the chance that conflict of laws should also deal with individual identities. To the extent that the European systems have hitherto offered to the application of foreign laws, we are faced with the problem of survival in Europe of an idea of the personality of laws. In fact it’s generally accepted that conflict of laws faces the individual identities of people involved in international relations. Cultural identity may be considered collective and individual at the same time, because each member of the group has an identity of its own. Religious values contribute to defining the cultural identity of individuals: be it in Europe or other countries, cultures, values, civilization, religion, are never absent from the solutions of personal status.