The Conflict of Personal Laws, Part II
The characteristic function of private international law is to declare the law applying to cases containing a foreign element, by pointing out the general principles upon which all the legislation on the matter is based and developed. The function of such principles is to help to specify the law considered appropriate in individual cases. Private international law knows several such principles such as domicile, nationality, the will of the parties, the place where a contract is concluded or where an immovable is situated, etc.Conflict of personal laws is also based on connecting principles, although of a different character. The main connecting principle is the ethnic or religious association of the parties. Nationality or domicile of the parties, the two connecting principles on which the main systems of private international law are based, may not be resorted to in the conflict of personal laws. Nationality may be taken as a basis for deciding which is the most appropriate law to be applied to the relationships between nationals of different States, but not for deciding which law is to be applied to parties who, being members of different legal systems, are nevertheless all nationals of the same State. As to domicile, it may help to solve a similar problem arising between persons domiciled in different countries or between persons domiciled in different parts of the same country within which different territorial laws are in force; but it can serve no useful purpose in relation to nationals of the same State to whom different laws apply by reason of their ethnic or religious origin and who live scattered throughout the whole of the territory of the State.