Determination of Applicable Law on Non-Contractual Obligations in Rome II Regulation within European Union

Determination of applicable law on non-contractual obligations for the first time has officially been approved in the framework of Rome II Regulation by the Council of Ministers and European Union Parliament. The Regulation unifies and equalizes the law of the European Union on the issue of noncontractual obligations among the member States (with the exception of Denmark). The purpose of this regulation is to assist the member States’ courts in making decision regarding the applicable law to non-contractual obligations in an international dispute. Rome II Regulation is applied to noncontractual obligations resulting from civil and commercial matters. Under this Regulation, the first applicable rule to non-contractual obligations arising out of civil liability is the law of the country where the damage occurred. Besides this rule, Rome II regulation has referred to special rules for application to some claims including product liability, unfair competition and restricting measures of free trade, environmental damages, breach of intellectual property and industrial disputes. In the framework of this article the most important features of Rome II Regulation will be reviewed as a set of unified law of conflict of legal rules applicable to non-contractual disputes within the European Union.