IMPORTANCE OF FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN A CONFLICTS CASE - 26 PJP 21

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    1. RECOMMENDED CITATION: DELA PEÑA, Mark Angelo S. (2024), “Importance of Foreign Elements in a Conflicts Case,” 26 PJP 21, available at <insert link> (last accessed on <date>).
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    Citing Salonga, the Supreme Court has said that the presence of a foreign element is inevitable since social and economic affairs of individuals and associations are rarely confined to the geographic limits of their birth or conception.[1] Without a foreign element, conflict of laws rules will not apply and municipal laws that point to the application of foreign laws becomes irrelevant.

    In a manner of speaking, a foreign element is a rare virus that infects the case and a case that suffers from a foreign element requires different surgical techniques not normally used in typical cases. When a court is confronted with a case with a foreign element – a conflicts case, it rummages in its old tomes for ancient techniques and olden tools peculiar to day-to-day litigation because the foreign element illness can only be cured by antidotes with bizarre names such as lex nationalii, lex domicilii, lex loci celebrationis, lex rei sitae, lex contractus, lex solutionis, lex voluntatis, lex loci delicti commissi, and many more.

    Of course, the court is not precluded from adopting modern methods hailing from foreign land such as the doctrine of center of gravity and the doctrine of the state of the most significant relationship, among others.

    [1] SALONGA, Private International Law (1995 Edition), Page 3.