Abstract
This article introduces a novel conceptual framework for reinterpreting the significance of the Inter-American Specialised Conference on Private International Law (CIDIP) and the history of private international law (PRIL) within the Organisation of American States (OAS). Blending institutional, historical and conceptual approaches, it draws from the concepts of social and spatial imaginaries to reflect on CIDIP’s legacy fifty years after its inception in Panama in 1975 and two hundred years after independence and the emergence of inter-Americanism. The article identifies three regional imaginaries underpinning the progressive development of inter-American PRIL: regionalism as constitutive of inclusive globalism; pluriversalism as convivencia; and institutional inclusivity as a means of driving the agenda forward. It situates the inquiry within the current moment of strategic disorientation in the international order, recognising that regional imaginaries are in flux. The analysis proceeds in three parts, presenting the conceptual framework, exploring the entanglement of historical, institutional and technical PRIL legacies, and examining the three identified imaginaries. Ultimately, the article argues that reinforcing and amplifying CIDIP’s legacy and the global resonance of OAS efforts in PRIL requires the co-creation of inclusive PRIL agendas by and for OAS member States and their people, a process to which other OAS organs could actively contribute.
How ineffable it would be if the Isthmus of Panama should become for America what the Straits of Corinth were for the Greeks.
Simon Bolivar, “Jamaica Letter”, 1815
…
In aboriginal America there was no unifying trend, and for the greater part of the colonial period, from the Sixteenth through most of the Eighteenth Century, the various parts of the two American continents looked with trans-Atlantic rather than inter-continental or inter-American eyes for guidance and allegiance.
Howard F. Cline, “The Inter-American System”, Current History, 1955
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Introduction
The Organization of American States (OAS) has long occupied a central place in the institutional history of law-making and regionalism in the Americas.1 The OAS Charter2 embodies ‘the American Credo’3 / ‘the American Dream’4 / “a joint ‘new constitution’ of the ‘American nations”.5 It emerged from an Inter-American sentiment that started to be forged in the earliest days of post-independence.6 Within that broader project the Inter-American Specialized Conference in Private International Law” represented one of the most innovative endeavours in the development of private international law (PRIL). The first CIDIP took place in Panama in 1975 and represented a milestone in the materialisation of regional imaginaries of PRIL in the Americas. From 1975 to the early 2000s, CIDIP created a unique institutional space for Latin American and Caribbean states, alongside North American ones, to collectively translate Inter-American imaginaries into PRIL instruments governing cross-border private relations. Much has been written about the corpus of over twenty-five instruments that provide a regional framework and interact with global and national PRIL normativity, and even more discussed about the significance of CIDIP,7 including throughout the many academic events co-organised by the OAS in 2025 on CIDIP’s 50th anniversary.8 It is widely recognised that the establishment of CIDIP as an organ of the OAS, although not as a permanent organ,9 represented an epistemic shift in PRIL development in the Americas.10 It promoted the idea of inter-American norm creation as a form of juridical self-determination11 – a means through which American states could collectively respond to their own needs12 in the cross-border and transnational realms, bridging the previously prevailing ‘bipolar’13 setting derived from the Bustamante Code and the Montevideo Treaties, and aspiring to integrate them with North American practices in PRIL. Embracing methodological pluralism, from its earliest endeavours the process considered legal harmonisation to be progressive and contextual, integrative of the region’s diverse legal traditions and responsive to the needs and priorities of the American countries and their people. Or at least these seem to have been the regional imaginaries in 1975.
This contribution to the contemporary understanding of Inter-American PRIL introduces a novel conceptual framework of analysis to reinterpret CIDIP’s significance and OAS-PRIL’s history, blending institutional, historical and conceptual approaches. It draws upon the concepts of social and spatial imaginaries to shed light on the impact of CIDIP’s legacy, identifying three regional imaginaries: (1) regionalism as constitutive of inclusive globalism; (2) pluriversalism as convivencia, as underpinning the CIDIP process; and (3) institutional inclusivity, as a way of driving the agenda forward. It does this in a moment of strategic disorientation for the international order broadly conceived, in view of the seismic geopolitical changes that we are experiencing. Regional imaginaries vary, and this flux heightens at times of strategic disorientation.14 Hence, it seems apt to enquire about PRIL imaginaries in the OAS 50 years from the institution of CIDIP, and 200 years from independence and the origins of inter-Americanism. Ultimately, this contribution argues that to reinforce and amplify not only the CIDIP’s legacy, but also the impetus, global resonance and significance of the OAS efforts in PRIL, the drive needs to come from the co-creation of renewed regional imaginaries by and for OAS member States and their people, an endeavour to which other organs of the OAS15 should contribute.
The analysis proceeds in three parts. First, Section 1 presents the conceptual framework explaining how socio-spatial imaginaries are linked to the political interests and economic development trajectories that align (or misalign) practices in episodes of regionalisation.16 Then, section 2 explores the entanglement of historical, institutional and technical PRIL legacies. Finally, we turn to analysing three PRIL regional imaginaries identified to shed light on the robust grounding from which forward-thinking towards post-CIDIP PRIL development can be projected, affirming and amplifying the pioneering protagonism of the Americas in PRIL.
1 Socio-Spatial Imaginaries: a Conceptual Framework
The deeply interrelated concepts of social imaginary17 and spatial imaginary,18 both mutually constitutive and in a continuous, evolving interaction, appear helpful to this enquiry about OAS-PRIL trajectories because they integrate cultural and institutional elements. In cultural political economy, ‘imaginary’ ‘is a semiotic ensemble (or meaning system) that frames individual subjects’ lived experience of an inordinately complex world and/ or guides collective calculation about that world’.19 As explained by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, ‘the social imaginary is not a set of “ideas”; rather it is what enables, through making sense of, the practices of a society.’20 In turn, the concept of spatial imaginaries as used in cultural political economy to explore the construction of regions is also beneficial to this analysis.21 It describes a dynamic process in which regional forms come into being through the intersection and interaction of multiple spatial imaginaries.22 The ‘Inter-American’ as a space of governance is constituted of several sub-regions with their own needs and identities (regions that are not only geographically diverse, but also culturally, economically, socially and historically differentiated). It has been argued that CIDIP was originally and eminently Latin American.23 But it has also been recognised that even when the drive, the adoption and the ratification of the first CIDIP instruments was carried out mostly by Latin American countries, the participation of the United States and Canada24 as well as Caribbean countries in several Inter-American instruments contributed to materialising that spatial Inter-American imaginary of hemispheric interconnection.25 This was not only very significant but also constitutive of a regional spatial imaginary that is markedly different from pre-CIDIP times.
The concept of ‘institution’ is central to the framework of social imaginaries.26 Roberto Esposito has explored changes in instituting praxis from Roman times onwards.27 The relevance to our enquiry is two-fold: on the one hand, it invites us to examine the trajectory of institutionalised practices within the OAS in relation to the development of PRIL; on the other hand, law as a vehicle for translating imaginaries into norms is vital to instituting praxis.28 Law is co-constitutive of the imaginaries of political economy. For instance, if imaginaries favour privatisation of power, law can operationalise that via deregulation or self-regulation to leave world-making power to private actors.29 PRIL has been very instrumental in this direction.30 Yet, by the same token, law is the vehicle by which to reshuffle power dynamics, ‘one of the most important tools for instituting imaginaries into institutions and practices in modernity.’31 Finally, law, and PRIL more precisely, is an institution per se. The contours of that institution, our field, are neither universal nor dogma, they are contextual and contingent.32 It has served neo-capitalism as much as it may as well serve renewed and alternative social imaginaries.33
In the context of social imaginaries, prosperity34 has been discussed in regional contexts. In Europe, Marija Bartl examines imaginaries of prosperity to shed light on democracies beyond the neo-capital paradigm, that is, beyond consumerism and the traditional corporation contours that foster inequality, catastrophic environmental degradation, and the rise of various extreme movements that embrace anti-democratic platforms.35 She argues that in Europe the dominant neoliberal imaginary prioritises private markets and individualism, often at the expense of collective well-being. Tribal imaginaries are emerging, characterised by nationalism and anti-democratic sentiments, which threaten social cohesion. She proposes a new imaginary of shared prosperity, focusing on democratic institutions and collective goals to rebuild trust in governance.
Bartl’s enquiry is relevant for all regions that hold faith in the resilience of democratic institutions.36 The Americas is such a region, and the selection of the three regional imaginaries examined in this paper is based on that premise. Her analysis demonstrates how social imaginaries can bridge the plurality of worldviews and identities in modern societies, while at the same time play into modernity’s strengths, namely democracy and knowledge governance.37 She explains how these imaginaries can turn into drivers for change if institutionalised through democratic channels.38 Hence, analysing the socio-spatial imaginaries that underpin the Inter-American project of the OAS in PRIL seems promising. Are the competing imaginaries referred to by Bartl in any way relevant to our region? What is expected from PRIL to contribute to realising these imaginaries? Is the ‘Inter-American’ space in PRIL a locus for South-North assemblage?39 As socio-spatial imaginaries are always competing – as shown by Bartl in relation to imaginaries of prosperity in Europe – what is necessary for a particular social-spatial imaginary to gain traction among actors in the region to turn it into social action? These are all very relevant, yet very different questions and this contribution could not even start to answer all of them. Yet the mere formulation invites reflection. Different social imaginaries and different routes to prosperity, in the words of Bartl, ‘require(s) empowering different sets of actors (be it private actors and capital on the one hand or democratic institutions on the other) to drive us to prosperity’.40
2 Instituting Praxis:41 the Americas, the OAS and Inter-American PRIL
2.1 ‘The Americas’
The contemporary regionalist landscape of the Americas is marked by fragmentation, pluralism, and overlapping sub-regional architectures rather than a hemispheric one. The failure of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) project in the early 2000s left a structural vacuum that has since been filled by sub-regional and extra-regional arrangements. The OAS, though originally conceived as a forum promoting cooperation and development, now serves primarily as a political and technical assemblage. In the absence of a continental framework, economic integration is structured through polycentric blocs such as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Andean Community (CAN), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Central American Common Market (CACM) within the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA), and the Pacific Alliance. Each of these projects reveals a different rhythm and scale of integration. This assemblage generates a dense but often incoherent regulatory fabric. Economic asymmetries persist, as North American markets continue to define trade opportunities for much of Latin America and the Caribbean, producing an uneven geography of dependency and leverage. The political nature of these integration projects – most of which remain intergovernmental rather than supranational – renders them highly susceptible to domestic political cycles.
2.2 The OAS
Writing about the Inter-American system in 1955, Howard F. Cline referred to the OAS as an institution to make ‘the American Credo’ effective. He used the term ‘the American Credo’ to describe certain deep-seated convictions and derivative sentiments such as that ‘democratic governments should prevail throughout the hemisphere; that each state is equal irrespective of size or power; that disputes among them should be settled peacefully by the rule of law; that the destiny of the Americas is to provide opportunity for the fullest development of individual and national potentialities; that cooperation should replace competition; that foreign (extra-continental) influences and controls should be diminished and replaced by American ones; that given the equality of states none of them has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of another.’42 In our times, when examining the era of (re)institutionalisation of the Inter-American System that the establishment of the OAS represented, Quintana43 refers to ‘the American dream’. These imaginaries of Inter-Americanism remain highly relevant, at least rhetorically. And in that sense, the OAS embodies the institutional unity of the Americas.
2.3 Inter-American PRIL
The progressive development of PRIL in the Americas was always not only a technical project but also one of political economy. And it was, and continues to be, a very institutionalised process. The spatial Inter-American-PRIL imaginary could possibly be described as a hemispheric infrastructure of coordination – but the social imaginaries have always been more contested, competing and in flux. At this point in time, should PRIL contribute to a regional imaginary of ‘social capitalism’, as suggested by Fernández Arroyo,44 or should it contribute to deviating from capitalism, as suggested by Michaels,45 or to post-colonial, post-modern, post-anthropocentric imaginaries? What imaginaries should orientate Inter-American PRIL development in the next quarter of the XXIst century (and beyond) for the prosperity of the Americas and the Americans for generations to come? Is technical legal work in PRIL done to assemble a particular vision of a regional order?46 As shown by Orford ‘[f]ocusing on the move between grand ideological claims and specific technical reforms [in legal design] can help us to focus on what new rights, duties or capacities the audience for such arguments is being invited (or required) to support, who has initiated those arguments, and with what potential immediate and long-term effects.’47 In public international law it has been argued that ‘[m]uch discussion […] is framed as a question of values, without attending to the specific techniques, practices, actions and claims which those values are used to justify.’48 The opposite often happens in PRIL, where there is little discussion about what the imaginaries are that the technical and practical efforts are trying to realise. Who is to gain from proposed projects? The regional socio-spatial PRIL imaginaries examined in the following section, with attention to their variations historically and comparatively, can help to make visible the plural forms of socio-spatial imaginaries that have long been with us.
3 PRIL Regional Imaginaries
3.1 Imaginary I: Regionalism as Facilitative of Inclusive Globalism
PRIL in the Americas has for long recognised that regionalism is central to the normative ordering of the field. The pioneering role of Latin America in forging this vision, this practice and this development is uncontested49 and deservedly recognised.50 Fernández Arroyo explains the genesis of this sustained impetus of Latin America from the Panamá Congress in 1826 to our times, with milestones of the scale of the Bustamante Code, the Montevideo Treaties, and the CIDIP process in between, in the independence obtained by most Latin American countries (from Spain) in the first quarter of the XIXth century. This juridical ‘balkanization’,51 Fernández Arroyo argues, was perceived as early as in 1826 by Simón Bolívar as a topography52 that begged for the coordinating function of PRIL.53 Since then, regional multilateral efforts in PRIL constitute part of the regional imaginary of hemispheric infrastructure of coordination, but always as a necessary strategy to strengthen cooperation also beyond the region. Regionalism is not understood in the region as isolationism, nor is universalism conceded as the imposition of sovereignty.54
In the years that preceded the establishment of the OAS, the American states convened in Mexico City to discuss ‘the way to intensify their collaboration as well as the participation of America in the future world organisation and the impetus that should be given both to the inter-American system and the economic solidarity of the Continent”.55 That vision of regionalism as constitutive of the global order, and as strengthening its positionality in it, has always featured in the blueprint, although admittedly more clearly in PRIL than in public international law.
There is no doubt that these and other competing imaginaries have always carried dialectic sway, yet CIDIP was the first spatial imaginary of PRIL coordination in the Americas that offered, institutionally, a plural infrastructure for hemispheric cooperation in the field. As is well-known and abundantly discussed, towards the middle of the XXth century, three major systems of PRIL coexisted in the Americas: the first Restatement on Conflict of Laws, the Bustamante Code, and the Montevideo Treaties. The possibility of ‘codifying’ these into a comprehensive Code of PRIL56 to bring these diverse legal traditions together was considered but abandoned. In that context regionalism in PRIL took a profound epistemic turn: the idea of Inter-American Specialized Conferences on PRIL (CIDIP) appeared as the alternative, an institutionalized process established under articles 122 and 123 of the OAS Charter. The CIDIP is an organ of the OAS.57 Its work constituted “an organic, institutional process, promoted under the protection of the legal system that is the OAS”.58
That is, the imaginary of regionalism adapted, it turned into gradual, contextual, harmonisation. However, the fundamental conception of its being constitutive of inclusive globalism did not alter. Evidence of this is that during the ‘stronger’ years of PRIL progressive development via the CIDIP process, and since then, the participation of OAS countries in global fora of PRIL such as The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), UNIDROIT and UNCITRAL also intensified. That awareness of global interconnectedness and interdependency leads us to the examination of a second interrelated imaginary, that of pluriversalism.
3.2 Imaginary II: Pluriversalism as Convivencia
Pluriversality is a concept that posits the existence of multiple, interconnected worlds or ontologies (ways of being, knowing and doing). In PRIL pluriversality has been conceptualised as an ontology to account for ‘the manner in which different legal orders construct their own respective normative cosmos, the way in which different legal orders observe each other and shape their interrelations in a decentralized way, the possibility for private international law to avoid the dual threat of moral parochialism and moral relativism’.59 In Inter-American PRIL that coexistence of different worlds, that pluriversalism, translates into convivencia, also in the sense of interdependence, between diverse PRIL orders. That convivencia is engrained in the regional imaginary and takes various shapes and forms. To name just two ‘coexisting’ couples: (1) a broad conceptualisation of PRIL, where traditional conflict-of-laws rules are complemented by substantive rules (also known as ‘methodological pluralism’), instrumentalised by hard-law or soft-law; and (2) the elaboration of new normativity – for example, during the CIDIP process – with a view to preserving PRIL rules already in place whenever useful;60 with the necessary consequence of the ‘dialogue of the sources’.
3.2.1 Methodological Pluralism
Examining the first couple takes us to the concept of methodological pluralism, so paradigmatic to the distinctive regional imaginary of PRIL in the Americas. Not only is this a broad pragmatic approach to the field that allows for the choice between conflict-of-laws or substantive rules, but it also finds theoretical support, for example, in the work of the Uruguayan school of PRIL.61 Quintín Alfonsín in his International Private Law Theory62 put forward what was an innovative approach at the time, considering that the field required the coexistence of substantialism and conflictualism, based on the advantages of providing international relationships with normative frameworks designed specifically for international private legal relations in specific sectors. However, as those frameworks will never be comprehensive of all international private legal relationships, methodological pluralism imposes itself. Yet it was Talice’s views during CIDIP’s boom that portrayed the defence of conflictualism to the demerit of substantive solutions as negating the sociological underpinning that nurtures the development of the field.63 Much has been discussed about this in global fora64 too. Whether a shift from classic private international law approaches to the harmonization of substantive private law could be resisted or accelerated was the subject of spirited discussion in CIDIP-VI.65 Methodological pluralism had by then given way to harmonization of substantive private law in full.66 That is, CIDIP did not only institutionalise a departure from the Montevideo Treaties or the Bustamante Code in terms of the scope of PRIL regional codification, from comprehensive sub-fields (family law, commercial law, procedural law), to modular and functional development of PRIL.67 It went beyond that and adopted international private law instruments in their entirety.68 To this convivencia of approaches, another layer of coexistence is added on in the Inter-American PRIL imaginary from the latest iterations of CIDIP69 onwards: the move from hard-law to soft-law instruments. Currently, the greater flexibility of soft law instruments in relation to their permeability vis a vis national and international orders feature not only in Inter-American PRIL70 but also as a global phenomenon.
3.2.2 PRIL ‘Intergenerational’ Convivencia and ‘Dialogue of the Sources’
Inter-American PRIL has embraced this pluriversalism that goes far beyond methodological and instrumental pluralism and reflects a deep-rooted pragmatic understanding of the breadth of PRIL as going beyond the traditional boundaries of the discipline. Yet, there is another feature that is paradigmatic in this conviviality. Indeed, international treaties, model laws, bilateral treaties and national frameworks, coordinated by long-established judicial and administrative cooperation, share what we call ‘intergenerational’ convivencia, that is, an imaginary of progressive development that carries with it those PRIL solutions in place that are still fit for purpose despite their longevity. The frequent application of many of the Montevideo Treaties dating from over 100 years ago is an example of that. The consequence of this conviviality is very well captured by Madrid Martínez. She argues that the ‘dialogue of the sources’ was a pragmatic approach in the region well before it was doctrinally recognised as a methodology in the field.71 This appreciation of ‘the old’ is not without criticism.72 For a start, there are examples in PRIL from other regions where the experience that comes with the ‘old’ solution outweighs the benefits of a potential ‘modernised’ transformation.73 Furthermore, the ‘dialogue of the sources’ arguably demands sophisticated inter-systemic74 skills that are not necessarily always mastered to their optimal potential in the day-to-day application of PRIL infrastructures.
The ‘dialogue of the sources’ as theorised in the well-known work of Erik Jayme75 refers to the reciprocal influences between the different sources, enabling the application of several sources at the same time, concurrently or alternatively; authorizing the choice of instruments by the parties; or even providing for an opt-out mechanism in favour of an alternative, more suitable, solution.76 In Inter-American PRIL this methodology of normative accommodation has been considered part of a ‘new general theory of law’.77 Most Inter-American Conventions on international judicial cooperation, for example, include compatibility clauses78 whereby the principle of maximum effectiveness extends beyond the relation with other international treaties and allows for the adoption of more favourable State practices.
3.3 Imaginary III: towards an Inclusive PRIL Agenda
The two imaginaries previously analysed have translated into paradigmatic features of Inter-American PRIL that provide robust grounding for forward-thinking strategies. That strategic re-orientation requires inclusivity. Inclusivity in processes of policy- and law-making is essential to ensure that the resulting instruments reflect the plurality of legal, cultural, institutional, and socio-economic realities across the hemisphere. Inclusivity operates on at least three dimensions. First, the equitable participation of Latin American, Caribbean and North American States – including those with limited technical or institutional capacity – helps prevent the development of instruments tailored solely to the needs of more legally and economically developed jurisdictions. Second, the inclusion of non-state actors – academics, judges, practitioners, transnational business representatives, representatives of indigenous communities and civil-society organizations – contributes practical knowledge and diverse perspectives on how PRIL rules operate in practice, thereby enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of regional legal frameworks. Third, participatory and transparent law-making processes foster democratic ownership and facilitate national implementation of inter-American norms. In the following paragraphs we reflect on current practices of the IAJC, its composition, its mandate, and its inter-relation with other OAS organs to suggest that further intra-OAS collaboration could also nurture its work, in order for the OAS to continue to be the powerhouse that Inter-American PRIL needs in our times.
3.3.1 The Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC)
The IAJC is the organ of the OAS with specific mandate for the development of (public and private) international law. It works in close collaboration with the Department of International Law (DIL). It suffices to mention the following soft-law instruments, adopted after the CIDIP era, to show the ongoing relevance of their work. The Guidelines Principles of Access to Justice in the Americas (2012);79 the Model Law on the Simplified Corporations (2017);80 the Guide on the Law Applicable to International Commercial Contracts in the Americas (2019);81 the Declaration of Inter-American Principles on Neurosciences, Neurotechnologies and Human Rights (2023);82 the Declaration of Inter-American Principles on the Legal Regime for the Creation, Operation, Financing and Dissolution of Civil Non-Profit Entities (2023) and amended in 2024;83 the Report on New Technologies and relevance for international jurisdictional cooperation, which includes a Guide to Best Practices in Jurisdictional Cooperation for the Americas (2023);84 the Report on Party Autonomy in international commercial contracts with a weak bargaining party (2023);85 and the Guide on the Law Applicable to International Investment Arbitration (2024).86, 87 The drafting process all of these outputs benefitted from the inputs from renowned jurists and academics from all over the world and international organisations and associations such as UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT, HCCH, ASADIP, and the American Bar Association, among others.88
The IAJC’s mandate includes studying juridical problems related to the integration of the developing countries of the Americas and, insofar as may appear desirable, the possibility of attaining uniformity in their legislation. To achieve the desired inclusivity for the progressive development of PRIL, the IAJC’s agenda cannot be crafted exclusively by the IAJC, since it is not representative enough. There is awareness of this, and certain specific projects have been proposed by the General Assembly, as was the case of the 2023 project on technology and juridical cooperation. Other ways of enabling further inclusivity could be envisaged. Jaime Moreno-Valle (OAS) has noted that the IAJC has rediscovered the consultation mechanism, which is flexible and can include actors such as civil society, professional associations, judges and magistrates, the private sector and academia, highlighting how new technologies democratise consultation processes.89 The IAJC also takes into consideration the inputs from national delegations at the meetings of the Committee of Juridical and Political Affairs (CAJP). The CAJP examines the reports of the IAJC, among others, and submits them ‘with observations, recommendations, and accompanying draft resolutions, to the Permanent Council’.90 Joint meetings with legal advisors on PRIL from OAS Member States are also held ad-hoc, at times also with the participation of the HCCH.91
The current work of the IAJC advances important aspects of the progressive development of PRIL in the region. Just to mention two of them: the Guide on the Law Applicable to International Commercial Contracts in the Americas (2019) promotes regional harmonisation and encourages ‘economic integration, growth and development’,92 while the Report on Party Autonomy in International Commercial Contracts with a Weak Bargaining Party (2023) offers an in-depth analysis of a topic that is often neglected in both hard-law and soft-law instruments. It has been suggested that in addition to its current work the IAJC could develop strategies to promote more ratifications of the existing Inter-American Conventions, and provide a mechanism for monitoring the application of the Conventions, for example by creating a jurisprudential database. Undoubtedly these are valuable suggestions.
3.3.2 Other Opportunities for Co-Creating Inclusive PRIL Agendas Within the OAS?
Are there any other OAS intra-institutional opportunities to co-create inclusive regional PRIL agendas? One imaginary of prosperity that, although not uncontested, has gained traction in the Americas is that of sustainable development. The OAS has long maintained a formal mandate on sustainable development, articulated initially through the 1996 Santa Cruz de la Sierra Summit on Sustainable Development – the first intergovernmental summit worldwide to integrate political, economic, social, and environmental priorities within a regional framework.93 This mandate was institutionalised through the creation of the OAS Department of Sustainable Development (DSD) currently under the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development, which supports Member States in formulating and implementing policies on environmental governance, climate change adaptation, water resource management, risk reduction and resilience and accelerating clean, sustainable, renewable and just energy transitions in the Americas.94 The DSD’s mandate has been periodically reaffirmed and refined aligning OAS action with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.95 These initiatives reflect a sustained hemispheric aspiration to embed sustainability across policy sectors. Nonetheless, progress within the Americas, as in most other regions, remains uneven and fragmented.96 It is suggested that a closer intra-institutional collaboration between the DSD and the IAJC at the OAS can provide a fruitful space for co-creation of PRIL regional imaginaries. Sustainable development is currently permeating PRIL imaginaries globally,97 but also regionally.98 ‘It is private law institutions – property, contract and corporation – that lie at the basis of development. It is private international law that enables these institutions to act across borders and thus, importantly, link developed and developing countries. At the same time, it is private law institutions that frequently stand in the way of sustainability due to their link to growth and destruction.’99 Such intuitions led one of the authors of this contribution, Ruiz Abou-Nigm, together with Ralf Michaels and Hans van Loon, to launch a project in 2018 that would focus on ‘the private side’ of the overarching goal of ‘transforming our world’,100 a pioneering project that has established PRIL and Sustainable Development as a new field of research.101
In turn, it has been argued that the distinctive features of Inter-American PRIL such as the strong social justice advocated in the region in relation to transnational access to justice,102 as well as ‘the openness to non-State law, the degree of harmonisation at a national level that the private international law regionalization efforts have rendered, and more profoundly, the regional-global interdependence that has marked private international law’s journey in the region are very promising in terms of the further rethinking necessary towards sustainable development.’103
This contribution argues that the reciprocal influence between PRIL and Sustainable Development can illuminate Inter-American PRIL trajectory in these times of strategic disorientation. Sustainable Development, not only as envisaged in the global plan that the UN 2030 Agenda proposes, but also as conceptualised by the OAS and pursued by OAS Member States, civil society, private actors, and all stakeholders, can generate renewed PRIL regional imaginaries to reinvigorate the OAS PRIL efforts, with profound transformative potential.
Conclusion
When CIDIP was launched 50 years ago, the ambitious aspiration was to create a plural legal infrastructure where PRIL could develop organically, bringing together legal systems of the common law and civil law traditions operating in the Americas. That imaginary was materialised to a limited extent, although not as limited as it is sometimes perceived. The legacies of the CIDIP era go far beyond the common law-civil law bridge, or the North-South assemblage, but rather lie in the enduring capacity to mediate pluriversality, making Inter-American PRIL a living laboratory of plural normative coexistence. CIDIP outputs have shaped national legislation and judicial practice throughout the region, providing models for domestic reforms and transnational legal reasoning. More broadly, CIDIP has left an enduring epistemic legacy: it demonstrates the added value of regionalism, enabling the co-production of norms suited to materialise regional imaginaries. Portrayed like this it should be no surprise that the Inter-American region is the only one that has a Convention on General Rules of Private International Law,104 providing techniques and methodologies to make the most of pluriversalism. In that fluidity, the permanence, vitality and impetus of institutions such as the OAS is crucial.105
This contribution has demonstrated that in our times of rising inequalities in the region, and of new technological, environmental, social and economic challenges, the OAS PRIL efforts need strategic policy steer. Generating participatory and inclusive spaces for the co-creation of regional imaginaries is essential for PRIL efforts to be transformative and gain traction between relevant stakeholders within and beyond the region. Which social imaginaries have stood the test of time, and which have been replaced or transformed? Is the imaginary that was core to the CIDIP aspiration 50 years ago still the one to be pursued today, 200 years from Simón Bolívar’s first Panama Congress? Are we still aiming to construct the ‘straits of Corinth’? Are PRIL imaginaries aligned with the aims of sustainable development, particularly the pursuit of inclusive institutions and access to justice under SDG 16? The first PRIL regional imaginary examined, that of regionalism as a hemispheric infrastructure of coordination to strengthen cooperation also beyond the region, is undoubtedly aligned with the overarching objectives of SDG 16: peace, justice, and strong institutions. Moreover, the second imaginary, that of pluriversality, engrained in Inter-American PRIL, demonstrates the potential for adapting to new regional imaginaries, moving forward while grounded in robust experience of progressive development. These paradigmatic features of Inter-American PRIL coupled with institutional infrastructures that could steward further inclusivity in co-creating renewed PRIL agendas, as identified in the third imaginary examined, seem promising. The doctrinal heritage can continue to be amplified; the institutional infrastructures can be harnessed to generate further synergies for a PRIL for everyone.106 The legacy of CIDIP, the possibilities within the OAS, and the resonance of Inter-American imaginaries in other regions and PRIL fora instil confidence that the pioneering regionalism of the Americas will continue to bear fruit, advancing a more balanced, sustainable, and participatory transnational legal order.
See Francisco-José Quintana, ‘The (Latin) American Dream? Human Rights and the Construction of Inter-American Regional Organisation (1945–1948)’ (2024) 25(4) Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d’histoire du droit international 560.
Charter of the Organization of American States, 30 April 1948, 119 UNTS 3.
Howard F Cline, ‘The Inter-American System’ (1955) 28 Current History 163, 177–84.
Quintana (n 1).
Milton Bracker, ‘Americas’ Charter Signed in Bogota’ New York Times (New York, 1 May 1948), (as cited in Quintana (n 1) 561).
Simón Bolívar convened the first Panama Congress in 1826. This is the first record of an aspiration to codify PRIL in the region. See Ana Elizabeth Villalta Vizcarra, ‘La contribución de América al derecho internacional’ (2006) XXXIII Curso de Derecho Internacional 59–94; María Mercedes Albornoz, ‘Codificación del derecho internacional privado en América Latina: topografía y nuevos rumbos’ (2025) 9 Revista Especializada en Investigación Jurídica 17, 2.
In the early 2000s leading voices in the field posed very constructive questions in relation to the future of CIDIP. See Diego P Fernández Arroyo, ‘La CIDIP VI: ¿Cambio de Paradigma en la Codificación interamericana de Derecho Internacional Privado?’ in OAS, Cursos de Derecho Internacional, Serie Temática, Vol I (Pt 3) El Derecho Internacional Privado en las Americas (2001–2022) (reproduced 2024) 1749–1790, where he reflected on some ‘paradoxes’ posed a decade earlier by Jürgen Samtleben: Jürgen Samtleben, ‘Die Interamerikanischen Spezialkonferenzen für Internationales Privatrecht’ (1980) 44 RabelsZ 57; and Jürgen Samtleben, ‘Neue interamerikanische Konventionen zum Internationalen Privatrecht’ (1992) 56 RabelsZ 1. See also Carlos Vázquez, ‘Regionalism Versus Globalism: A View from the Americas’ (2003) 8 Unif L Rev, 63, 69.
See 18th ASADIP Conference ‘Regional Imaginaries, Global Resonance: Inter-American Private International Law and the World Stage’ (Conference Report) available here accessed 7 April 2026. See also Dante M Negro Alvarado, ‘The 50th anniversary of the first Inter-American Specialised Conference on Private International Law: The future of Private International Law in the Americas’ (2024) 49 Curso de Derecho Internacional 295.
On the downsides of this lack of permanency, the ‘no existe’ of Samtleben, see Diego P Fernández Arroyo, ‘Qué CIDIP para cuál América?’ in J Kleinheisterkamp and GA Lorenzo Idiarte (coords), Avances del Derecho Internacional Privado en América Latina (MPI-FCU 2002) 31, 33.
Carlos Manuel Vázquez and João Grandino Rodas, ‘The CIDIP-VII and Beyond’ https://www.oas.org/dil/PrivateIntLaw-introduction-Eng.htm accessed 7 April 2026; Diego P Fernández Arroyo, La Codificación del Derecho Internacional Privado en América Latina. Ámbitos de producción jurídica y orientaciones metodológicas (Eurolex/Beramar 1994); Fernández Arroyo (n 7) 1749–1790; Diego P Fernández Arroyo and J Kleinheisterkamp, ‘Die VI. Interamerikanische Spezialkonferenz fur Internationales Privatrecht der Organisation Amerikanischer Staaten (CIDIP VI) – Eine neue Marschroute der interamerikanischen rechtlichen Integration’ (2002) 4 IPRAx 340, 340–44; Fernández Arroyo, ‘Qué CIDIP para cuál América?’ (n 9) 31–54; Fernández Arroyo, ‘La contribución de la Organización de los Estados Americanos al Derecho Internacional Privado’ (2005) XXXII Curso de Derecho Internacional 189, 189–212; Didier Opertti Badán, ‘Compatibilidad e interacción de la codificación regional interamericana con los ámbitos de producción jurídica universal y subregional: Balance de los veinte primeros años de la CIDIP’ in El Derecho internacional privado interamericano en el umbral del siglo XXI (Eurolex 1997) 217, 217–237; Jürgen Samtleben, ‘Métodos de armonización del derecho internacional privado en América Latina’ in Derecho internacional privado – derecho de la libertad y el respeto mutuo (CEDEP-ASADIP 2010) 203, 203–221.
Opertti Badán, ‘para nuestra propia región el movimiento codificador es necesario […] como afirmación de una voluntad de unidad jurídico-política’ (n 10) 217.
See OAS Questionnaire on the Future of CIDIP (June 2001); see also Responses to Questionnaire, Question No 10 (majority of respondents disposed favourably to the role CIDIP was playing in the Americas) and Responses to Questionnaire, Question No 2 (three respondents specifically calling for creation of a permanent CIDIP Secretariat) as cited in Vázquez (n 7) 69.
Fernández Arroyo (2005, n 10).
Philip O’Brien, ‘Spatial imaginaries and the construction of regions: a cultural political economy approach’ (2025) Territory, Politics, Governance 1, 6.
In relation to the development of international law, these organs include the General Assembly, as it is the supreme and most participatory organ of the OAS and decides its general policies and routes of action (OAS Charter (n 2) art 54); the Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC), which is the permanent organ of the OAS with a specific remit on the progressive development of (public and private) international law (OAS Charter (n 2) art 99); and the Secretariat for Legal Affairs. In addition, other integral parts of the OAS, such as the Department of Sustainable Development (DSD), could contribute to policy steer. For the interaction of private international law and sustainable development see fn 45.
O’Brien (n 14) 6.
See Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Duke University Press 2004); Bob Jessop, ‘Cultural political economy, spatial imaginaries, regional economic dynamics’ (CPERC Working Paper 2012–02, Lancaster University 2012); Ngai-Ling Sum and Bob Jessop, Towards a Cultural Political Economy: Putting Culture in Its Place in Political Economy (Edward Elgar 2013); used in relation to legal studies, see Jan Komárek, European Constitutional Imaginaries: Between Ideology and Utopia (Oxford University Press 2023) and Marija Bartl, ‘Imaginaries of Progress as Constitutional Imaginaries’ in Jan Komárek (ed), European Constitutional Imaginaries: Between Ideology and Utopia (Oxford University Press 2023).
O’Brien (n 14).
Jessop (n 17).
Taylor (n 17).
O’Brien (n 14).
O’Brien (n 14) 6.
Fernández Arroyo (n 9) 37.
Note particularly the protagonism of the United States in relation to CIDIP V and VI. See Fernández Arroyo (n7) 1859.
Several Caribbean States attended the CIDIPs (Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), but only very few of them have signed or ratified the resulting conventions. As indicated on the OAS website, the Dominican Republic has ratified the Inter-American Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad (1975), the Inter-American Convention on Letters Rogatory (1975), and the Inter-American Convention on the Conflict of Laws Concerning the Adoption of Minors (1984), and adhered to the Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors (1994). It has signed the Inter-American Convention on Conflict of Laws Concerning Checks (1975) and all the Conventions approved in CIDIP-II, as well as the Inter-American Convention on Jurisdiction in the International Sphere for the Extraterritorial Validity of Foreign Judgments (1984). Haiti has signed all conventions adopted in CIDIP-II, CIDIP-III, and CIDIP-IV, but ratified none. Belize has ratified the Inter-American Convention on International Traffic in Minors (1994).
Marija Bartl, Reimagining Prosperity, Toward a New Imaginary of Law and Political Economy in the EU (Cambridge University Press 2024) 28: ‘[S]ocial institutions, on a most general level, are regularised ways of doing things. […] any regularised way of doing things is always at least partially open, as smaller and bigger changes will take place over time, changing the social institution in the process’.
Roberto Esposito, Institution (Zakiya Hanafi tr, Polity 2022).
Although the concept of institution is mostly used in this contribution in its narrowest sense to refer to the OAS and CIDIP as instituting PRIL practices, all the different understandings of instituting praxis referred to herein are relevant to understand the transformative potential of PRIL and the role of the OAS in that transformation.
Bartl (n 26) 43.
See Katharina Pistor, The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality (Princeton University Press 2019).
Bartl (n 26) 43.
PRIL has served utopian and dystopian projects throughout history; see Roxana Banu, Nineteenth-Century Perspectives on Private International Law (Oxford University Press 2018).
See Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm, ‘Private International Law and Global Responsibility’ in Agnieszka Frackowiak-Adamska and Giesela Rühl (eds) Private International Law and Global Crises (Edward Elgar 2026) 14, 14–38.
Prosperity as a goal of the law of integration and regional frameworks was already mentioned by Jürgen Basedow; see Jürgen Basedow, ‘Global Life, Local Law? About the globalization of law and policy-making’ in Liber Amicorum en homenaje a Didier Opertti Badán (FCU 2005) 817, 832.
Bartl (n 26).
On democratic institutions today, see Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics (Polity 2023); Robert A Dahl, On Democracy (2nd edn, Yale University Press 2020).
Bartl (n 26), ch 2.
ibid.
That question was already posed by Fernández Arroyo more than 20 years ago, but it is worth revisiting it in times of strategic disorientation.
Bartl (n 26) 14.
Esposito (n 27).
Cline (n 3) 179.
For an excellent analysis, see Quintana (n 1).
See the remarks of Diego P. Fernández Arroyo in ‘18th ASADIP Conference Report’ (n 8).
See the remarks of Ralf Michaels in ‘18th ASADIP Conference Report’ (n 8).
An example in PRIL could easily be seen in the influence of the European internal market policies in the development of European PRIL.
Anne Orford, ‘Regional Orders, Geopolitics, and the Future of International Law’ (2021) 74(1) Current Legal Problems 193.
Orford (n 47) 194.
See Fernández Arroyo (n 10) 189, 189–212.
In particular, the introductory Mémoire submitted by the convening Dutch government to the delegates to the (first) 1893 Hague Conference on Private International Law explicitly refers to the 1889 Congress of Montevideo and the Montevideo Treaties which ‘will undoubtedly be consulted fruitfully’ by the delegates: Actes de la Conférence de La Haye de Droit International Privé, First Part (1893) 6. Diego P Fernández Arroyo is the scholar who has studied this phenomenon in modern times with most brilliance and rigour.
Fernández Arroyo (n 7) 1857.
See María Mercedes Albornoz, ‘Codificación del derecho internacional privado en América Latina: Topografía y nuevos rumbos’ (2025) 9(17) Revista Especializada en Investigación Jurídica 2, 2–25.
On this function more generally, see Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm and Ralf Michaels, ‘Towards Private International Law for Everyone’ in Xandra Kramer and Laura Carballo Piñeiro (eds), Research Methods in Private International Law (Edward Elgar 2024) 246.
Opertti Badán (n 10) 217–237.
Quintana (n 1) 566, referring to the Chapultepec Conference ‘Texto de la invitación que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos dirigió a los demás gobiernos americanos’ (10 January 1945) in Diario de la Conferencia Interamericana sobre Problemas de la Guerra y de la Paz (OAS Columbus Memorial Library).
Something that at least academically is still envisaged as feasible and desirable in other regions. See GEDIP-EGPIL, ‘Ongoing work on the codification of European private international law’ https://gedip-egpil.eu/en/documents/; EAPIL Working Group, ’Group on a European Private International Law Act, https://eapil.org/what-we-do/working-groups/group-on-a-european-pil-act/ accessed 7 April 2026.
OAS Charter (n 2) art 53(g).
Opertti Badán (n 10) 217, 220.
Ralf Michaels, ‘Private International Law and the Legal Pluriverse’ in Roxana Banu and others (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law (Oxford University Press 2025) 258.
This has been subject to criticism. See, eg, Fernández Arroyo (n 7).
Didier Opertti Badán and others, Objeto y Método en el Derecho Internacional Privado (2nd edn, FCU 1990).
Quintín Alfonsín, Teoría del Derecho Privado Internacional (first published 1955, Idea 1982).
Jorge Tálice in Opertti Badán and others (n 61) 31.
A very good example of methodological pluralism, and the consequential dialogue not only of sources but also of law-making fora, is the current work of the HCCH, UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT in relation to carbon markets. Each of these fora is working on the topic with distinctive mandates as to the scope of the endeavour, but they are currently in a very constructive ‘dialogue of sources’ from the very early days of legal design.
Vázquez (n 7) 69.
Previously, substantive rules were introduced in instruments that were mostly composed of conflict rules. That is the case, for instance, for the first time in 1984 in the Additional Protocol to the Inter-American Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad (art 15) and in 1994 in the Inter-American Convention on the Law Applicable to International Contracts (art 11).
Tatiana B de Maekelt described the approach as sectorial, pragmatic and progressive, within a broad conceptualisation of PRIL that favoured the conflictual methodology but resorted to substantive rules in combination with it (1998).
See the Model Inter-American Law on Secured Transactions (2002) and the Model Registry Regulation under the Model Inter-American Law on Secured Transactions (2009).
See Fernández Arroyo (n 7) 1765.
See the remarks of Jaime Moreno-Valle in ‘18th ASADIP Conference Report’ (n 8).
See the remarks of Claudia Madrid Martínez in ‘18th ASADIP Conference Report’ (n 8).
See, particularly, Fernández Arroyo (n 7).
See, for example, the bifurcation between the place of the damage and the place where the event giving rise to the damage happened in Case 21/76 Bier v Mines de Potasse d’Alsace [1976] ECR 1735. This rule has remained unaltered since the 1968 Brussels Convention despite several iterations of the Brussels Regulation in Europe.
On inter-systemic thinking in private international law, see Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm, ‘Private International Law’s Inter-Systemic Thinking in Global Legal Education’ (2024) 60 Rivista di Diritto Internazionale Privato e Processuale 3; Ruiz Abou-Nigm and Michaels (n 53) 246.
Erik Jayme, ‘Identité culturelle et intégration: Le droit international privé postmoderne’ (1995) 251 Recueil des cours 9, paras 60, 259.
Claudia Lima Marques, ‘Procédure civile internationale et MERCOSUR: pour un dialogue des règles universelles et régionales’ (2003) 1/2 Uniform Law Review 465, 468.
Claudia Lima Marques, ‘O “Diálogo das Fontes” como método da nova teoria geral do direito: um tributo a Erik Jayme’ in Claudia Lima Marques (coord), Diálogo das Fontes: Do conflito à coordenação de normas do direito brasileiro (Revista Dos Tribunais, 2012) 17, 21, 28.
See Maria Blanca Noodt Taquela and Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm, ‘The Draft Judgments Convention and its Relationship with Other International Instruments’ (2017/2018) 19 Yearbook of Private International Law 217, 217–231.
IAJC, ‘Principles of Access to Justice in the Americas’ (Reporter: Freddy Castillo Castellanos).
IAJC, ‘Model Law on the Simplified Corporation’ (Reporter: David P Stewart).
IAJC, Guide on the Law Applicable to International Commercial Contracts in the Americas (Reporter: José Antonio Moreno Rodríguez).
IAJC, ‘Declaration of Inter-American Principles on Neurosciences, Neurotechnologies and Human Rights’ (Reporter: Ramiro Orias Arredondo).
IAJC, ‘Inter-American Principles on the Legal Regime for the Creation, Operation, Financing and Dissolution of Civil Non-Profit Entities’ (Reporter: Ramiro Orias Arredondo).
IAJC, ‘New Technologies and their Relevance for International Jurisdictional Cooperation’ (Reporter: Cecilia Fresnedo de Aguirre).
IAJC, ‘Inter-American Principles on the Applicable Law in the field of International Commercial Contracts with a Weak Bargaining Party’ (Reporter: Cecilia Fresnedo de Aguirre).
IAJC, ‘Guide on the Law Applicable to International Investment Arbitration’ (Reporter: José Antonio Moreno Rodríguez).
OAS, ‘Inter-American Juridical Committee: Themes Recently Concluded’ https://www.oas.org/en/sla/iajc/themes_recently_concluded.asp accessed 7 April 2026.
At the 18th ASADIP Conference in 2025, Elizabeth Villalta (El Salvador) indicated that input from associations of academic experts is necessary to respond to challenges and maximise the possibilities for cooperation through information technology, considering that traditional solutions are no longer sufficient. She considered that the codification work of the OAS and the IAJC has been thorough and exhaustive and can address the specific needs of the region, coexisting with global fora. See ‘18th ASADIP Conference Report’ (n 8).
Moreno-Valle (n 70).
Rules of Procedure of the Permanent Council, art 18 https://www.oas.org/en/council/CAJP/about.asp accessed 7 April 2026.
Online IAJC–HCCH meeting (16 September 2021 and September 2022).
OAS, Guide on the Law Applicable to International Commercial Contracts in the Americas (2019) https://www.oas.org/en/sla/dil/docs/publications_Guide_Law_Applicable_International_Commercial_Contracts_Americas_2019.pdf accessed 7 April 2026.
Summit of the Americas on Sustainable Development; ‘Declaration of Santa Cruz de la Sierra’ (Santa Cruz, 7–8 December 1996). The ‘Declaración sobre las Responsabilidades Humanas para la Paz y el Desarrollo Sostenible’ (adopted in San José, 1989), presented by Costa Rica to the UN General Assembly, is the predecessor to the Santa Cruz Declaration.
OAS Department of Sustainable Development (DSD); ‘Mandate and Activities’ https://www.oas.org/en/sedi/dsd/ accessed 4 November 2025.
Fourth Inter-American Meeting on Sustainable Development (Nassau, 2023).
UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Regional Monitoring Report on Progress and Challenges in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (Santiago 2023).
See, generally, Ralf Michaels and others (eds), The Private Side of Transforming Our World: UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law (Intersentia 2021); ‘Private International Law and Sustainable Development in Asia’ (2025 2(2) Chinese Journal of Transnational Law 129; Ruiz Abou-Nigm (n 33); Hans van Loon, ‘Private International Law in Support of Sustainable Development–Impulses from Osnabrück’ in Helmut Grothe and others (eds), Europäisches und internationales Privatrecht–Festschrift für Christian von Bar zum 70. Geburtstag (CH Beck 2022) 195; Ana Fernández Pérez, ‘Los ODS y el Derecho internacional privado’ in Alfonso Ortega Giménez and Lerdys Saray Heredia Sánchez (eds), Estregia Europea 2030 y sus retos sociales (Aranzadi 2023) 53; Ana Fernández Pérez, ‘El Derecho internacional privado ante el desarrollo sostenible’ in Ana Fernández Pérez (ed), El Derecho internacional privado ante la(s) crisis de la globalización (Tirant lo Blanch 2023) 51; Ralf Michaels and Samuel Zeh, ‘Sustainability and Private International Law’ in Silva and others, (n 5), 479; Idoia Otaegui Aizpurua, ‘Los ODS, de la teoría a las aulas, a través del derecho internacional privado’ in Ixusko Ordeñana Gezuraga and Irune Suberbiola Grbizu (eds), Los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible y la innovación educativa en la enseñanza-aprendizaje del derecho (Dykinson 2024) 467; Lerdys S Heredia Sánchez, ‘Algunas reflexiones sobre los retos de la enseñanza del derecho internacional privado frente a los ODS’ in Ordeñana Gezuraga and Suberbiola Garbizu (eds) (ibid) 477; Daniel Bardel and Dámaso J Vicente Blanco, ‘Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) y retos al Derecho Internacional Privado’ in J Martínez Calvo and others (eds), El derecho privado ante los retos de la Agenda 2030 (Aranzadi 2022) 495; Alfonso Ortega Giménez, ‘El “ODS 16” y la “necesidad” de alegación y prueba del derecho extranjero’ in Ordeñana Gezuraga and Suberbiola Garbizu (eds) (ibid) 451; Ulla Liukkunen, ‘Decent Work and Private International Law’ (2022) 86 RabelsZ 876; Guillermo Palao Moreno, ‘Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible y “Trabajo decente”: una mirada desde el Derecho Internacional privado europeo’ in Antoni Pigrau i Solé and others (eds), La Comunidad Internacional ante los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (Tirant lo Blanch 2023) 267; Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm and María Mercedes Albornoz, ‘International Family Law and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030’ in Janeen M Carruthers and Bobby WM Lindsay (eds), Research Handbook on International Family Law (Edward Elgar 2024) 363; Santiago Areal Ludeña, ‘Objetivos de desarrollo sostenible (ODS) y empresa’, in EC Díaz Galán (ed), El Derecho Internacional, los ODS y la Comunidad Internacional (Dykinson 2022) 207; Ralf Michaels and Samuel Zeh, ‘Sostenibilidad y Derecho Internacional Privado’ (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 37; Jeanette ME Tramhel, ‘Building Sustainability into Agricultural Supply Chains: What Role for Private International Law?’ (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 101; Hans van Loon, ‘Access to Justice (SDG 16): The Role of The Hague Conventions on Private International Law’ (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 201.
See Ruiz Abou-Nigm, ‘La movilización del Derecho Internacional Privado (2021) 29 Anuario de la Asociación Argentina de Derecho Internacional 117; Palao Moreno (n 97), 267; Sebastián Paredes, ‘Derecho Internacional Privado y Derecho Ambiental en América Latina (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 69; Candela N Villegas, ‘Retos del Derecho Internacional Privado frente al ODS 5 de la Agenda 2030’ (2023) 7(3) RevistaDireito.UnB 137; Valesca Raizer Borges Moschen and Inez Lopes Matos, ‘Migraciones Internacionales y Derecho Internacional Privado: Su Enfoque desde el Desarrollo Sostenible en Latinoamerica’ (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 167; Mathilde Brackx, ‘Access to Remedy for Victims of Corporate Human Rights Abuse (2023) 7(3) Revista Direito.UnB 227.
Michaels and others (n 97) 131.
Ralf Michaels and others, ‘Introduction’ in Michales and others (eds), The Private Side of Transforming Our World (n 97) 9.
Michaels and others, (n 97) 132.
See eg the ASADIP Principles on Transnational Access to Justice (TRANSJUS). See Javier L Ochoa-Muñoz, Principios globales del derecho procesal civil internacional: Comentarios a los Principios ASADIP sobre acceso transnacional a la justicia (TRANSJUS) (FCU 2024).
Michaels and others, (n 97) 136.
Adopted in CIDIP–II (Montevideo 1979); in force since 6 October 1981.
The OAS commitment to the progressive development of PRIL was confirmed in the 2003 Córdoba Declaration, reaffirming that codification of PRIL at a regional scale was still necessary in juridical and political terms, that America – a pioneering continent in the international efforts to harmonise and unify PRIL – continues to cultivate a constructive dialogue with the other codifying fora of the world, and that the OAS remains the adequate forum to keep on developing the process of progressive development of PRIL in the Americas. The Declaration highlights the overarching criteria of reasonableness and justice, the interdependence with existing multilateral instruments, and above all, the need to adopt solutions that are fit for purpose in relation to the problems of the American continent. This commitment was reaffirmed in 2024. See Negro Alvarado, ‘El desarrollo progresivo del derecho internacional: desafíos y posibilidades para la Organización de los Estados Americanos’ in IAJC, XLVI OAS International Law Course (2019) 29.
Ruiz Abou-Nigm and Michaels (n 53).
