Developments in the Conflict of Laws, 1902-1942

Abstract

THE writer's interest in the conflict of laws coextends substantially with the life of the Michigan Law Review. This may be some excuse for attempting to trace some of the developments in this field in the intervening years. Let us consider first what has happened in this country and thereupon what has occurred in the rest of the world. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES If one compares the place of the conflict of laws in the law school curricula of today with its position at the beginning of the century, one observes a very marked change. Through Professor Beale the conflict of laws became, since r 894, one of the major and most popular courses at the Harvard Law School, and as the influence of that school spread over the country, it carried with it an enthusiastic interest in this subject. Through Professor Beale's influence also one of the first subjects to be restated by the American Law Institute was that of the conflict of laws, with Professor Beale as Reporter. After ten years of unremitting labor the Restatement of this subject was brought to a conclusion in I934· In this Restatement we have the most detailed collection of rules of the conflict of laws to be found in any country.