Qualification, Classification, or Characterization Problem in the Conflict of Laws

Abstract

THE problem in the Conflict of Laws which today is known on the continent as the problem of "qualification" and in recent Anglo-American literature as that of "classification" or "cl1aracterization" was brought to the attention of students of the Conflict of Laws fifty years ago. In the very year of the founding of the YALE LAW JOURNAL, Franz Kahn published an article in Jhering's Jahrbucher in which he pointed out that even if the rules of the Conflict of Laws in the different countries were the same, identity of results in individual cases would not follow because of latent conflicts inherent in the different systems of law. Bartin dealt with the same problem in 1897, under the title De l'impossibilite d'arriver a la suppression definitive des conflits de lois, apparently unaware of the fact that Kahn had written on the subject before him. Bartin spoke of the problem as one of "qualification," and since that time the problem has been known on the continent by that name.