Nature and Scope of Conflict of Law: Internal and International Conflict in Perspective

Abstract

This paper examined the conceptual nature and scope of conflict of law. The concept is explored from the internal and international perspective of conflict of law. The crux of conflict of law as a specific area of law is to determine the applicable laws or jurisdiction to determine various kind of cases. This could occur at the municipal or international level, which is referred to as internal and international conflict of law. With respect to the internal conflict of law, the discuss is limited to the Nigerian perspective. This paper finds that, the objective of conflict of law is to protect the legitimate expectation of persons who relocated from their country of origin to other country or expand their going concerns beyond their State borders. Private international law which forms the corpus juris for international conflict of law situation is largely municipal in nature. As such, its content varies from one jurisdiction to the other. Attempts at uniform rules of private international law rules have proved abortive as its enforceability thereof still remains a challenge. The reason for this challenge is that private international law conventions are more concerned about the method to be used in putting the rules to effect.