Party autonomy in European private international law: uniform principle or context-dependent instrument?

This article will focus on the status of party autonomy across the numerous private international law instruments enacted by the European Union. The increasing breadth of these instruments might suggest to strive for a uniform design of party autonomy for all forms of private legal relations. Such a comprehensive solution could even be aimed at covering both the choice of law and the choice of court level. However, it shall be argued that the potential for uniform solutions is limited in several ways. In particular, there does not exist a universally accepted reason for justifying party autonomy across all fields of private international law yet. Nonetheless, the coherence of the current law could be improved in many ways. Internal discrepancies open to criticism exist notably in family law. Furthermore, improvements seem to be possible with regard to the models by which party autonomy is limited for the protection of certain individual or collective interests. The article will explore options for enhancing the European rules in these and in other respects.