The doctrine of the proper law is applied in the choice of law stage of a

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

involving the

conflict of laws Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a Legal case, case, Transactional law, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction."Conflict o ...

. When the

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

is in dispute, one or more state laws will be relevant to the decision-making process. If the laws are the same, this will cause no problems, but if there are substantive differences, the choice of which law to apply will produce a different

judgment Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal trial ...

. Each state, therefore, produces a set of rules to guide the choice of law, and one of the most significant rules is that the law to be applied in any given situation will be the ''proper law''. This is the law that seems to have the closest and most real connection to the facts of the case, and so has the best claim to be applied. The term "proper" refers back to the older English sense as being "proper to". In other words, the law proper to the contract or the contractual term or issue involved. All laws, to a greater or lesser extent, are reflections of the

public policies Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. T ...

of the state that enacted them. The more important the policy to the

society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

, the greater the claim of the relevant law to be applied. Thus, if laws exist to protect

citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

s, the law of the place where loss or damage is sustained might have a strong claim to apply: e.g. in a traffic accident, two cars collide because of faulty maintenance and both drivers are injuredthe local laws exist to provide some degree of protection for all those who use the roads in that state, setting minimum standards for the design and maintenance of vehicles, specifying what levels of

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

should be carried, setting the minimum age and qualifications for the right to drive, etc. But the problem with accepting the claim of anyone state to have its law apply is that the result may be somewhat arbitrary. So, in the example given, if neither driver had a residence in the state, and the cars were both maintained outside the state, the laws of other states may have an equal or better claim to apply. The advantage of the ''proper law'' approach is that it builds in flexibility rather than offering a mechanical rule. Suppose that there is a

contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ...

between an Italian

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

and an English

partnership A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations ...

for the sale of goods made in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

to be shipped from

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

on a ship flying the flag of

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

to a Swedish port. Adopting a rule such as the ''

lex loci contractus In contract law, the is the Law Latin term meaning "law of the place where the contract is made".''Black's Law Dictionary'' abridged Sixth Edition (1991), p. 630. It refers (in the context of conflict of laws) to resolving contractual dispute ...

'', i.e. apply the law of the place where the contract was made, might actually select a law having no other connection with the substance of the bargain made by the parties. Similarly, picking the '' lex loci solutionis'', i.e. the law of the place where the contract is to be performed, may prove to be equally irrelevant, assuming that there is only one place where performance is to occur: in the example, there is manufacture in Greece, delivery to Belgium, loading in Belgium, carriage on the high seas, and unloading in Sweden. So, if the contract does not make an express selection of the law to apply (see the

choice of law clause In contract law, a choice of law clause or proper law clause is a term of a contract in which the parties specify that any dispute arising under the contract shall be determined in accordance with the law of a particular jurisdiction. It determi ...

), the parties are deemed to have chosen to be bound by the law with which the contract has the closest and most real connection. The general rule is that the ''proper law'' is the primary system of law that governs most aspects of the factual situation giving rise to the dispute. This does not imply that all the aspects of the factual circumstances are necessarily governed by the same system of law, but there is a strong presumption that this will be the case (see

characterization Characterization or characterisation is the representation of characters (persons, creatures, or other beings) in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometimes used as a synonym. This representation may include dire ...

). So, the process of legal analysis undertaken by the courts in each case identifies all the facts that have a specific geographical connection, e.g. where the parties reside or their businesses operate, where an agreement was made, where relevant actions were performed, etc. Once all the relevant connecting factors have been identified, the law of the state that has the greatest number of connections will be the proper law. In the event of a tie, the connecting factors which relate to performance will be given greater weight than the connecting factors affect form. In most cases, this weighting will produce a clear winner.

References

*J H C Morris. "The Proper Law of the Contract". The Conflict of Laws. Third Edition. Stevens and Sons. London. 1984. ISBN 0-420-46890-0. Pages 265 to 282. See also "The proper law of the tort" at pages 304 and 305, "The proper law of the transfer" at page 351, and "The proper law of the debt" at page 359. And see also pages 72, 135, 136, 414 to 416, 422 and 423. *A E Anton. "The Proper Law". Private International Law: A treatise from the standpoint of Scots law. (Scottish Universities Law Institute). W Green & Son. Edinburgh. 1967. Reprinted 1970. Pages 185 to 199. See also "Proper Law" at page 451, and see also pages 244 and 470. {{Portal bar, Law Conflict of laws Legal doctrines and principles