European Private International Law at Jagiellonian University (EPIL@JU) was a Jean Monnet Module, a project co-financed by the ERASMUS + Programme. The project lasted for three academic years 2019-2022. To access the project card click here.

The project was built around the European Private International Law course delivered to foreign students coming to the Law Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland) within different exchange programmes. 

Private interantional law (PIL) is a branch of law that responds to three important questions related to cross-border private situations (situations connected to at least two different countries, for example a sale contract between citizens of two different EU Member States). These questions are as follows:

1.    Is a court of a given state competent to hear a claim?

2.    If yes, which law should be applied?

3.    Is the judgement going to be recognized and enforced abroad?

In general, every state in the world has its own rules on PIL, unless they are unified by international conventions. European Union, based on Article 81 of the TFEU, managed over last 20 years to unify a huge part of PIL of its Member States, creating a world phenomenon – EPIL. The importance of EPIL grows in parallel to the movement of people and goods across borders.

As a result, nowadays every lawyer in the EU and also outside of the EU, irrespective of the field of specialization (be it, for example contract law, family law or succession law) should be aware of EPIL’s existence and understand its basics. EPIL@JU is aimed at responding to this need. The objective of the EPIL@JU was to raise awareness of the subject among students (and local professionals) and to provide knowledge on the unified EU private international law (the body of numerous EU Regulations and CJEU jurisprudence).

There were five activities within the work programme of EPIL@JU, which allowed to reach this objective. Apart from the teaching module of the central importance, it contains preparation of deliverables (course materials and a dedicated website) and organization of events (guest lectures and study visits).

The EU part of the budget of EPIL@JU project allowed to finance preparation of the deliverables and organization of events.

The project continues with European Private International Law course.