Choice Pillar II

This chapter evaluates Friedrich Carl von Savigny’s choice-of-law theory, qualifies and extends it. It shows that CEF’s foundational Choice Pillar does not need to be developed from scratch but rather can be exerted through the process of distillation from Savigny’s argument of its Kantian components. The argument in this chapter proceeds through the following three focal points. First, it elaborates on the main aspects of Kantian legal philosophy and demonstrates their presence within Savigny’s scholarship. Second, it evaluates Savigny’s choice of law organizing principle of “voluntary submission” and suggests making qualifications to meet the Kantian standard. In neo-Kantian terminology, it is a crystallization of “juridical relational choice.” Finally, it evaluates and qualifies both aspects of the operational mechanism of Savigny’s theory: the normative ensemble of party autonomy and constructive inference.