The conflict-of-laws rules laid down in an international agreement binding Poland and a non-Member State enjoy priority over rules of national origin (where a situation does not fall within the scope of EU conflict-of-laws rules), as well as over EU private international law rules (on the basis of the clauses provided for in the EU Regulations), yet in both cases exclusively in scenarios falling within their own scope of application.With regard to conflict-of-laws rules of a bilateral international agreement, such as those provided for in Article 35 of the Agreement of 1993, the characterization has to be carried out independently from the understanding of specific concepts that may be inferred from national substantive law or from private international law, be it of domestic or EU origin.As to the determination of the “material scope” of such conflict-of-laws rules, the textual interpretation of a bilateral agreement in question should play crucial role. Although the conflict-of-laws rules of such agreements generally call for characterization of the legal institutions established by the legal order of one of the two Contracting States, the comparative study limited to those two legal orders can merely serve as guidance when it comes to the determination of the “material scope” of those conflict-of-laws rules.While it is difficult to formulate generalizable conclusions concerning the “spatial reach” of the conflict-of-laws rules provided for in a bilateral agreement, it can be argued that - in the course of a dispute before a court - the law designed as applicable under Article 35 (1) of the Agreement of 1993 applies to the assessment of tort liability originating in an event that occurred on the territory of Poland or Ukraine, if the individuals involved in the tort have their domicile (seat) on the territory of Poland or Ukraine, and - although this is highly debatable - insofar as they have the nationality of one of these States, provided that all the above-mentioned elements do not link the situation underlying that dispute exclusively with only one of those States.
In January 1994, the European Community and Australia signed the Agreement on Trade in Wine. Considering the dramatic changes in the international wine market, this strategy of policy coordination is hardly surprising. In the late 80s and early 90s the dynamic and highly competitive newcomers from countries like Australia and the USA have broken the domination of European producers for the first time. What is astonishing though is the fact that the arrangement was reached in the final phase of the Uruguay Round negotiations, three months before the signing of the Marrakech Agreement that regulated the trade of agricultural products. But neither Brussels nor Canberra settled for this first arrangement, and fourteen years later they signed another Wine Agreement. The article presents the results of analysis of the political debate and legal actions preceding the two Wine Agreements between the EC and Australia. The main focus is on the political and economic factors explaining the 1994 EC-Australia Agreement on Trade in Wine as well as the motivation for the update of this arrangement in 2008. The author argues that the agreement can be explained in terms of the interests of wine producers. The proposed explanation is based on Andrew Moravcsik’s theory of national preference formation.
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