국제사법상 물권 관련 규정에 관한 소고

The new Private International Law Act of Korea which came into force on July 1, 2022 was a complete revision of the old PIL Act of Korea to establish new detailed rules on international jurisdiction. Accordingly, the rules relating to governing law under the new PIL Act are identical to those under the old PIL Act which sought to modernize the field of governing law by completely revising the Conflict of Laws Act (seopwoesabeop), except for some linguistic changes and renumbering of Articles. While the old PIL Act made significant modernizations in the areas of contractual obligations and non-contractual obligations by referring to studies and legislations in the EU and elsewhere at the time, the rules relating to proprietary rights did not significantly change compared to the connecting rules under the old Conflict of Laws Act, except for the rules for contractual collateral rights.
I believe that the lack of meaningful changes in the field of international proprietary law has been due to the firm belief that the principle of the lex rei sitae may govern most proprietary issues. Of course, there was also a reason that there was no significant change in the rules related to international proprietary law in Europe and other countries, except for Switzerland, so that the need for relevant proprietary rules was not high. However, it is necessary to review the international private law issues related to proprietary rights, such as the growing movement to recognize party autonomy in relation to movable property, and further to consider whether the current provisions for proprietary rights in the current PIL Act are appropriate.
This requires a careful understanding and review of the current provisions for proprietary rights under the PIL Act. Currently, there are only five articles in the PIL Act, ranging from Articles 33 to 37; however, there is a significant lack of study in this area in Korea. In order to develop the lege feranda on whether these five provisions can properly address the issues related to international proprietary law, it is essential to have an accurate understanding of the current rules and examine their limitations.
Accordingly, this paper examines provision by provision of the current rules for proprietary law under the PIL Act, focusing on those that are still under-studied or in need of further explanation, in order to provide clues for future revision and research in the field of relevant choice of law rules for proprietary law in the PIL Act.