CONFLICT OF LAWS. A contrariety or opposition in the laws of states in those cases where, from their relations to each other or to the subject•matter in dispute, the rights of the parties are liable to be affected by the laws of both jurisdictions.
As a term of art, it also includes the deciding which law is in such cases to have superiority. It also includes many cases where there is no opposi tion between two systems of law, but where the question is how much force may be allowed to a foreign law with reference to which an aot has been done, either directly or by legal implication, in the absence of any domestic law exclusively applicable to the case.
An opposition or inconsistency of domestic laws upon the same subject.
2. Among the leading canons on the snb ject are these: the laws of every state affect and bind directly all property, real or per sonal, situated within its territory, all con tracts made and acts done and all persons resident within its jurisdiction, and are supreme within its own limits by virtue of its sovereignty. Ambassadors and other public ministers while in the state to which they are sent, and members of an army marching through or stationed in a friendly state, are not subject to this rule. 4 Barb. N. Y. 522.
3. Possessing exclusive authority, with the above qualification, a state may regulate the manner and circumstances under which pro perty, whether real or personal, in possession or in action, within it, shall be held, trans mitted, or transferred, by sale, barter, or be quest, or recovered or enforced; the condition, and state of all persons within it ; the validity of contracts and other acts done there ; the resulting rights and duties grow ing out of these contracts and acts; and the remedies and modes of administering justice in all cases. Story, Confl. of Laws, 18 ;
Vattel, b. 2, c. 7, fl 84, 85 ; Wheaton, Int. Law, pt. 1, c. 2, 5.
4. Whatever force and obligation the laws of one country have in another depends upon the laws and municipal regulations of the latter ; that is to say, upon its own proper jurisprudence and polity, and upon its own express or tacit consent. Huberns, lib. 1, t. 3, 2. When a statute or the unwritten or common law of the country forbids the recog nition of the foreign law, the latter is of no force whatever. When both are silent, then the question arises, which of the conflicting laws is to have effect.
5. Generally, force and effect will be given by any state to foreign laws in cases where from the transactions of the parties they are applicable, unless they affect injuriously her own citizens, violate her express enactments, or are contra bons mores.