COUNCIL REGULATION (EU) No 1259/2010 of 20 December 2010 Implementing Enhanced Cooperation in the Area of the Law Applicable to Divorce and Legal Separation

Along with the EU’s attempts to consistency of resolution of conflict of laws’ rules, in the union level, and after enforcement of 1st Rome regulation (on contractual), and 2nd Rome (on non-contractual obligations), European council issued some rules about applicable law on divorce cases, in December 2010, which is called 3rd Rome regulations. These regulations accept the parties’ wills to choose the applicable law on divorces in some limited cases. According to Article 5 of these rules, parties could choose the applicable law on divorce case, among their lex loci, their prior lex domicilii, and the law of respecting country of one of the parties or lex fori. Parties should make a written agreement to choose applicable law that should be concluded, maximally, up to the hearing session. In the case of failure of determination of applicable law by couples, the lex loci while proceeding, their prior lex domicilii, their respecting country’s law (if they have same nationality), and at last the lex fori will be applied respectively. If there is no regulation for divorce in applicable law, or there is a prevention base on gender for one of the parties, the lex fori will be replace, this rule would have effect on divorce cases in those countries in which divorce is in the Men’s hands, such as Iran. Rejecting of renvoi is one of those matters that have been emphasized in these regulations. So the substantive rule determined country, by these regulations, is considered not the rules of resolution of conflict of laws.