[15]: 20–28 Their key conceptual contributions were twofold: First, nations are wholly sovereign within their borders and therefore cannot be compelled to enforce foreign law in their own courts.
[15]: 30 Scholars began to consider ways to resolve the question of how and when formally equal sovereign States ought to recognize each other's authority.
[18] Many states continue to recognize the principle of comity as the underpinning of private international law such as in Canada.
[20] In the United States, salient issues in the field of conflict of laws date back at least to the framing of the Constitution.
Within the first two decades following ratification of the Constitution, over one hundred cases dealt with these issues, though the term conflict of laws was not yet used.
[23]: 10 Alongside domestic developments relating to conflict of laws, the nineteenth century also saw the beginnings of substantial international collaboration in the field.
The first international meeting on the topic took place in Lima in 1887 and 1888; delegates from five South American countries attended, but failed to produce an enforceable agreement.
[25]: 77 The seventh meeting at The Hague occurred in 1951, at which point the sixteen involved states established a permanent institution for international collaboration on conflict-of-laws issues.
[26] As attention to the field became more widespread in the second half of the twentieth century, the European Union began to take action to harmonize conflict of laws jurisprudence across its member states.
[27] This was followed in 1980 by the Rome Convention, which addressed choice-of-law rules for contract disputes within EU member states.
This is perhaps because, unlike the other subtopics, jurisdiction relates to the particularly thorny question of when it is appropriate for a country to exercise its coercive power at all, rather that merely how it should do so.
This judicial acceptance of subjective intent excludes the traditional reliance on objective connecting factors;[37] it also harms consumers as vendors often impose one-sided contractual terms selecting a venue far from the buyer's home or workplace.