Under normal circumstances, the settlor will be acting on professional advice and will make an express selection or it will be implied from the facts of the case.

Thus, it would be relevant to consider the distribution of the assets if in separate states, the purpose of the trust (which might be the evasion of taxation or other provisions in some of the states where the assets are located), the lex domicilii or lex patriae of the settlor and the beneficiaries (particularly if the legal transaction is a marriage settlement or testamentary), the legal form of the document, and the law of the place where the document was executed (this latter factor may either be accidental and so of marginal value, or contrived to take advantage of a favourable law and so highly significant).

In fact, the settlor may expressly select an Applicable Law for each component and the forum court should respect his or her wishes.

But, in general terms, it is desirable that a single law should be applied to the administration and the fact that there may be assets located in separate states should not, per se, justify severing the trust.

But, because this could be interpreted as an invitation not to validate otherwise perfectly appropriate financial arrangements for deserving beneficiaries, Article 14 provides that the Convention shall not prevent the application of rules of law more favourable to the recognition of trusts.

This reflects the positive rules of public policy which require that the validity of a transaction (whether commercial or not) be upheld if at all possible where this will give effect to the reasonable expectations of the parties.

But Article 15(2) nevertheless requires the forum court to consider adopting an approach that will preserve the overall validity of the trust insofar as that generality does not offend against the mandatory policy.