A Private International Law Perspective on the Extraterritorial Reach of EU Law: The "Docile" Attitude of EU Conflict of Law Rules

The extraterritoriality of EU law, understood as the application of EU law triggerred by factors other than the connection with the territory of the EU, has largely been analysed over the last decade by EU law experts and global governance scholars. On the other hand, very few private international law contributions have been devoted to this topic, revealing the difficulties that private international law scholarship has in grasping the phenomenon of extraterritoriality of EU law. This contribution provides some elements to fill this gap. After providing a definition of the extraterritorial reach of EU law, the article focuses on the tecnique used by the EU legislator to bring situations that occur beyond EU borders into the scope of application of EU legislation. The rules that establish the extraterritorial reach of EU law perform a task that may appear similar to that of other rules found in the EU legal order, namely those governing conflict of laws, which in turn calls for coordination between the two set of rules.