The limits of lex rei sitae for own­er­ship of mov­ables

De­vel­op­ment sum­mary

Sultan Khiva ex­am­ines why the law gov­ern­ing own­er­ship of mov­able prop­erty is so dif­fi­cult to de­term­ine. On the author's ac­count, mov­ables can change loc­a­tion phys­ic­ally, cir­cu­late in in­ter­na­tion­al trade, be in trans­it, pass through in­ter­me­di­ar­ies, serve as se­cur­ity or exist in de­ma­ter­i­al­ised form, so that, unlike im­mov­ables, they lack a stable ter­rit­ori­al anchor.

While ac­know­ledging the ad­vant­ages of the lex rei sitae, the author argues that tying own­er­ship to the loc­a­tion of the asset does not secure legal cer­tainty for goods and vehicles cross­ing bor­ders, cul­tur­al prop­erty, se­cur­it­ies, goods in trans­it or assets held by third parties. Draw­ing on the Ukrain­i­an Civil Code, Ukraine's Private In­ter­na­tion­al Law Act and se­lec­ted European ap­proaches, the art­icle pro­poses com­bin­ing the gen­er­al rule with spe­cial con­nect­ing factors such as the place of re­gis­tra­tion, the des­tin­a­tion of the goods, the law of the in­ter­me­di­ary, the law chosen by the parties or the law of the state most closely con­nec­ted.