The Principle of Public Policy and International Legal Cooperation

Abstract

The principle of public policy restrains the granting of internal effects for foreign law, in order to protect the dominant values of a ​​particular jurisdiction, what in international legal cooperation means the denial of cooperational pleadings. However, the law does not provide concrete parameters to define the content of public policy, investing judges with a significant degree of discretion that ends up creating legal uncertainty and unpredictability. The association of the institute with the grammar of human rights is not enough to exclude its relativity, since these can be invoked to support both the grant and the denial of cooperational pleadings. The approximation of national legal systems and the increase in their interdependence enhance the need for cooperation among States, which is why this paper advocates the adoption of the "internationalist interpretation" as a hermeneutic vector for determining the content of public policy.