Dispute Resolution and Private International Law in the Context of Circular Economy: Effectiveness Beyond Alternatives in Legal Perspectives for a Sustainable Circular Economy

The paper focuses on the evaluation of the existing rules dealing with private international law (jurisdiction and conflict of law) and alternative dispute resolution in order to assess their application in the context of circular economy. In the first part of the paper, the focus is on the rules of the Brussels and Rome I and II regulations applying to consumer contracts, rules that are critically analysed in their application to the new scenario opened by the circular economy, in particular with regard to the selling from consumers to consumers using online platforms (and the relationship between consumers and platforms) and the rules related to product liability and intellectual property rights violation linked to the circular economy commerce opportunities. In the second part of the paper, the focus is on the alterna- tive dispute resolutions systems offered by the same platforms and their effective- ness in dealing with the increase of C2C contracts and preventing the need to resort to judicial remedies. Finally, the author draws the consequences from the previous research and proposes new rights that should be implemented by the EU legislator while amending the existing legal framework in the field of private international law in order to tackle the existing outlined problems.