Lex petrolea, globalization and the future of private international law

Abstract

 This article analyzes the interrelationships of three levels of regulation of cross-border activities in the oil and gas sector: non-state sources of lex petrolea, national and international law. Among the current trends, the author notes the  rapid development of the transnational normative plane due to  he«denationalization» of law; the process of«materialization» and its impact on the blurring of the boundaries between public and private law; the  transformation of the methodology and functions of classical private  international law. The central hypothesis is that the globalization of all sectors of the economy provokes the spontaneous growth of flexible, neutral, non-national «rules of law» that are convenient for direct application, bypassing the appeal to national legislation through the system of conflict of laws, which to a certain extent is a «leap into the unknown». It is predicted that in the future, private international law may lose its former importance as the main tool for solving the conflict of laws problem.