INTRODUCTION

Since the 19th century, Switzerland has established a net of bilateral treaties dealing with a number of private international law issues, with both European and non-European countries. Several of these instruments also cover international succession matters.

To begin with, a number of Swiss bilateral treaties regulate the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of decisions among the Contracting States. While an 1869 treaty with France was denounced in 1992 after the ratification of the 1988 Lugano Convention, similar instruments are still applicable in the relationships with several other Member States of the EU. Although these treaties also cover decisions rendered in succession matters, they do not interfere with the European Succession Regulation (SR), which governs only the mutual recognition and enforcement of decisions among the Member States.

Another group of bilateral instruments impose only some limited cooperation duties on a Contracting State's authorities whenever a citizen of the other Contracting State dies within their territory, such as the duties to inform the authorities of the national State or to take conservation measures to protect the estate's assets. As in the previous case, the European Regulation is not affected by these narrow cooperation mechanisms.

The only bilateral conventions that do interfere with the Succession Regulation are those that contain common rules on jurisdiction and/or the applicable law. While two treaties within this category are in force with third States (Iran and the United States of America), two of them are applicable in relationships with Member States of the EU bound by the Succession Regulation, i.e. Greece (Treaty 23) and Italy (Treaty 20).

First in time and practical importance, the Convention between Italy and Switzerland of 22 July 1868 includes in its Article 17 rules specifically regulating the jurisdiction over disputes concerning the estate of a citizen of one Contracting State with a last domicile in the other Contracting State. These jurisdictional rules, based on the nationality of the deceased, have been interpreted by the courts of both countries as also implicitly including a choice-of-law rule.

By contrast, Article 10(3) of the Convention between Greece and Switzerland of 1 December 1927 contains only a choice-of-law rule, also based on the last nationality of the deceased.