INTRODUCTION

OBJECT AND SCOPE OF THE REPORT

This report gives an account of the international conventions relating to succession which are currently in force between Italy, on the one hand, and non-Member States of the European Union, on the other. Specifically, the report examines the conventions that deal with matters covered by Regulation (EU) No. 650/2012 of 4 July 2012 on successions (hereinafter the European Succession Regulation, or the Regulation), to the extent to which they benefit from the subordination clause in Article 75 of the Regulation.

THE CONVENTIONS ON SUCCESSIONS: AN OVERVIEW

Multilateral Conventions

Neither the Convention of 5 October 1961 on the Conflicts of Laws Relating to the Form of Testamentary Dispositions nor the Convention of 2 October 1973 Concerning the International Administration of the Estates of Deceased Persons, both adopted at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, are in force for Italy. Italy signed them, but ratification never followed.

Italy is a party to the UNIDROIT Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will, concluded in Washington on 26 October 1973, and the Council of Europe Convention on the Establishment of a Scheme of Registration of Wills, signed in Basel on 16 May 1972. The two instruments, however, are concerned with the substantive aspects of successions and do not include provisions that affect the operation of the European Succession Regulation.

Bilateral Conventions

Italy is a party to several bilateral conventions which lay down rules relating to cross-border successions. These include treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation, and consular and establishment conventions.

The vast majority of these rules have no bearing on the operation of the European Succession Regulation. They will not be considered in this report.

They concern, for example, rules on the taxation of estates, a matter which falls plainly outside the scope of the Regulation pursuant to Article 1(1), and rules regarding the measures that the consular authorities of each Contracting State may take, along the lines of the customary rule in Article 5(g) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 24 April 1963, whenever a national of that State dies on the territory of the other. These measures do not prevent the courts of the former country – Italy, for present purposes – from exercising their jurisdiction, if any, under the Regulation.