The Extraterritorial Application of Statutes and Regulations. Italy

This paper constitutes one of the contributions presented at the most recent General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, held in Asunción, Paraguay in 2022, together with national reports from thirteen other countries, a special report on EU law, and a general report.The article analyses the notion of extraterritoriality in the Italian legal thinking and underlines the renewed interest for extraterritoriality, in particular in the framework of the regulation of economic activities. The article then goes on to illustrate the scope of application of Italian rules in civil and commercial matters in the light of the codification of private international law. It also presents the protection of Italian crucial values through the extension of application of internal rules (with specific examples given of social security and adoption of children) and examines the territorial scope of Italian criminal law and its exceptions. A specific analysis is devoted to the application in Italy of foreign extraterritorial rules to specific private matters, with a focus on contractual matters.The final part deals with counteracting foreign extraterritorial measures and the implementation in Italy of the so-called blocking statutes.