Zulässigkeit und Bindungswirkung gemeinschaftlicher Testamente im Internationalen Privatrecht

Joint wills are permitted by the German law of succession. These wills do however cause serious problems in German private international law, since the law applicable to wills is the law of the testator's nationality. Portuguese-speaking legal systems prohibit joint wills, but tolerate them partially in case of a conflict of laws. In this work, Carl Friedrich Nordmeier analyzes the validity and the binding force of such wills made by two testators of the same foreign nationality and two of mixed nationalities. He bases this on an examination of the legal systems of all the Lusophonic countries. The results permit conclusions for German private international law and serve as a basis for the author's draft of a conflict of law rule in the context of the forthcoming European harmonization of private international law pertaining to successions and wills.