Iana S. Kutashevskaia

The article examines the problem of extending the principle of party autonomy to non-contractual obligations from the historical perspective. The stages of the formation of supranational regulation of this issue in the European Union, in individual national legal systems, as well as in the Russian Federation are described. Both accepted and rejected by the legislation and the doctrine modalities of the choice of applicable law for non-contractual obligations are explored. From the position of historical development, the article analyzes the key dichotomies constituting the problem of the legitimacy of choosing the applicable law in non-contractual obligations: the justifiableness of the ex-ante choice of the applicable law, or the validity only of the ex-post choice; the admissibility of choosing as applicable the law of any foreign legal order, or the advisability of establishing criteria that limit the range of choice; the validity of the party autonomy in any legal relationship, or the reasonability of limiting or completely abandoning the party autonomy depending on the sphere of civil transactions or on the characteristics of the parties involved in legal relations. The author comes to the conclusion about the dynamic spread of the principle of party autonomy in non-contractual obligations over a relatively short historical period, along with the tendency to expand the scope of the principle of lex voluntatis in involuntary relations in general, as well as the liberalization of the modalities of such a choice of applicable law, in particular. Based on the results of the study, the author predicts the further elimination of a number of restrictive norms and an increase in the practical and doctrinal significance of the freedom to choose the applicable law in non-contractual obligations.