L’ORDINE PUBBLICO INTERNAZIONALE NELLA GIURISPRUDENZA ITALIANA IN TEMA DI RISARCIMENTO PUNITIVO E DI MATERNITÀ SURROGATA

An important judgment on punitive damages has been issued in 2017 by the “United Sections” of the Italian Supreme Court. This judgement has adopted a notion of international public order which, although still being fairly broad, represents an advancement compared to the one traditionally used by the Italian judges. The same notion has been subsequently applied and further elaborated in another relevant judgment regarding a case of surrogate motherhood issued in 2019 again by the “United Sections” of the Supreme Court. In Italy, the debate among scholars and judges with regard to the notion of international public order is still ongoing. Nonetheless, it seems that the Italian law is preserving a notion of international public order that contains a significant defensive potential of the most important national legal peculiarities. Such a notion seems, in principle, worthy of approval.