‘Is This a Conflict Rule Which I See before Me?’ Looking for a Hidden Conflict Rule in the Principle of Origin as Implemented in Primary European Community Law and in the ‘Directive on Electronic Commerce’

The article will endeavour to examine the claims in some doctrinal writing that the ‘principle of origin’ in fact contains a hidden conflict rule which directly renders applicable the country of origin's law. When examining this question, a distinction has to be drawn between the principle as it can be found in primary European Community law (the Treaty freedoms) on the one hand, and the principle as it was implemented in several instruments of secondary Community law. These correspond to the two main parts of the article. The second part will however only deal with one example of a secondary instrument implementing the principle of origin, namely the ‘Directive on electronic commerce’.