The real methodological revolution in European conflict of laws today is linked to the emergence of a fundamental-ights approach to cross-border situations, which aims atprotecting personal status and relationships from the adverse effects of heightened international mobility This approach entails a neo-unilatemlist turn, whereby the forum s choice-of-law rules are set aside whenever they interfere with the continuity of an effective cross-border relationship. To a large extent, the traditionalm ethods andp olicies encountered in the field ofmutial recognition of foreign judgments are extending to situations created independenty of any judicial intervention but which have generated legitimate individual expectations. The case law of the various European and national courts frequentlyjustifies this new methodology by reference to the principle of nondiscrimination, whether ithin the context of Community law oron the basis of the European Convention of Human Rights. Ho wever such a justification is highly debatable. Rather the recent methodological turn appears to be mandated by the ideological foundations of the new European legal order, which are grounded in the recognition and protection ofjpersonal identity.