Yearbook of Private International Law, vol. VIII (2006)

The VIII volume (2006) of the Yearbook of Private International Law (published by Sellier and Staempfli in association with the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law) is expected in June. It contains a huge number of articles, national reports, commentaries on court decisions and other materials, up to nearly 500 pages.

The main section (“Doctrine”) of the volume is devoted to the memory of Prof. Petar Šar?evi?, who co-founded the periodical in 1999 with Prof. Paul Volken (a biography and list of publications of Prof. Šar?evi? can be found in the Liber Memorialis dedicated to his memory, published by Sellier in 2006: “Universalism, Tradition and the Individual“, edited by J. Erauw, V. Tomljenovi? and P. Volken).

A presentation of the new volume is provided by the current editors of the Yearbook, Prof. Paul Volken and Prof. Andrea Bonomi, in the “Foreword”:

The present volume of the Yearbook is a special one for at least two reasons. First, it includes a section devoted to the memory of the Yearbook’s spiritual father, the late Petar Šar?evi?. […]

This special section features twelve most interesting contributions by colleagues from no less than eleven countries and three continents, thus confirming once again the worldwide reputation of Petar Šar?evi? and his Yearbook. The papers deal with a wide array of subjects ranging from classical themes such as the protection of children in inter-country adoptions and abduction cases, the principle of comity in United States case law and new national conflict codifications, to very fashionable topics like non-marital unions and same-sex marriages, up to the new challenging questions of the conflict régime of euthanasia and living wills. […]

With the intention of bringing the celebratory aim of the present volume in harmony with the general goals of the Yearbook, we have maintained in the current issue most of our traditional sections. We thus have the pleasure of presenting the reader with several most interesting national reports, as well as commentaries on court decisions and recent developments from various African, Asian and European countries. We will not mention all of them here, but we are pleased to stress that, in line with the purpose of extending with each passing year the Yearbook’s information network, the present volume hosts for the first time contributions from Greece, India, Latvia, Qatar and Tunisia.

In order to make the Yearbook more attractive for practitioners, we have also enlarged the section on national court decisions and included contributions on international arbitration. And last but not least, this year’s ‘Forum’ section summarizes the contents of two excellent doctoral theses on the pending European conflict system. One article analyzes the new system taking into account the scope of application of secondary Community legislation, while the other focuses on the conflict of laws aspects of the ever growing case law of the European Court of Justice.

Here’s the list of articles published in the “Doctrine” section (we highly recommend to browse the whole table of contents of the volume, which is not reproduced here in its entirety):

Alfred E. von Overbeck: Three Steps With Petar Šar?evi? (downloadable from the publisher’s website)
Tito Ballarino: Is a Conflict Rule for Living Wills and Euthanasia Needed?
Katharina Boele-Woelki, Ian Curry-Sumner, Miranda Jansen, Wendy Schrama: The Evaluation of Same-Sex Marriages and Registered Partnerships in the Netherlands
Alegría Borrás: Competence of the Community to Conclude the Revised Lugano Convention on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters – Opinion C-1/03 of 7 February 2006: Comments and Immediate Consequences
Lawrence Collins: The United States Supreme Court and the Principles of Comity: Evidence in Transnational Litigation
William Duncan: Nationality and the Protection of Children across Frontiers, and the Example of Intercountry Adoption
Jasnica Garaši?: What is Right and What is Wrong in the ECJ’s Judgment on Eurofood IFSC Ltd
Huang Jin: Interaction and Integration between the Legal Systems of Hong Kong, Macao and Mainland China 50 Years after Their Return to China
Ulrich Magnus: Set-off and the Rome I Proposal
Yuko Nishitani: International Child Abduction in Japan
Yasuhiro Okuda: Reform of Japan’s Private International Law: Act on the General Rules of the Application of Laws
Robert G. Spector: Same-Sex Marriages, Domestic Partnerships and Private International Law: At the Dawn of a New Jurisprudence in the United States.

The table of contents of the previous volumes of the Yearbook (1999-2005) is available on the website of Sellier – European Law Publisher, in the “Private International Law” section (use the “serial” dropdown menu on the top of the page).