Proposal for a Spanish International Cooperation (Civil Matters) Act

The Spanish Civil Procedure Act (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil), adopted in 2000, required the Government to send to Parliament a bill of international legal co-operation in civil matters. Soon after, the private international law Department of the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid (UAM) drafted a law proposal on the subject intending to provide guidance to the government. More than a decade later, the legal imperative contained in the Civil Procedure Act has not yet been fulfilled. The original proposal needed to be updated and adapted to the existing normative framework.  UAM Professors Miguel Virgós Soriano, Iván Heredia Cervantes, and Francisco José Garcimartín Alférez, together with the Spanish registrar and current president of the International Commission on Civil Status (CIEC) Spanish section Juan María Díaz Fraile, have undertaken the task with a twofold purpose: to be a point of reference in the development of a future law, and to promote a critical and public debate on the topic. The Spanish Boletín Oficial del Ministerio de Justicia has just published their work, reproducing the last version of the Proposal and including a detailed explanatory memorandum which exposes the draft’s essential features. The article can be downloaded from the website of the newly born Spanish Forum of Private International Law, the approval of a future International Legal Cooperation Act being one of the issues on which the Forum intends to focus its immediate activity.