Thanks!

I always suggest to those considering international adoption or surrogacy and faced with doubtful status questions to acquire a domicile of choice, or at least an habitual residence, in the country of adoption long enough for the child to acquire vested rights.

Given the infirmities of the Orams decision it has been asked whether a Republic of Cyprus judgment (founded in trespass, etc.) against an investor or resident of Northern Cyprus might be enforced, say, in a U.S. state under the Uniform Foreign Country Money-Judgment Recognition Act or in Canada under the Canada and United Kingdom Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments Act. R.S., c. 52, s. 1.

The failure of Vassilios Skouris to recuse himself spontaneously in the ECJ (he was not asked to do so) has reminded some of another, purely British, fiasco: “The Plumber” (Paul Davidson) case http://bit.ly/tySBf . The original hearing in that case collapsed following ex parte contact between one of the administrative-law judges and the the head of the FSA’s Regulatory Decisions Committee while the latter while walking his dog early one morning after the hearing had begun. Skouris made an unexplained visit to Nicosia.

Also, the ruling on (non-)re-opening of the default judgment in the Orams case by the original Cyprus court was at least harsh, if not rising to due process levels.

Another question is whether this apparently private-law case is not really a public-law matter, with the parties as proxies for the respective governments of the South and the North.

I understand that the European Commission submission by F. Hoffmeister and A.?M. Rouchaud (mentioned at para. 40 of the judgment) addressed not only the Accession Treaty protocol point but also the effect enforcement is likely to have on progress towards reconciliation and political solution. A month before the judgment was issued Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat had expressed hope for a political solution by April 2010 ( http://bit.ly/j1RcY , Reuters).

Lastly, I am reminded of something I saw often enough as a supporting diplomat at treaty negotiations: the occasional use of vague and ambiguous terminology to hide disagreement as to meaning, and to leave precision to subsequent negotiation or determination by the courts or competent authority.