by Pamela Bookman
on May 27, 2020
Written by John Coyle, the Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law, Associate Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Katherine C. Richardson, Law Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 2020-21 Term
European legal scholars have long bemoaned the difficulty in identifying “black letter rules” when it comes to U.S. private international law. One area where this law is famously opaque relates to state enforcement of “outbound” forum selection clauses. Outbound clauses—which are known as derogation clauses in the rest of the world—state that a dispute must be heard by a court other than the one where the suit was brought. State courts in the United States generally refused to enforce these provisions prior to 1972. After the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its seminal decision in The Bremen, however, attitudes began to change. Today, it is generally acknowledged that state courts are far more likely to enforce outbound forum selection clauses than they were fifty years ago. To date, however, nobody has attempted to determine empirically the extent to which state court practice has shifted since the early 1970s. Our new paper seeks to accomplish this goal. Read more...
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by Giesela Ruehl
on May 19, 2020
Written by Silja Vöneky, University of Freiburg
Note: This blogpost is part of a series on „Corporate social responsibility and international law“ that presents the main findings of the contributions published in August Reinisch, Stephan Hobe, Eva-Maria Kieninger & Anne Peters (eds), Unternehmensverantwortung und Internationales Recht, C.F. Müller, 2020.
I. Introduction
1. The question of the status of transnational corporations in investment arbitration is of central importance for the division of spheres of responsibility, for the pursuit and enforcement of values, and thus for the bases of legitimation of the international legal order today. Read more...
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by Giesela Ruehl
on May 18, 2020
Written by Stefan Huber, University of Tübingen
Note: This blogpost is part of a series on „Corporate social responsibility and international law“ that presents the main findings of the contributions published in August Reinisch, Stephan Hobe, Eva-Maria Kieninger & Anne Peters (eds), Unternehmensverantwortung und Internationales Recht, C.F. Müller, 2020.
1. In investor-state arbitration, one has to distinguish between arbitral proceedings which are initiated on the basis of a contract concluded between the investor and the host state, on the one hand, and arbitral proceedings which are initiated on the basis of a bilateral investment treaty, on the other hand. In the latter case, there is no arbitration agreement in the traditional sense. This entails a unilateral right of the investor to initiate arbitral proceedings. Granting the host state the right to bring a counterclaim might compensate this asymmetry up to a certain degree. Read more...
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by Ralf Michaels
on May 16, 2020
by Ralf Michaels and Jakob Olbing
Note: This repository will stay permanent at www.conflictoflaws.net/corona.
Please send additions to olbing@mpipriv.de
Updated: June 3, 2020
The coronavirus has created a global crisis that affects all aspects of life everywhere. Not surprisingly, that means that the law is affected as well. And indeed, we have seen a high volume of legislation and legal regulations, of court decisions, and of scholarly debates. In some US schools there are courses on the legal aspects of corona. Some disciplines are organizing symposia or special journal issues to discuss the impact of the pandemic on the respective discipline. Read more...
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by Apostolos Anthimos
on May 15, 2020
A bit more than a month ago, the Supreme Court of California rendered its decision on a case concerning the (non-)application of the 1965 Hague Service Convention. The case has been thoroughly reported and commented before and after the ruling of the Supreme Court. I will refrain from giving the full picture of the facts; I will focus on the central question of the dispute.
THE FACTS
The parties are U.S. and Chinese business entities. They entered into a contract wherein they agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of California courts and to resolve disputes between them through California arbitration. They also agreed to provide notice and “service of process” to each other through Federal Express or similar courier. The exact wording of the clause in the MOU reads as follows: Read more...
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by Giesela Ruehl
on May 15, 2020
Written by Peter Hilpold, University of Innsbruck
Note: This blogpost is part of a series on „Corporate social responsibility and international law“ that presents the main findings of the contributions published in August Reinisch, Stephan Hobe, Eva-Maria Kieninger & Anne Peters (eds), Unternehmensverantwortung und Internationales Recht, C.F. Müller, 2020.
1. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) have set forth a process by which Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rules are to be further specified. The approach followed is not to impose specific results but to create procedures by which CSR is given further flesh on the basis of a continuing dialogue between all relevant stakeholders. Read more...
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by Giesela Ruehl
on May 14, 2020
Written by Tanja Domej, University of Zurich
Note: This blogpost is part of a series on „Corporate social responsibility and international law“ that presents the main findings of the contributions published in August Reinisch, Stephan Hobe, Eva-Maria Kieninger & Anne Peters (eds), Unternehmensverantwortung und Internationales Recht, C.F. Müller, 2020.
1. It is essential for the effective enforcement of human and workers’ rights to create effective local institutions and procedures. This encompasses functioning, trustworthy and accessible civil courts, but also other public, private and criminal institutions and mechanisms (e.g. permission, licencing or inspection procedures to ensure safety in the workplace; accident insurance; trade unions). Civil litigation cannot be a substitute for such mechanisms – particularly if it takes place far away from the place where the relevant events occurred. Read more...
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by Jan von Hein
on May 13, 2020
Written by Yannick Morath
Yannick Morath, doctoral candidate at the University of Freiburg, has kindly provided us with his thoughts on the CJEU’s judgement in the case of LG and Others v Rina SpA, Ente Registro Italiano Navale (C-641/18 – ECLI:EU:C:2020:349)
(See also the earlier post by Matthias Weller concerning the CJEU’s judgement).
- Introduction
Private-law classification and certification societies play a vital role in modern economies. Especially in the maritime sector, external auditors issue certificates dealing with public tasks such as the seaworthiness and safety of vessels. Not only their contractual partners but also third parties rely on the accuracy of such certificates. Due to cross-border mobility of certificates and certified items, issues of Private International Law have to be taken into account when dealing with a certifiers’ liability. Read more...
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by Giesela Ruehl
on May 12, 2020
Written by Oliver Dörr, University of Osnabrück
Note: This blogpost is part of a series on „Corporate social responsibility and international law“ that presents the main findings of the contributions published in August Reinisch, Stephan Hobe, Eva-Maria Kieninger & Anne Peters (eds), Unternehmensverantwortung und Internationales Recht, C.F. Müller, 2020.
I. Companies – responsibility
1. As for commercial entities, international law is concerned, above all, with transnational or multinational companies. The term basically describes the conglomerate of commercial entities that are acting separately in at least two different countries and which are tied together by a regime of hierarchical coordination. Read more...
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by Tobias Lutzi
on May 10, 2020
Written by Tobias Lutzi, University of Cologne
One of the biggest winners of the current pandemic (other than toilet paper producers, conspiracy theorists, and the climate) seems to be the former Silicon Valley startup Zoom, whose videoconferencing solutions have seen its number of daily users increase about thirtyfold since the end of 2019. While the company’s success in a market otherwise dominated by some of the world’s wealthiest corporations has taken many people – including investors – by surprise, it can be attributed to a number of factors – arguably including its software’s highly popular virtual-background feature. Read more...
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