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Recognition of Italian Extrajudicial Divorces in Tunisia — Between Methodological Uncertainty and the Need to Preserve Continuity of Personal Status Across Borders
I. Introduction
Recent years have witnessed a movement towards the dejudicialization of consensual divorce and the proliferation of extrajudicial divorce mechanisms notably in Europe. While this mode of “private divorce” is not, as such, a new phenomenon and extrajudicial divorce has been practised in different forms across various parts of the world (see e.g., Béligh Elbalti, “Le divorce au Japon et son accueil en Tunisie” (2026) 73 Osaka University Law Review 6), it has attracted increasing attention in recent years, given the growing number of European jurisdictions that have introduced mechanisms allowing spouses to dissolve their marriage outside the courts, as well as the complex questions that such divorces raise in terms of their recognition and circulation across borders (for a comparative view in Europe, see e.g., CJEU, Directorate for Research and Documentation, “Extrajudicial Divorce: Rules, Procedures and Cross-Border Recognition in Member States” (Research Note, February 2022) 3; Pablo Quinzá Redondo, “The Recognition of Non-Judicial Divorces in Europe” in Konrad Duden and Denise Wiedemann (eds), Changing Families, Changing Family Law in Europe (Intersentia, 2024) 23). This is particularly true of the Italian form of extrajudicial divorce, introduced by Decree-Law No. 132/2014, converted into Law No. 162/2014, which allows spouses meeting specified conditions to obtain a divorce through an agreement before the civil registrar, rather than through a court.
As previously reported on this blog, the recognition of such an Italian divorce in another Member State gave rise to a CJEU decision in Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport v TB (Case C-646/20) and to scholarly discussion, notably concerning the appropriateness of the CJEU’s treatment of such a divorce agreement as a “decision” for the purposes of its recognition under the Brussels IIa Regulation, later replaced by the Brussels IIb Regulation (for critical comments, see e.g., Elena Bargelli, “Reshaping the Boundaries Between ‘Decision’ and Party Autonomy. The CJEU on the Extrajudicial Italian Divorce” (2023) 8(1) European Papers 43; Quinzá Redondo, op.cit., 35 ; Sabine Corneloup, “La circulation européenne du divorce sans juge : nouvel arrêt et toujours des incertitudes” (2023) RCDIP 409).
The issue of the recognition of Italian extrajudicial divorces has recently crossed the Mediterranean and reached the Tunisian courts. While this is not the first time that Tunisian courts have dealt with the issue (for an earlier case concerning the recognition of a French out-of-court divorce, Souhayma Ben Achour, “Le divorce extrajudiciaire français devant le juge tunisien, une tolérance à contrecœur…À propos du jugement du tribunal de première instance de Tunis du 14 novembre 2017 (no 86358)” (2018) RCDIP 211; on this issue in general, see Elbalti, op cit. 48-49, and, more specifically, on the recognition of Japanese extrajudicial divorce, pp. 50 et seq.), to my knowledge, this is the first time that the issue of the recognition of an Italian extrajudicial divorce has been brought before the courts in Tunisia. The issue is particularly interesting from a comparative law perspective, as it provides insights into the way in which Tunisian courts approach a form of marital dissolution originating in a different legal system, as well as the challenges that may arise in the cross-border circulation of such divorces from the perspective of non-EU law.
II. The Case
The petitioner, X (a Tunisian national), married the first respondent, Y (an Albanian national), in Italy in 1996. Since 2005, pursuant to a judgment of personal separation issued by an Italian court, the parties had been legally separated. In 2021, the parties obtained a divorce by mutual agreement before the Italian civil registrar, in accordance with the applicable Italian rules on extrajudicial divorce. Later, in 2025, X initiated summary proceedings against Y and the Public Prosecutor, as the second respondent, seeking an order from the First Instance Court of Nabeul (one of the 28 courts of first instance in Tunisia) seeking a summary order allowing the entry of the divorce agreement in X’s civil-status records.
In support of the application, X argued that the divorce had been obtained by mutual consent before the Italian civil registrar and that the resulting agreement should be entered in his civil-status records. X relied, in particular, on the 1967 Tunisian–Italian Convention on judicial assistance, arguing that the Convention provides for the recognition in Tunisia of decisions issued by Italian authorities and that this should also extend to extrajudicial divorces under Italian law, introduced as a simplified procedure allowing spouses, subject to certain conditions, to dissolve their marriage before the civil registrar. X further argued that the agreement concluded by the parties complied with all the requirements under Italian law: in particular, the parties had no children and had appeared before the civil registrar twice, more than thirty days apart, to confirm their agreement. X also argued that the Italian divorce had been issued by a competent authority in accordance with Italian law, had become final and effective in Italy, and had already produced its effects there, as demonstrated by the official documents submitted to the court.
III. The Ruling
In its summary order dated 24 February 2026, the First Instance Court of Nabeul admitted the application and ruled as follows.
The Court began by recalling the general context of the case and referring to the relevant provisions of Italian law submitted by the applicant. It then identified three legal issues to be addressed: first, whether the Court, sitting in summary proceedings, had jurisdiction to deal with an application seeking an order allowing the entry of the Italian divorce in the Tunisian civil-status records; second, whether judicial review of the Italian divorce by agreement by a court sitting in summary proceedings was permissible; and third, whether the Court should order the entry of the Italian divorce by agreement in the Tunisian civil-status records.
Regarding the first issue, the Court recalled that the jurisdiction of a court sitting in summary proceedings depends on the satisfaction of two conditions: (1) the existence of a situation of urgency; and (2) the summary proceedings must not prejudice the merits of the case. With respect to (1), the Court considered that the requirement of urgency was satisfied given the instability and discrepancy in the applicant’s civil status resulting from the foreign divorce, and the potentially serious consequences of such a situation for family stability. With respect to (2), the Court considered, referring to Tunisian scholarly opinions, that this requirement was also satisfied, since the substance of the right invoked had already been addressed in the foreign country.
Regarding the second issue, the Court invoked four grounds justifying judicial review of the Italian extrajudicial divorce by a court sitting in summary proceedings. The first was a legal ground, based on the view that the extrajudicial divorce could be treated as a “decision” under the Tunisian–Italian Convention and the 1998 Tunisian Code of Private International Law (TCPIL). The Court considered that the TCPIL aims to recognize legal situations created abroad and that its provisions could therefore be applied to the recognition of extrajudicial divorces, whether consensual, notarial, or administrative. The second was a scholarly ground: the Court referred to the prevailing opinion in Tunisian legal literature in favour of the recognition of extrajudicial divorces. The third was a case-law ground: the Court referred to previous cases in which the entry of extrajudicial divorces obtained abroad into the Tunisian civil-status records had been allowed. The fourth was based on practical considerations, namely that summary proceedings allow time and effort to be saved, the need to take into account the Tunisian diaspora living in countries where extrajudicial divorce is permitted, and the absence of any serious controversy between the parties.
Regarding the third issue, the Court held that the Italian extrajudicial divorce should be entered in the Tunisian civil-status records. It considered that refusing to recognize a divorce that had already taken effect in Italy, in the absence of any serious dispute between the parties, would create an inconsistency in their civil status and potentially interfere with their private lives and the exercise of rights resulting from their changed marital status. The Court also noted that the divorce had already been recorded in the parties’ Italian civil-status records, that the respondent had authorized X to seek its registration in Tunisia, and that the agreement complied with the requirements of Italian law and did not prejudice the interests of either spouse or of any children.
On this basis, the Court issued the order allowing the entry into the Italian divorce in X’s Tunisian civil-status records.
IV. Comments
While the outcome of the case can be agreed with, the Court’s reasoning raises serious questions concerning the manner in which an extrajudicial divorce can be given effect in Tunisia. Various aspects – notably from the perspective of the general legal and procedural framework applicable to the “recognition” of foreign divorces in Tunisia – deserve a more thorough analysis, which may not be appropriate for a blog post, (for a detailed analysis of this issue, see Elbalti, op cit. 24 et seq.). Three particular issues, however, will be addressed here.
1. Summary Proceedings and the Recognition of Foreign Divorce
First, regarding the jurisdiction of the First Instance Court sitting in summary proceedings, it is sufficient to point out that, in assessing the requirement that summary proceedings must not prejudice the merits of the case, the Court seems to have confused the substantive merits of the case (i.e. the dissolution of the marriage) with the object of the proceedings, which, in the Court’s own words, was to obtain the “recognition” of the Italian divorce for the purpose of its entry in the Tunisian civil-status records. However, given that, under the current legal framework in Tunisia – and despite the prevailing view in Tunisia to the contrary – “recognition” is not automatic (for details, see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 29, describing the issue as “thorny” (épineuse)), a formal exequatur procedure for giving effect to the foreign divorce would have been required. Such a procedure falls within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the courts of first instance exercising their ordinary jurisdiction (Elbalti, op. cit., p. 41). In other words, the requirement that summary proceedings must not prejudice the merits of the case should have been examined with regard to the exequatur procedure that should have been initiated pursuant to the applicable rules governing the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, rather than with regard to the dissolution of the marriage itself. In that respect, examining the “recognition” of the foreign divorce necessarily entails an examination of the conditions governing its recognition and enforcement and, therefore, requires the court to determine issues that properly belong to the exequatur proceedings. In this sense, the exercise of jurisdiction by the First Instance Court sitting in summary proceedings would not, under the applicable legal framework currently in force, be legally justified.
In any event, it is worth noting that, in recent years, the practice of initiating summary proceedings for the “recognition” of foreign divorces for the purpose of ordering their entry in the Tunisian civil-status records (as well as other procedural modalities) has developed in judicial practice in Tunisia, generally with the approval of Tunisian scholars (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 43).
2. The Uncertain Method of Recognition
Second, it is remarkable that the Court began its analysis by placing itself on the terrain of the “recognition of foreign decisions”, either under the 1967 Tunisian–Italian bilateral Convention or under the TCPIL. Leaving aside the question of whether an Italian extrajudicial divorce can properly be treated as a “decision” (on this issue, see the convincing analysis of Bargelli, op. cit., arguing that it should not), such an approach would suggest that the recognition of the Italian divorce should have been examined by reference to the requirements governing the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, notably those prescribed by Article 3 of the 1967 Tunisian–Italian Convention, which the Court expressly referred to. (It is worth noting, however, that Tunisian scholars are generally in favour of applying domestic law, namely the TCPIL, as it sets out less restrictive requirements for the enforcement of foreign judgments than those provided for in the international conventions concluded by Tunisia. On this issue, see e.g., Souhayma Ben Achour, La réception des decisions étrangères dans l’ordre juridique tunisien (CPU, 2017) 33).
However, this is not what the Court did. It did not examine the recognition of the Italian divorce under the applicable rules governing recognition, whether under the convention-based framework or the requirements set out in the TCPIL. Instead, the Court seems to have focused on the need to prevent and remedy the harm resulting from the discrepancy in the parties’ civil status created by the divorce abroad. It emphasized the need to recognize the divorce agreement concluded abroad and to order its entry in the Tunisian civil-status records, particularly because the divorce had already produced its effects in Italy. This approach is reminiscent of recent discussions concerning the “recognition of situations created abroad” as an alternative method for giving effect to foreign legal situations (see e.g., Dagmar Coester-Waltjen, “Recognition of Legal Situations Evidenced by Documents” in Jürgen Basedow et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Private International Law – Vol. 2 (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 1495).
The Court went even further, however, by stating that the divorce complied with the requirements and procedures prescribed by Italian law. Such a reference to Italian law would not have been necessary under either of the two approaches mentioned above. It would, by contrast, have been entirely justified had the Court proceeded to examine the validity of the divorce under Tunisian choice-of-law rules under the so-called “method of acceptance by conflict-of-laws” (Susanne Lilian Gössl, “Open Issues in European International Family Law: Sahyouni, ‘Private Divorces’ and Islamic Law Under the Rome III Regulation” (2017) European Legal Forum 69). Such an approach would have led to the application of Italian law as the law of the parties’ common domicile, pursuant to Article 49 of the TCPIL (see Elbalti, op cit. p. 57). Importantly, however, such an approach would not have required the Italian divorce to be characterized as a “decision” under the Tunisian–Italian Convention or under the Tunisian rules on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.
3. Towards a More Tolerant Approach to Extrajudicial Divorce
Finally, the case illustrates the evolving treatment of extrajudicial divorces in Tunisian PIL. Until recently, the “judicial nature” of divorce was generally regarded as a matter of public policy, leading Tunisian courts to (almost) systematically refuse to give effect to divorces that had not been pronounced by a judicial authority (see Elbalti, op. cit., pp. 46–49). This was particularly true of extrajudicial divorces obtained in other Arab jurisdictions, whether in the form of traditional talaq or khulʿ, as well as administrative divorces permitted in some other countries (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 59). The position of the courts has been consistent in this respect and was endorsed by the Tunisian Cour de cassation, which had the opportunity on several occasions to state that the judicial nature of divorce forms part of Tunisian public policy (see, e.g., the Tunisian Cour de cassation ruling of 7 November 2018, in which the Court stated, in dictum, that the principle that divorce must be judicial forms part of Tunisian public policy in the meaning of PIL).
Since the introduction of the French divorce sans juge in 2016, however, the situation has gradually begun to change, particularly in legal scholarship and in the judicial practice of the courts of first instance (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 63). While Tunisian courts have generally continued to refuse recognition of extrajudicial divorces originating in other Arab jurisdictions (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 60 and the cases cited therein), even where recognition is sought by the wife (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 63, fn 239), they have shown greater tolerance towards extrajudicial divorces originating in certain European countries, notably France, as well as Japan (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 63, contrasting the “great tolerance” shown towards French extrajudicial divorce with the “consistent hostility” towards forms of dissolution of marriage originating in other Arab jurisdictions).
One of the possible explanations for this difference in treatment lies in the generally hostile attitude of Tunisian courts and legal scholarship (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 48 and the various opinions cited therein at fn 196) towards traditional forms of divorce, which are often regarded as incompatible with the legislative policy pursued by the Tunisian State since independence. That policy has sought, among other things, to distance Tunisian family law from unilateral and traditional forms of divorce. By contrast, extrajudicial divorces based on the mutual agreement of the spouses appear more compatible with this legislative policy, which is grounded in the principles of equality between men and women and non-discrimination, particularly in matters relating to the dissolution of marriage. They have therefore encountered less resistance in Tunisian judicial practice (in this sense, see Ben Achour, op. cit., 222), despite their non-judicial character. This suggests an evolving approach towards the judicial nature of divorce in Tunisian PIL, at least with regard to extrajudicial divorces originating in Europe and Japan. This approach has been largely endorsed by the Tunisian lower courts (see Elbalti, op. cit., p. 59), but remains to be confirmed by the higher courts, including the Tunisian Cour de cassation.
Private International Law and European Society
from Marlene Tiede, a Research Fellow and PhD Candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law.
Can one speak of a European society without speaking about private relations? Recent scholarship on European society has largely approached the concept through the lens of public law. Yet societies are constituted at least as much by the horizontal relations between individuals and groups as by public institutions. In the absence of a comprehensive European private law, this blogpost turns to EU private international law (PIL), the principal framework for coordinating interactions between the diverse private laws of the Member States and structuring cross-border private life within the Union. I will argue that EU PIL brings into view the importance of coordination frameworks for organising a mode of integration based not on unification, but on interdependence.
Unity Through Interdependence
The Commission v Hungary judgment refers to “a society in which pluralism prevails” (paras. 551, 556). By placing that formula in the context of the Union and its common legal order (paras. 551, 556) and explicitly invoking European society (para. 554), the judgment leaves little room for doubt that it understands “a society in which pluralism prevails” as denoting a single European society. Yet this raises a fundamental question. If European society is constituted by pluralism – that is, by heterogeneity rather than homogeneity – what holds it together? Much like the Union’s own aspiration to be “united in diversity”, the notion of a single European society defined by pluralism appears almost oxymoronic. How is unity achieved under conditions of diversity?
A clue may lie in the particular mode through which European integration has proceeded in important domains. Read against the background of more than seventy-five years of integration, “a society in which pluralism prevails” appears as a fitting description of a European project in which integration has often advanced not by replacing the plurality of national legal orders with a single one, but by weaving them together into an increasingly dense web of legal, economic, and social interdependence. Rather than pursuing unification, integration in many domains has relied on ever closer cooperation between the diverse legal orders of the Member States. The resulting web of relations and interdependencies is sufficiently deep to sustain the idea of a single European society, while leaving intact the plurality of national legal orders. From this view, unity is achieved not through unification, but through interdependence.
I explore this mode of integration through the lens of EU PIL, a field particularly well suited to bringing into view both the horizontal relations between individuals and groups that have largely remained overlooked in accounts of European society and the coordinating structures through which interdependence is organised.
Mutual Trust and the Case for Private International Law
Mutual trust provides the normative foundation for cooperation between the diverse legal orders of the Member States. Although criticised as a judicial construct lacking a clear legal and empirical basis, it has become a structural principle of EU constitutional law. Resting on the presumption that all Member States comply with the values enshrined in Art. 2 TEU, mutual trust is a precondition for the functioning of the Union’s legal order. By requiring Member States to presume the adequacy of one another’s legal systems, it enables them to enter into relations of growing mutual dependence. Its significance is particularly pronounced in areas that remain only marginally harmonised, where cooperation relies less on common substantive standards than on confidence in the adequacy of the legal solutions adopted by the Member States.
Mutual trust occupies a central place within the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), a policy area based on cooperation rather than unification. Within the AFSJ, the following reflections turn to judicial cooperation in civil matters – better known outside the Treaties as PIL – to investigate more closely how integration through interdependence operates in practice.
Admittedly, one might hesitate before venturing deeper into a field of law famously disparaged as a “dismal swamp, filled with quaking quagmires, and inhabited by learned but eccentric professors who theorize about mysterious matters in a strange and incomprehensible jargon”. Yet, before the reader hastily retreats to firmer ground, two considerations make this “swamp” particularly worth exploring. First, accounts of European society, as developed most prominently by Armin von Bogdandy and Loïc Azoulai, have so far focused primarily on its public law dimension, leaving largely unexplored the horizontal relations between private individuals and groups – despite their centrality to any notion of society. Second, PIL brings into view the importance of coordination frameworks for a mode of integration based on interdependence rather than unification.
PIL deals with legal issues arising from private relations connected to more than one legal system and, in doing so, provides a framework for coordinating the interaction between diverse private legal orders. While substantive private law remains only marginally harmonised at the EU level – save for specific areas such as consumer protection, intellectual property, anti-discrimination law, and parts of labour and company law – PIL has been extensively harmonised. The result is a highly integrated coordination framework governing interactions between substantive laws that continue largely to be constituted by the diverse legal orders of the Member States. To return to the “dismal swamp” metaphor, what was once dismissed as an obscure and largely technical discipline has become a framework of central importance for the everyday lives of individuals and businesses throughout the Union. The denser the web of cross-border relations, the more indispensable coordination frameworks become.
In the following two sections, I demonstrate that EU PIL performs a dual function: first, it renders growing social and economic interdependence compatible with the continued plurality of national private laws; second, through the design of conflict rules, it regulates the externalities generated by interdependence.
Mobility Across Private Legal Orders
By facilitating mobility, openness, and cooperation across diverse private legal orders, EU PIL renders the growing density of cross-border relations compatible with the continued plurality of national private laws.
The increasing free circulation of civil judgments provides a prominent illustration of this dynamic. Following the abolition of exequatur – an intermediary procedure under which a judgment rendered in one Member State first had to be declared enforceable by the courts of another in order to be enforced there – judgments rendered in one Member State are, in most cases, recognised and enforced in another under the same conditions as domestic judgments. By rendering the outputs of one national judicial system effective throughout the Union, this closer form of cooperation reduces the costs and uncertainties associated with cross-border litigation and, in doing so, lowers the barriers for individuals and businesses to enter into cross-border relationships.
The growing mobility of individuals within the EU is further reflected in the reconfiguration of the connecting techniques of classical continental PIL. EU instruments have shifted the principal connecting factor from nationality to habitual residence and expanded the scope for party autonomy. By relying on less static connecting factors, EU legislation adapts conflict rules to increasingly transnational patterns of life and facilitates engagement with the private legal orders of other Member States.
Where harmonised PIL rules are absent or prove insufficient to structure cross-border social life within the EU, recognition-based mechanisms grounded in EU primary law have come to complement traditional PIL. Legal statuses validly established in one Member State increasingly circulate throughout the Union by virtue of fundamental freedoms, Union citizenship, and fundamental rights. These recognition-based mechanisms enable legal statuses created under one legal order to produce effects across borders irrespective of the law designated by traditional choice-of-law rules. Prominent examples can be found in both economic and family law: corporationsvalidly incorporated in one Member State must, on the basis of fundamental freedoms, be recognised throughout the Union; same-sex marriages or surnames lawfully established under the law of one Member State increasingly require recognition in other Member States on the basis of Union citizenship. Rather than replacing national private laws with a uniform European law, these recognition-based mechanisms render the private legal orders of the Member States progressively more interdependent by allowing individuals and businesses to carry their legal identities and relationships across borders.
Regulating Interdependence Through Conflict Rules
The growing interdependence of diverse legal orders gives rise not only to new forms of cooperation, but also to new governance challenges. A common concern is that private actors will exploit differences between legal regimes, circumventing regulation and triggering a race to the bottom. Yet, unlike mechanisms based solely on mutual recognition or the country-of-origin principle, which generally privilege the legal order of the Member State of origin, PIL is capable of employing more finely calibrated connecting factors that take account of the regulatory consequences of the applicable law. In this way, PIL does not merely accommodate legal diversity but also governs the externalities generated by interdependence, thereby assuming a regulatory function.
Art. 7 Rome II Regulation provides an instructive example of how conflict rules can be used to pursue substantive policy objectives. The provision allows claimants in environmental damage cases to choose between the law of the place of conduct and the law of the place of injury. Either connecting factor, if applied in isolation, would create opportunities for undertakings to exploit differences in national environmental standards. A pure place-of-conduct rule might encourage undertakings to locate polluting activities in low-protection jurisdictions, while a pure place-of-injury rule could create incentives to establish operations in higher-protection Member States where natural conditions, e.g. downwinds, ensure that the harmful effects are realised elsewhere. By conferring the choice upon the injured party, who is likely to opt for the more favourable law, Art. 7 Rome II seeks to reduce incentives for regulatory arbitrage, thereby aligning the operation of PIL with the Union’s objective of ensuring a high level of environmental protection.
Art. 7 Rome II thus demonstrates that conflict rules are not neutral techniques for allocating claims of regulatory authority. Their design can itself pursue substantive objectives and shape the conditions under which cross-border private relations unfold. More broadly, the extensive incorporation of PIL into the EU legal framework has transferred the design of conflict rules to a supranational level that stands above the legal systems whose interactions it seeks to organise.
I would like to thank Iris Canor, whose forthcoming contribution, “In Mutual Trust We Trust – A Structural Principle of a Diverse Union”, in Bast/von Bogdandy (eds.), The Constitutional Core of the Union (OUP, forthcoming), articulated with particular force the idea of European integration as a process driven by interdependence rather than unification. This contribution has greatly benefited from her insights.
This was first published at verfassungsblog.de
The New Zealand Supreme Court’s judgment in Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley on anti-enforcement relief
In Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley [2026] NZSC 97, the New Zealand Supreme Court recently delivered its reasons for reinstating world-wide anti-enforcement orders in relation to a fraudulently obtained default judgment from Kentucky. The judgment, given by Kós J, contains a useful analysis of the principles on anti-suit and anti-enforcement injunctions and offers guidance on the interrelationship between fraud and comity.
The background to the case is set out in previous posts (here, here and here). In summary, Kea Investments Ltd (Kea), a British Virgin Islands company, alleged that the default judgment obtained by Wikeley Family Trustee Ltd (WFTL), a New Zealand company, was based on fabricated claims intended to defraud Kea. The New Zealand High Court found that the defendants had perpetrated a tortious conspiracy. The Court of Appeal upheld the findings of fraud but allowed an appeal against the grant of the injunction, concluding that an injunction could only be granted as a step of last resort, which required Kea to pursue its right of appeal against the Kentucky judgment.
It was not in issue before the Supreme Court that the claim in the Kentucky court formed part of a conspiracy to defraud Kea (at [102]). It was also not in issue that New Zealand was the proper jurisdiction to deal with the claim of fraud (at [102]). In these circumstances, the Court found that comity did not stand in the way of anti-enforcement relief.
News
【Out Now】Silberman’s Hague Academy General Course: The Counter-Revolution in U.S. Private International Law: From Standards to Rules?
For anyone who begins studying private international law – particularly from a civil law perspective – one of the first concepts encountered, after Savigny’s ‘Copernican Revolution’, is the American ‘Choice-of-Law Revolution’. Since the late 1950s, American courts and scholars have progressively abandoned the rigid territorial methodology embodied in the First Restatement of Conflict of Laws in favour of more flexible approaches based on standards and policy-oriented analyses. The pioneering contributions of Brainerd Currie, David Cavers, Robert Leflar, and William Baxter, among others, fundamentally reshaped American conflicts law and made the United States a laboratory of modern choice-of-law theory.
New Publication: Second Edition of the Elgar’s Research Handbook on EU PIL
While much of Europe slows down for August, there is still some fresh academic news to share: the publication of the second edition of the *Research Handbook on EU Private International Law*, edited by Youseph Farah, of the University of East Anglia and Elisabetta Bergamini, of the University of Udine, and published by Edward Elgar Publishing as part of the *Research Handbooks in European Law* series.
Thoroughly revised and updated, the new edition brings together civil-law and common-law perspectives to examine some of the most important questions and continuing challenges in EU private international law. Alongside the traditional fields of jurisdiction, contractual and non-contractual obligations, the Handbook addresses significant developments in family law, parental responsibility and cross-border succession.
CfP: 3rd International Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society” – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 4-6 November 2026
Call for Papers: 3rd International Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society” – Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 4-6 November 2026
This Call for Papers has been kindly shared with us by Inez Lopes / University of Brasilia (UnB) and Fabricio B. Pasquot Polido / University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Following the previous editions hosted by the University of Brasilia in 2019 and 2024, the Third Seminar “The Challenges of Private International Law in Contemporary Society”, will be held from 4 to 6 November 2026 at the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brasil. The theme of the 2026 edition is:
“Jurisdiction and Transnational Access to Justice between New Technologies and ‘The Human Side of Artificial Intelligence’” Read more