Third Issue of 2008’s Revue Critique Droit Int’l Privé

The third issue of French Revue Critique de Droit International privé for 2008 will be released shortly. It will include four articles, all relating to conflict issues.

In the first article, Charalambos Pamboukis, who is a professor at the university of Athens, Greece, explores the renewal and metamorphosis of recognition as a method to address conflicts problems (La renaissance-métamorphose de la méthode de la reconnaissance). The English abstract reads:

The recent renewal of a methodology of recognition is the result of two factors. First, a political factor. Globalisation requires international coherence for private relationships, while the construction of Europe reconstitutes a community of laws. A paradigm change emerges. Second, a technical factor. Traditional conflict rules are not adapted to the recognition of legal relationships which already exist. The characteristic of the method of recognition is its function of confirmation and reception, and its object, which is a concrete, pre-existing legal relationship. It excludes any recourse to the conflict rule, but it does not necessarily represent an underhand form of lex forism nor does it signify reverse discrimination. But its scope is still uncertain, since it covers relationships which have been consecrated by an official but created by private actors. The latter distinction could contribute to clarify the much debated issue.

In the second second article, Marie-Elodie Ancel wonders what the Rome I Regulation will change for distribution contracts (Les contrats de distribution et la nouvelle donne du règlement Rome I). The author, who is a professor of international private law at Paris Val-de-Marne (Paris XII) university, has kindly provided the following abstract:

According to French case law, distribution contracts are governed by the law of the manufacturer in the absence of a choice of law and the forum contractus is determined under Article 5.1 a) of the Brussels I Regulation. This study examines how the French Cour de cassation has been led to these solutions and how Article 4.1 and Recital 17 of the Rome I Regulation take the opposite course.

The third article is a comprehensive study of the Rome II Regulation by Geneva professor Thomas Kadner Graziano (Le nouveau droit international privé communautaire en matière de responsabilité extracontractuelle).

Finally, the fourth article is an essay on class actions in international private law building on the American Vivendi Universal case (Régulation de l’économie globale et l’émergence de compétences déléguées : sur le droit international privé des actions de groupe (à propos de l’affaire Vivendi Universal)). Its author is Horatia Muir Watt, who teaches at Paris I university.

At the present time, I do not have an English abstract for the last two pieces.