Third Issue of 2013’s Journal du Droit International

The third issue of French Journal du droit international (Clunet) for 2013 was just released. It contains two articles discussing the Brussels I Recast and several casenotes. A full table of content is available here.

The first is authored by Judge Jean-Paul Beraudo, who sat on the French Cour de cassation (Regards sur le nouveau règlement Bruxelles I sur la compétence judiciaire, la reconnaissance et l’exécution des décisions en matière civile et commerciale).

Symbolically, Regulation (EU) n° 1215/2012 meets the project of abolition of the declaration of enforceability prior to enforcement in the Member State addressed, wanted by the Tampere Programme of 1999. Thereby, the enforceability decided in the Member State of origin applies in the entire territory of the European Union. However the recognition, on one hand, is made more difficult than in all previous texts. On the second hand, the new regulation opens more judicial recourses to the opposing party, on more groundings, than in the previous rules. It is regrettable that Regulation (CE) n° 805/2004 creating a European Enforcement Order for uncontested claims, which could have been used as a starting point for the development of Regulation (UE) n° 1215/2012, remained completely ignored.

The new regulation also pretends to resolve issues not addressed by the previous texts : assigning a priority of jurisdiction to the court for which a choice-of-court agreement has been concluded in order to decide on the validity of this agreement ; stay of proceedings in Member States in case of lis pendens or related action pending before the courts of third States, which are neither member States nor territories bound by the Bruxelles or the Lugano Convention.

But these rules, incomplete or recessed from the French system of conflict of jurisdictions, give a new life to the old question of whether the ordinary law must prevail on the harmonized law since the first mentioned is more favorable than the second to international judicial cooperation.

Fabien Cadet, who is an administrator at the Council of the European Union, is the author of the second article (Le nouveau règlement Bruxelles I ou l’itinéraire d’un enfant gâté).

After two years of intensive negotiations, Regulation No 1215/2012 was adopted recently and recasts Regulation No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. The Council, the European Parliament and the Commission put a special attention on this recast process. This paper analyses the provisions of the new Regulation in the light of the innovations and technical improvements which had been suggested by the Commission in its proposal.