The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention enters into force for the United Kingdom

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Today the HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention entered into force for the United Kingdom. The UK signed this Convention on 12 January 2024 and filed its instrument of ratification on 27 June 2024.

On 26 March 2025, the UK extended the 2019 Judgments Convention to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Initially, the UK had extended this Convention to England and Wales only. These declarations will take effect on the day the Convention enters into force for the UK in accordance with Articles 25 & 30(3)(4) of the said Convention. For more information, click here. Read more

Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts (IPRax) 4/2025: Abstracts

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The latest issue of the „Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts“ (IPRax) features the following articles:

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Judgment of the Hellenic Supreme Court Part 2: Relatives’ rights to compensation for emotional distress in fatal car accidents under the Rome II Regulation

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Following a judgment by the Supreme Court of Greece in 2023, the issue of direct damages was once again brought before Areios Pagos. In a decision that diverged from the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the Lazar case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its position. However, one member of the court expressed a dissenting opinion, emphasizing the obligation of national courts to submit a preliminary reference. This judge provided rationale for the Supreme Court’s departure from established case law, highlighting the importance of adhering to the CJEU’s precedents in the context of European legal integration.

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Out Now: The 50th anniversary of the first Inter-American specialized conference on private international law. The future of private international law in the Americas by Dante Mauricio Negro Alvarado

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The Department of International Law (Secretariat for Legal Affairs) of the Organization of American States (OAS) has just published in essay form the lectures delivered during the 49th Course on International Law, which was held on 5 -16 August 2024. For more information, click here.

The book features the following piece: The 50th anniversary of the first Inter-American specialized conference on private international law. The future of private international law in the Americas by Dante Mauricio Negro Alvarado (in English, p. 295-335). This is a must-read for Private International Law academics and lawyers from the region and beyond. Read more

Call for Abstracts – Emerging Voices in Private International Law (Asser Institute)

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Post prepared by Eduardo Silva de Freitas, PhD researcher Erasmus University Rotterdam and junior researcher at the Asser Institute

 

As part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, the T.M.C. Asser Institute invites abstracts for the panel “Emerging Voices in Private International Law”, to be held on 24 October 2025 in The Hague, at the conference Adapting Private International Law in an Era of Uncertainty.

The panel will feature two early-career scholars (PhD candidates or postdoctoral researchers) presenting original work in the field. Selected participants will also contribute to a forthcoming volume in the Short Studies in Private International Law series.

To apply, please submit a 400-word abstract and brief personal details by 15 August 2025 (24:00 CET) to: e.silva.de.freitas@asser.nl

Full call for abstracts: https://www.asser.nl/media/797989/call-for-abstracts_pil_asser.pdf

Revue Critique de droit international privé – issue 2025/1

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Written by Hadrien Pauchard (assistant researcher and doctoral student at Sciences Po Law School)

The first issue of the Revue Critique de droit international privé of 2025 has just been released. It gathers six contributions honouring Albert Armin Ehrenzweig and his legacy, as well as seven case notes and numerous book reviews.

The doctrinal part of the volume is devoted to the proceedings of the Albert Armin Ehrenzweig Conference organized in June 2024 at the University of Vienna, fifty years after the passing away of the great author. The contributions commemorate both the man and the scientist, testifying to the relevance of Albert A. Ehrenzweig’s scholarship to contemporary private international law. They are published in French in the printed version of the Revue (also available online here), and will be available shortly in English (here).

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Out Now: Dickinson, Natural Justice in Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Recueil des cours, Tome 446

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Last summer, Andrew Dickinson (Professor of the Conflict of Laws, University of Oxford, and former editor of ConflictofLaws.net) delivered a special course at the summer course of the Hague Academy of International Law entitled ‘Natural Justice in Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments’. It has now been published as Volume 446 of the Recueil des cours / Collected Courses.

The blurb reads as follows:

This special course assesses the utility of ideas of ‘natural law’ and ‘natural justice’ as tools to explain, rationalise and develop the rules governing the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments currently applied by the world’s legal orders.

After introducing the topic, the first part of the course consider how influential 17th and 18th century accounts of the law of nature sought to account for the relations existing between all human beings, as well as the creation of political societies with law-making powers, the global ordering of those societies and the role of adjudication as a means of resolving disputes within and among them. This provides the historical and intellectual background for what follows.

The principal part of the course considers how writers on the conflict of laws in this period drew upon and utilised these ideas, as the rules that we apply today to regulate foreign judgments began to take shape. This leads to a study of the further evolution of the legal landscape in the 19th century, highlighting the use of natural law reasoning by judges and commentators to explain and justify the effectiveness of individual exercises of adjudicatory authority beyond their original domains, as well as the later rejection of natural law thinking in favour of models centred on ideas of sovereignty and territoriality, which continue to dominate today.

Having completed this historical survey, the course examines the specific legacy of natural law reasoning in the common law world, involving the use of principles of ‘natural justice’ to deny recognition of unjust foreign judgments, as well as the counterparts of these principles in other legal systems and international treaties.

Drawing on the preceding material, the concluding chapter considers the case for renaturalising the law in this area, and the implications of following this path.

More information on the book can be found here.

It is available to subscribers to the Recueil des cours here.

AMEDIP: Annual seminar to take place from 22 to 24 October 2025 (in Spanish)

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The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) will be holding its XLVIII Seminar entitled “Reflections regarding the Inter-American system in the 50th Anniversary of the CIDIP-I and the latest developments of Private International Law in Mexico” (Reflexiones en torno al sistema interamericano en el 50 Aniversario de la CIDIP-I y la actualidad del Derecho Internacional Privado en México) from 22 to 24 October 2025. The venue of the seminar will be the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (Querétaro, Mexico). Read more

University of East Anglia Law Podcast Series on (Private and Public) International Law: Series 3 out now

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All episodes of Series 3 of the University of East Anglia Law School Podcast are now out. Hosted by Rishi Gulati, they cover the following topics:

  • The Future of International Investment Law (Muthucumarasamy Sornarajah)
  • Double Standards in International Law (Patryk Labuda)
  • The launch of the Elgar Companion to UNIDROIT (Edward Elgar, 2024)
  • The Rise of International Commercial Courts (Giesela Rühl)
  • The exercise of self-defence in outer space (Chris O’Meara)
  • Greenland, Self-Determination, and the Geopolitical Contest (Maria Ackrén).

All  episodes are available at SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify

Where do Children Reside? Where they are “at Home”

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The Supreme Court of Canada has released its reasons for dismissing the appeal (which it did orally on December 9, 2024) in Dunmore v Mehralian, 2025 SCC 20.  The narrow issue was the meaning of “habitual residence” for a child in the statutory context of the Children’s Law Reform Act (Ontario).  The SCC had earlier explained that a hybrid approach to the meaning of habitual residence is to be used under the Hague Convention: Office of the Children’s Lawyer v Balev, 2018 SCC 16.  In the convention, there is no definition of habitual residence.  In contrast, the CLRA does provide elements of a definition of habitual residence (in s 22) though it leaves “resides” undefined.  This generated the issue: under the statute, does the same hybrid approach apply or is the definition different because of the statute?

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