Professor Susanne Lilian Gössl, Professor for Civil Law and Digitalization in Private Law, Comparative Law and Private International Law at Kiel University is looking for a highly skilled and motivated PhD candidate and fellow (Wissenschaftliche*r Mitarbeiter*in, 50% or 25%) to work in the areas of Civil Law and Digitalization in Private Law, Comparative Law and Private International Law.
For a detailed job description (in German) see https://www.goessl.jura.uni-kiel.de/de/aktuelles or as pdf .
The POAM project (Protection of Abducting Mothers in Return Proceedings) is co-funded by the European Commission. It would have held an Experts’ Workshop in Milan today, but this event has of course been cancelled.
The project partners (the Universities of Aberdeen, Ludwig-Maximilians Munich, JJ Strossmayer Osijek and Milan-Bicocca) wanted to in any event share the project’s reports with the readers of this blog.
POAM explores the intersection between domestic violence and international parental child abduction within the European Union. The project is concerned with the protection of abducting mothers who have been involved in return proceedings under the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention and the Brussels IIa Regulation, in circumstances where the child abduction had been motivated by acts of domestic violence from the left-behind father. POAM examines the usefulness of the Protection Measures Regulation and the European Protection Order Directive in the context of such return proceedings.
Written by Associate Professor Jie (Jeanne) Huang, Sydney Law School, Jeanne.huang@sydney.edu.au
If a defendant is not present in Australia, Uniform Civil Procedure Rules (“UCPR”) of New South Wales provides that service outside of Australia is permitted if the plaintiff’s claim falls within UCPR Schedule 6 or if a leave is granted under UCPR rule 11.5. If a defendant does not respond within 42 days after being served successfully (rule 11.8), the plaintiff must apply for leave to proceed (rule 11.8AA). A defendant can challenge the jurisdiction of the court and apply to set aside service (rule 12.11). The court has discretion to decide whether to assume jurisdiction (rule 11.6).
In his Opinion delivered today, Advocate General Tanchev presents his take on Article 10 of the Regulation No 1259/2010 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the law applicable to divorce and legal separation (commonly referred to as Rome III Regulation), under which ‘[w]here the law applicable pursuant to Article 5 or Article 8 makes no provision for divorce or does not grant one of the spouses equal access to divorce or legal separation on grounds of their sex, the law of the forum shall apply’.
More specifically, the Opinion deals with the question lodged before the Court of Justice by a Romanian court, concerning the interpretation of the expression ‘the law applicable pursuant to Article 5 or Article 8 [the Rome III Regulation] makes no provision for divorce’.
The European Law Institute‘s (ELI) members on 21 March 2020 approved the Report on the Protection of Adults in International Situations.
This report is the outcome of the work of a team of academics and professionals chaired by Pietro Franzina and Richard Frimston. It sets out the current legal framework on the protection of persons above 18 years old who are not in a position to protect their own insterests (due to an impairment or incapacity).
The Report acknowledges the importance in this field of the Hague Convention of 13 January 2000 on the International Protection of Adults and encourages further ratification of it. The Convention has been ratified by only nine EU Member States (and signed by an additional seven).
In case you are looking for something to read while many parts of the world are under some form of lockdown, you may be pleased to learn that the conference volume of the 2nd German Conference for Young Scholars in PIL, which took place at University of Würzburg in 2019, has recently been published. It includes nine contributions by young researchers, including two English papers, on the conference theme of PIL between Tradition and Innovation as well as a keynote address by Professor Jürgen Basedow. Further information can be found on the publisher’s website.
Dr. Gérardine Goh Escolar, First Secretary at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, has prepared a lecture on the main features of the Hague Conference and its work. The lecture is available in three languages (English, French and Spanish) in the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law.
You can watch the lectures here.
The Court of Justice of the European Union on 27th February 2020 delivered its judgment in Corporis/Gefion Insurance, Case C-25/19. The case concerned rules surrounding service of documents in a specific, yet increasingly common context.
Corporis is a Polish insurance company, who was assigned damages by the owner of a vehicle following a car accident for the value of 30 euro. Gefion was the Danish insurance company covering the risk related to the accident. Under the Solvency II Directive, insurance undertakings may provide services in other Member States without having there an agency or an establishment – yet, for compulsory motor insurance coverages they must appoint a representative with “sufficient powers to represent the undertaking … including the payment of such claims, and to represent it or, where necessary, to have it represented before the courts and authorities of that Member State in relation to those claims” (Art 152). The Polish representative of Gefion was Crawford Polska.
The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) has announced that the Guide to Good Practice under the Child Abduction Convention: Part VI – Article 13(1)(b) is now available in both English and French.
Article 13(1)(b) of the HCCH Child Abduction Convention sets out: “Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding Article, the judicial or administrative authority of the requested State is not bound to order the return of the child if the person, institution or other body which opposes its return establishes that – b) there is a grave risk that his or her return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation.”
Yesterday (4 March 2020) Viet Nam acceded to the HCCH Evidence Convention and the Philippines acceded to the HCCH Service Convention. Ukraine signed the HCCH Judgments Convention.
The HCCH Evidence Convention will enter into force for Viet Nam on 3 May 2020. Pursuant to article 39 of the Evidence Convention, the accession will have effect only as regards the relations between Viet Nam and such Contracting States as will have declared their acceptance of the accession. Accordingly, this is a semi-open Convention similar to the HCCH Child Abduction Convention.
In the absence of any objection pursuant to its article 28, the HCCH Service Convention will enter into force for the Philippines on 1 October 2020. No objection has ever been made under the Service Convention (so far).