Book Launch: A Conceptual Analysis of European Private International Law
Dr. Felix M. Wilke (University of Bayreuth, Germany) recently published a new book titled “A Conceptual Analysis of European Private International Law”.
The 31st annual conference on private international law at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law
This year’s Journée de droit international privé of the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law will be devoted to Interim Measures in International Commercial Litigation, and will take place on 23 May 2019, in Lausanne.
Speakers include George A. Bermann, Andrea Bonomi, Lawrence Boo, Sabine Corneloup, Gilles Cuniberti, Karim El Chazli, Sandrine Giroud, Laurent Hirsch, Alexander Layton, Ilaria Pretelli, and Gian Paolo Romano.
The detailed program, with further information on registration and fees, can be found here.
Alan Uzelac on the current challenges to investor-state arbitration in Europe
Prof. Uzelac has published recently an article on the current challenges to investor-state arbitration in Europe. The article comes almost as a birthday present, to celebrate one year after the CJEU published its famous Achmea ruling. The summary of the article reads as follows:
This paper addresses the current challenges to investor-state arbitration in Europe. Two parallel developments are outlined: the current change in the EU policy towards arbitration provisions in multilateral and bilateral investment treaties, and the consequences of the Achmea case decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union in March 2018. The author analyses the critical arguments behind the current European anti-arbitration stance and concludes that while some of them (but not all) may have some foundation, a sufficient number of reasons speak against the radical dismantling of the system of international investment arbitration. An analysis of the proposed alternatives shows that they fail to deliver viable solutions for diagnosed problems. In particular, the replacement of ad hoc tribunals by a multilateral investment court (MIC) seems to be a step in the wrong direction. The ISDS has played an important role in the global fostering of international investment by securing a basically fair system of dispute resolution in a very specific field. Its deficiencies are not beyond repair; on the other hand, the alternatives offered suffer from flaws that are the same or much more troubling. The author concludes that the consequences of the ‘change of tide’ in the approach to investor-state dispute resolution are likely to be detrimental to the very goals of those who advocate the abandoning of investment arbitration.
The article was published in the journal Access to Justice in Eastern Europe (AJEE), and is available in full text here.
The meaning of economic freedoms of movement
Following a call for papers announced on this blog a few months ago, the University of Nice will host on 23 and 24 May 2019 a conference exploring the meaning of economic freedoms of movement (Le sense des libertés économiques de circulation).
The event, part of the IFITIS Project led by Jean-Sylvestre Bergé, is the third in a series of multidisciplinary, international and comparative doctoral workshops devoted to the study of movement phenomena.
The goal is to foster discussion on the capacity of the various disciplines represented (including law, economics, management, philosophy, sociology, history and computer science) to question the meaning – reasons for being, justifications, purposes – of economic freedoms of movement (free trade, international trade and European freedoms of movement).
Further information, including as regards registration, may be found here.
Diversity in Unity: The Succession Regulation in Hungary and Beyond – International conference and workshop on the EU Succession Regulation
On Friday, 12 April 2019, the EU Justice funded project GoInEu (Governing Inheritance Statutes after the Entry into Force of EU Succession Regulation) and the Hungarian Chamber of Civil Law Notaries’ will organize a conference and a workshop on the first three (and half) years of application of the EU Succession Regulation (650/2012/EU).
The conference and workshop will be held in Budapest (Hungary). The complete programme is available here.
Participation is free of charge. The conference language will be Hungarian, with simultaneous English translation.
Those who wish to attend are kindly requested to register by filling out the registration form available here.
For questions and inquiries please contact Ádám Fuglinszky (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) at fuglinszky@ajk.elte.hu.
It is possible! Another milestone for the Hague Conference: the Intercountry Adoption Convention has 101 Contracting Parties
Another HCCH Convention has recently reached the number of 100 Contracting Parties. In February and March 2019, two States joined the HCCH Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Intercountry Adoption Convention): Guyana (by accession) and Honduras (by ratification).
The Intercountry Adoption Convention will enter into force for Guyana and Honduras on 1 June 2019 and 1 July 2019, respectively. The status table is available here.
As announced, Guyana and Honduras are the first States in the Americas to become a party to all four modern HCCH Children’s Conventions. In addition to the Intercountry Adoption Convention, the other modern HCCH Children’s Conventions are:
- the HCCH Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Child Abduction Convention);
- the HCCH Convention of 19 October 1996 on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (Child Protection Convention); and
- the HCCH Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (Child Support Convention).
There is also a Protocol of 23 November 2007 on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations but neither of them is yet a party.
The other two Hague Conventions that have reached 100 or more Contracting Parties are the Child Abduction Convention (see my previous post here) and the HCCH Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille Convention). The latter has 117 Contracting Parties, the latest one being the Philippines (to enter into force on 14 May 2019 see here).
The HCCH news item is available here.
Conflictoflaws.net editor Ralf Michaels appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute Hamburg
We are happy to report that one of our editors, Ralf Michaels from Duke University, has been appointed a new Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. Succeeding Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. must. Jürgen Basedow, who retired in 2016, Ralf assumed the position part-time in January 2019 and will take on his duties full-time in summer 2019.
Congratulations!
For more on Ralf’s appointment and his research agenda see here.
Conference ‘e’ meets justice
On 2 and 3 May 2019, academics, IT and legal professionals will meet in Lisbon to discuss how to improve the collaboration between these communities in cross-border civil procedures. During this two-day conference, participants will reflect on issues that currently complicate the cooperation, but are also invited to share ideas on possible solutions. The goal of the conference is to identify the issues at stake, to learn of diverging approaches on citizen-centered cross-border justice and to find means to jointly deploy these approaches to bring justice closer to citizens.
The full program will be published shortly. You can pre-register here.
The event is organised by the e-CODEX Plus project in cooperation with the ‘Building EU Civil Justice’ project run by the Erasmus School of Law of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
Another milestone: the Child Protection Convention has 51 Contracting Parties
In February 2019, two States acceded to the HCCH Convention of 19 October 1996 on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (Child Protection Convention): Guyana and Nicaragua. Thus, the Convention has reached the milestone of more than 50 Contracting Parties.
The status table of the Convention is available here. The Child Protection Convention will enter into force for both States on 1 December 2019.
Unlike the Child Abduction Convention, the Child Protection Convention has put in place a mechanism of objections to an accession. Under Article 58(3) of the Child Protection Convention an “accession shall have effect only as regards the relations between the acceding State and those Contracting States which have not raised an objection to its accession in the six months after the receipt of the notification referred to in sub-paragraph b of Article 63. Such an objection may also be raised by States at the time when they ratify, accept or approve the Convention after an accession. Any such objection shall be notified to the depositary.”
This is not a small difference as States are more hesitant and weary to file an objection, and thus the Convention is more widely applied among its Contracting Parties. Indeed, there are currently no objections; all previous objections have been withdrawn. See here (Depositary’s website).
See also my previous post on the milestone of the Child Abduction Convention here.
Two Conferences in Brazil
Two conferences on private international law have been announced for Brazil. From March 13-16, the University of Brasilia will organize a conference on the topic of “Challenges to Private International Law in contemporary society” (Program here.) Prior to that, I will teach a graduate mini-course on comparative law and private international law on March 11-13. Sign-up information for both is on the linked sites.
And then, on May 15-17, the 3rd international law conference RIBAMAR at the Universidade Estadual do Maranhão will discuss “Emerging Topics in Private International Law.” The program is here, instructions for signing up here.
Exciting to see that the energy is sustained n Brazil, after the JPIL conference in 2017 in Rio de Janeiro.