Call for Papers: ILA Regional Conference Slovenia 2019

The Slovenian Branch of the International Law Association invites abstract submissions for consideration for the ILA Regional Conference Slovenia 2019. The conference will be held in Portorož (Slovenia) on 27-30 June 2019.

The the conference is themed “Migration/international legal regulation” and abstracts from both public and private international law perspectives are welcome. Deadline for submitting abstracts is 11 January 2019 and completed papers are due by 30 August 2019. Contact is available at papers@ilaslovenia2019.com.

More details is available here.

Receivables and Securities in Private International Law

A conference, organised by IACPIL – Interdisciplinary Association of Comparative and Private International Law, will take place in Vienna on 29 November 2018 under the title Receivables and Securities in Private International Law.

The aim of this half-day conference is to discuss the proposal of the European Commission on the law applicable to third-party effects of transactions in securities and assignment and the relevant issues arising in cross-border securities and receivables finance transactions.

Speakers from the Commission, academia and law practice will address issues arising in the context of cross-border security trading, assignment and subrogation, factoring, securitisation, and similar transactions both in the light of the relevant EU proposal, national law and uniform law instruments, such as the UN Assignment of Receivables Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Secured Transactions. The advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches will be discussed from a comparative law perspective, with a focus on current challenges and opportunities arising from the digitalisation of trade and Brexit.

Registration is required by 25 November 2018.

The full programme is available here, together with further practical information.

International Investment and Trade Agreements: Recent Developments and Problems Conference

Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to attend the International Investment and Trade Agreements: Recent Developments and Problems Conference to be hosted by the University of Marmara, School of Law, Department of Private International Law, and Economic Development Foundation (IKV).
The main goal of the conference is to discuss recent developments in the field of international investment and trade law.
We are looking forward to welcoming our colleagues from all around the world to participate in this international meeting.
Venue: TOBB PLAZA, Levent, the European Side of Istanbul, Turkey.
Date: 25th October 2018.
Further information: http://etkinlik.marmara.edu.tr/uluslararasiyatirim
Yours Sincerely,
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Erkan
Conference Co-Chair

Save the date: Conference ‘Families Beyond Borders. Migration with or without private international law’, Ghent University, 28 and 29 March 2019 (start 28 March at 1 pm)

On 28 and 29 March 2019, the international conference ‘Families Beyond Borders. Migration with or without private international law’ will take place in Ghent at the Faculty of Law of Ghent University (Belgium). The conference, organised by Jinske Verhellen, will focus on the challenging interactions between private international law, migration law and human rights law.

Speakers will deal with legal problems encountered by refugees and migrants with regard to their personal status acquired in one country and taken along to another country. How do people prove their family ties? How can families be reunited? How do unaccompanied refugee and migrant children prove their minority? How do asylum and migration authorities assess foreign documents that relate to the personal status of refugees? What happens if no (authentic) documents can be presented? How to combat fraud relating to personal status documents in an efficient manner without depriving migrants of their right to family life? These are just some questions that will be discussed.

The conference will put the spotlight on the ‘people’ (subject of all kinds of legal procedures). Therefore, the programme will be centred around three groups of people: persons in need of international protection, refugee and migrant children, migrants and their families. Both academics and experts with experience from the field will take and share the floor.

Ghent University is very honoured to welcome the following keynote speakers: Prof. James C. Hathaway (University of Michigan Law School) and Judge Ksenija Turkovi? (European Court of Human Rights).

Confirmed speakers and rapporteurs are: Prof. Laura Carpaneto (University of Genoa), Prof. Sabine Corneloup (Université Paris II), Judge Martina Erb Klünemann (Family Court Germany, EJN and International Hague Network of Judges), Katja Fournier (Coordinator Platform Minors in Exile), Dr. Susanne Gössl (University of Bonn), Steve Heylen (President European Association of Civil Registrars), Prof. Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg (Uppsala University), Prof. Fabienne Jault-Seseke (Université Versailles), Prof. Thalia Kruger (University of Antwerp), Lise Van Baelen (Restoring Family Links Officer, Belgian Red Cross), Dr. Hans van Loon (former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law), Prof. Jinske Verhellen (Ghent University) and Prof. Patrick Wautelet (Université de Liège).

Prof. Jean-Yves Carlier (Université catholique Louvain) will draw the conference conclusions.

The full program and information on registration will soon be available here.

Robin Morse Memorial Lecture

The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London is holding an inaugural Memorial Lecture to honour the memory of Professor Robin Morse, who died last year. He was widely admired both within King’s (where he served as Dean of the School of Law) and beyond it for his scholarship and dedication to teaching, especially of the conflict of laws.
 
The lecture will be given by Lord Collins of Mapesbury on “Justiciability and the Conflict of Laws” on Wednesday 7 November 2018 in the Safra Lecture Theatre on KCL’s Strand Campus, and will begin promptly at 6.30pm. It will be followed by a reception.
 
Attendance is free, but numbers are limited and registration is required. You can sign up here.

Yearbook of Private International Law, Vol. XIX (2017/18)

The latest volume of the Yearbook of Private International Law has just been released; the full table of contents can be found here.

The following teaser has been kindly provided by Ilaria Pretelli:

This XIX Yearbook revisits classical questions such as forum non conveniens and exception clauses, foreign overriding mandatory provisions, reciprocity etc., at the same time presenting contributions discussing very specific and technical problems, as that of the law applicable to the right of recourse in the field of liability insurance law, that of the recognition of punitive damages in the EU or international insolvency in the banking sector.

A special section is devoted to some of the difficult questions addressed by the European regulations on matrimonial property and the property effects of registered partnerships that will soon enter into force.

A juicy special section is devoted to cultural property and heritage, including obstacles to claims for the restitution of looted art and new mechanisms leading to the proper resolution of cultural property-related disputes. Both contributions forming this section observe a gradual transition in the judicial practice and the slow but steady development of a body of transnational rules forming a true lex culturalis.

One of the truly first codifications of the latter is offered by the new Hungarian Private International Law Act, presented in the National Reports Section.

The need to adapt private international law legislation has led to a sectorial reform in New Zealand, where the traditional, and indeed discriminatory, double actionability rule has now disappeared in favour of a more modern solution, clearly inspired by European Union regulations.

The National Reports further include an essay on how Russian authorities implement both the 1996 Hague Children’s Convention and the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention, with a detailed review of Russian case-law grappling with such notions as a child’s residence, removal and retention, or the legitimate reasons to refuse return of the child.

Another paper features the first English-language contribution on Mongolian private international law – trade, commerce, family and people-to-people relationships between Mongolians and other State communities being constantly on the rise. Turkish law is once again present through a meticolous account of jurisdiction agreements and the favour they increasingly enjoy both in Turkish adjudication and academia.

Two papers on international surrogacy offer French and Italian perspectives, as these countries were involved in the Mennesson, Labassée and Paradiso ECtHR cases.

Those who are curious as to “What’s new” in terms of work-in-progress of The Hague Convention on Judgments will devour the section devoted to relevant contributions with articles on the exclusion of privacy and the relationship with other existing multilateral instruments, in particular certain instruments in force in Latin America.

A conference at NYU on the Continuing Relevance of Private International Law and Its Challenges

The Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law at the New York University School of Law will host a conference, on 15 and 16 November 2018, titled The Continuing Relevance of Private International Law and Its Challenges.

The conveners are Franco Ferrari (New York University, Executive Director of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law) and Diego P. Fernández Arroyo (Science Po, Paris).

Speakers include George A. Bermann (Columbia University), Andrea Bonomi (Lausanne University), Ronald A. Brand (University of Pittsburgh), Hannah L. Buxbaum (Indiana University, Bloomington), Giuditta Cordero-Moss (Oslo University), Horacio Grigera Naón (Director, Center on International Commercial Arbitration, Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC), Burkhard Hess (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law), Matthias Lehmann (Bonn University), Hans van Loon (Former Secretary-General, Hague Conference on Private International Law), Ralf Michaels (Duke University), Yuko Nishitani (Kyoto University), Francesca Ragno (Verona University), Mathias W. Reiman (University of Michigan), Kermit Roosevelt (University of Pennsylvania), Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (University of Edinburgh), Linda J. Silberman (New York University), Symeon C. Symeonides (Willamette University) and Louise Ellen Teitz (Roger Williams University).

Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) Conference 2018, Conflict of Laws Section

For the second time, the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) conference, held this September at Queen Mary University of London, ran a conflict of laws section (more papers on conflict of laws given in other sections here, look for “conflict of laws”). Michael Douglas provides a charming report. Hopefully this is a sign of increased appreciation of conflict of laws as a scholarly discipline.

The latest issue of Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional (2018/2)

The latest issue of Cuadernos de Derecho Internacional, a journal published half-yearly and chiefly devoted to private international law, is now available on-line here.

It includes more than forty articles, written in Spanish, English and Italian, on topics such as actions for damages resulting from acts restricting free competition, the law applicable to divorce, dispute settlement clauses in maritime contracts and party autonomy under the EU regulations on matrimonial property regimes and the property consequences of registered partnerships.

Nagy on intra-EU BIT’s after Achmea

Csongor István Nagy (University of Szeged, Faculty of Law) has posted on SSRN a paper titled Intra-EU Bilateral Investment Treaties and EU Law after Achmea: ‘Know Well What Leads You Forward and What Holds You Back’, which appeared in 19(4) German Law Journal 2017, pp. 981-1016.

The abstract reads as follows.

This paper analyzes the compatibility of intra-EU bilateral investment treaties – intra-EU BITs – with EU law. The status and validity of intra-EU BITs gave rise to a heated debate in Europe, which culminated in the CJEU’s recent controversial judgment in Achmea. This Article demonstrates that although the CJEU approached intra-EU BITs from the angle of federalism – where they are both redundant and illegitimate – the reality is that EU law does not provide for the kind of protection afforded by BITs. The paper gives both a positivist and a critical assessment of the Achmea ruling. It argues that the judgment should be construed in the context of the underlying facts and, hence, notwithstanding the CJEU’s apparently anti-arbitration attitude, its holding is rather narrow. It gives an alternative theory on intra-EU BITs’ fit in the EU internal market – based on European reality – showing that the complete invalidation of intra-EU BITs is flawed because the overlap between BITs and EU law is merely partial: BITs address a subject EU law does not. This Article’s central argument is that intra-EU BITs accelerate the internal market and, hence, their suppression does not lead the European integration further, but holds it back. Finally, this Article argues that the prevailing pattern of investment protection is a global scheme that cannot be arrested through regional unilateralism as essayed by the CJEU.