University of Glasgow has announced a PhD scholarship opportunity for the project entitled “The Europeanisation of International Private Law: Implications of Brexit for Children and Families in Scotland” supervised by Professor Janeen Carruthers. The project shall commence in Oct 2018 and will provide (1) a stipend at the RCUK rate (2018-19 rate is £14,777 Full-Time); (2) 100 % tuition fee waiver; (3) access to the Research Training Support Grant. UK/EU and International applicants are eligible to apply.

For more information, please visit the university website, or follow this link:  The Europeanisation of International Private Law – Implications of Brexi….

Prof. Makridou and Prof. Diamantopoulos are hosting on 23/04/2018 a seminar on the law of evidence in Spain and Greece. The event starts at 09.00 and will take place in the conference room of the Central Library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The program of the seminar is the following:

CHAIRMAN

Prof. Konstantinos Polyzogopoulos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

SPEAKERS

Prof. Fernando Gascón Inchausti, Complutense University of Madrid

Prof. Enrique Vallines Garcia, Complutense University of Madrid

Prof. Kalliopi Makridou,  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Ass. Prof. Ioannis Delikostopoulos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

CONCLUSIONS

Prof. Georgios Diamantopoulos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

 

This seminar forms part of a project initiated by Prof. Makridou and Prof. Diamantopoulos back in 2014. In the course of the past 5 years, the professors have edited three volumes, published in the series ‘Greek and Foreign Civil Procedural Systems’, Sakkoulas Publications.

Vol. 1: Issues of Estoppel and Res Judicata in Ango-American and Greek Law (2014)

Vol. 2: Civil trial of first and second instance according to Swiss and Greek Law (2014)

Vol. 3: Provisional measures in Italian and Greek Law  (2016)

Yehya Badr, Associate Professor at the Alexandria University, Egypt, published an article “A Cure From Rome for Montreal’s Illness: Article 5 of the Rome I Regulation and Filling the Void in the 1999 Montreal Convention’s Regulation of Carrier’s Liability for Personal Injury”, in (2018) 83 JOURNAL OF AIR LAW AND COMMERCE 83.  The abstract reads:

“An examination of the 1999 Montreal Convention shows that the drafters did not intend to lay down a comprehensive treaty that would organize a carrier’s liability for personal injury to passengers. They opted to achieve a certain level of uniformity through enacting a set of rules that tackled several key issues such as the grounds for a carrier’s liability, the available defenses, and the limits on the recoverable damages. Consequently, some unaddressed issues created a void in the Montreal Convention and were then left without a clear remedy. In this article, a distinction is made between two types of voids: first, the definitional void describes the lack of definition for several key terms used in the Montreal Convention, such as “accident” and “carrier.” Second, the regulatory void describes the lack of rules to address issues such as determining the effect of a passenger’s contributory negligence as a defense for liability and the right of action. This article demonstrates that national courts have resorted either to the forum’s law or the forum’s choice-of-law rules to fill the void in the Montreal Convention. As a result, international uniformity of results cannot be achieved nor is there any predictability. This article recommends the adoption of Article 5 of the Rome I Regulation as a solution to this problem. Doing so would give both parties the freedom to choose a law from a predetermined list, and fill the above mentioned voids, while providing alternative choice-of-law rules if the parties decided not to choose a law to govern their contract for air carriage.”

The full text can be downloaded here.

Today, the EU Commission presented its long awaited proposal for a directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (COM (2018) 184/3). The proposal and other related documents are available here. The directive shall appply to domestic and cross-border infringements (Article 2(1), 2nd sentence). With regard to the latter group of cases, the directive “is without prejudice to the Union rules on private international law, in particular rules related to court jurisdiction and applicable law” (Article 2(3)). However, Article 16 sets out some rules relevant for cross-border representative actions. It ensures the mutual recognition of the legal standing of qualified entities designated in advance in one Member State to seek representative action in another Member State. Moreover, it enables qualified entities from different Member States to act jointly within a single representative action in front of a single forum competent under relevant Union and national rules. The pertinent provision reads as follows:

“Article 16
Cross-border representative actions

1. Member States shall take the measures necessary to ensure that any qualified entity designated in advance in one Member State in accordance with Article 4(1) may apply to the courts or administrative authorities of another Member State upon the presentation of the publicly available list referred to in that Article. The courts or administrative authorities shall accept this list as proof of the legal standing of the qualified entity without prejudice to their right to examine whether the purpose of the qualified entity justifies its taking action in a specific case.

2. Member States shall ensure that where the infringement affects or is likely to affect consumers from different Member States the representative action may be brought to the competent court or administrative authority of a Member State by several qualified entities from different Member States, acting jointly or represented by a single qualified entity, for the protection of the collective interest of consumers from different Member States.

3. For the purposes of cross-border representative actions, and without prejudice to the rights granted to other entities under national legislation, the Member States shall communicate to the Commission the list of qualified entities designated in advance. Member States shall inform the Commission of the name and purpose of these qualified entities. The Commission shall make this information publicly available and keep it up to date.

4. If a Member State or the Commission raises concerns regarding the compliance by a qualified entity with the criteria laid down in Article 4(1), the Member State that designated that entity shall investigate the concerns and, where appropriate, revoke the designation if one or more of the criteria are not complied with.”

A new book co-edited by Gustavo Cerqueira and Nicolas Nord has been published:

Contrôle de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité du droit étranger – Études de droit international privé (Amérique Latine – États-Unis – Europe), Société de législation comparée, Paris, 2017, 285 p.

The application of foreign law is increasingly frequent in the settlement of international disputes, both before the judge and the arbitrator. At the same time, the impact of constitutional and treaty standards on private law is a widespread phenomenon. The question of a dual constitutional and treaty-based review of foreing law by the forum seized inevitably arises. It could be carried out in the light of the hierarchy of the standards of the system of the lex causae, the hierarchy of the forum or even the hierarchy of the State in which the judgment given is intended to be enforced. The operation of the classic mechanisms of private international law and arbitration law is put to the test, both in terms of applicable law and the international effectiveness of decisions.

Because of its innovative nature, this book updates the essential issues of the subject. The national reports show the different approaches to the question of double-checking in Europe (Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland), North America (United States) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay). More generally, prolegomena contextualize the places and forms of application of foreign law subject to a constitutional and treaty-based review, and explore the figure of otherness in these contextes.

The debates raised during the round tables of the colloquium that gave rise to this book, which was held at the Grand Chamber of the Court of Cassation on 23 September 2016, revealed not only differences of assessment, but also certain convergences worthy of an overall vision of the problem. More than a juxtaposition of systems, the debates provided an opportunity to explore new avenues for resolution. Some of them seek to establish an international cooperation in this area. At a time when we are discussing the adoption of a supranational instrument aimed at strengthening the system for determining and applying foreign law and judicial cooperation in the field of information on the law applicable within the European Union, this book is intended to be the starting point for new reflections.

Informations: http://legiscompare.fr/ecommerce/fr/colloques/408-livre-controle-de-constitutionnalite-et-de-conventionnalite-du-droit-etranger.html

Table of Contents

Préface
Dominique HASCHER

Avant-propos
Gustavo CERQUEIRA et Nicolas NORD

PROLÉGOMÈNES
Lieux et formes d’application du droit étranger soumis à un contrôle de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité
Jean-Sylvestre BERGÉ

Contrôle de constitutionnalité, contrôle de conventionnalité, et la figure de l’altérité
Julien BOUDON

I. PERSPECTIVES FRANÇAISES

Le conflit hiérarchique étranger de normes devant le juge judiciaire français. Application à la constitutionnalité et à la conventionnalité de la loi étrangère
Pascal de VAREILLES-SOMMIÈRES

Le droit étranger à l’épreuve de la Constitution française et des conventions internationales liant l’ordre juridique français
Hugues FULCHIRON

II. PERSPECTIVES COMPARÉES

Amérique latine : Argentine-Uruguay, Brésil
Les contrôles de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité du droit étranger
au regard de l’ordre juridique de l’État d’origine – Perspectives argentines et
uruguayennes
Didier OPERTTI BADAN

Les contrôles de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité du droit étranger en Argentine et en Uruguay
Fernanda MUNSCHY

La conformité du droit étranger à l’ordre constitutionnel et conventionnel de l’État d’origine – Fondements et défis du double contrôle au Brésil
Gustavo CERQUEIRA

La place de la Constitution brésilienne et des conventions liant le Brésil dans le système de contrôle du droit étranger
Gustavo FERRAZ DE CAMPOS MONACO

Amérique du nord : États-Unis d’Amérique

Constitutional and Treaty-based review of foreign law : comparative and U.S. perspectives
Alejandro M. GARRO

Europe : Allemagne-Suisse, Italie
Le droit étranger face à la hiérarchie des normes en droit international privé allemand et suisse
Patrick KINSCH

Le juge italien face au contrôle de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité du droit étranger
Serena FORLATI

CONCLUSION
Le droit étranger à l’épreuve des contrôles de constitutionnalité et de conventionnalité – Rapport de synthèse
Paul LAGARDE