Webinar Data protection and collective actions – 19 December

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On 19th December 2025, from 10-12 CET, the European Civil Justice Centre hosts a webinar on Data protection and collective actions from a US, European and cross-border perspective.

The fast-paced development of digital technologies, and the massive, cross-border, global dimension of the processing of personal data in the Internet, have necessitated the collective enforcement of data protection rights.

This seminar delves into developments in European collective actions, mass violations of data subjects’ rights, and the use of collective actions for the protection of supra-individual and homogeneous interests in Europe and the US, and aspects of cross-border litigation.

The focus of the seminar will the research conducted by Marina Federico (Naples University) for her book Protezione dei dati personali e tutela collettiva published in 2024.

Registration for free on Eventbrite here.

Program

10.00 Xandra Kramer (Erasmus University Rotterdam/European Civil Justice Centre) – Opening and welcome

10.05 Stefaan Voet (KU Leuven/ European Civil Justice Centre) – Introduction: Developments in European collective redress

10.25 Marina Federico (University of Naples “Parthenope”) – Data protection and collective actions. Itineraries of legal comparison in Europe and the United States

11.00 Eduardo Silva de Freitas (TMC Asser Institute/Erasmus University Rotterdam) – An Apple a day won’t keep litigation away: private international law’s new path for collective data protection claims

11.15 Discussion, moderated by Stefaan Voet

Job Offer: Research Fellow at Bucerius Law School, Hamburg

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Henrike von Scheliha (Bucerius Law School) is currently looking to hire a Research Fellow (with the option to prepare a PhD thesis under her supervision) in German Family and/or Succession Law.

More information is available here.

Call for papers: Australasian Association of Private International Law Conference 2026

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The second annual conference of the Australasian Association of Private International Law will be held from Friday 17 to Saturday 18 April at Ashurst’s offices in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, sponsored by Ashurst.

We are pleased to invite the submission of paper proposals for the conference on any aspect of private international law, broadly understood.  This includes issues of jurisdiction, choice of law, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments (including how they relate to cross-border issues within a federation), and all areas of private law that raise cross-border and transnational issues.

Paper proposals should be made on this form by Friday 30 January 2026. We also welcome panel proposals. Please email m.keyes@griffith.edu.au if you have a proposal for a panel. Proposed presenters on any panel will be required to submit individual paper proposals.

We welcome anyone interested in private international law, including from the judiciary, legal practice, government, and the academy, from any jurisdiction.  Attendees, including presenters, will be required to pay a registration fee. A conference dinner will be held on the evening of Friday 17 April, at an additional cost.

To keep up to date with AAPrIL events, please connect with us on LinkedIn.

Border Control & Migration: Safeguarding Fundamental Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

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You are invited to the next Migration Talk organized by the Jean Monnet Chair in Legal Aspects of Migration Management in the European Union and in Türkiye by Leyla Kayac?k (Human Rights Expert/ Council of Europe Former Special Representative of the Secretary General on Migration and Refugees) on “Border Control & Migration: Safeguarding Fundamental Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”.

Venue: Online via Zoom
Date: 17 December 2025, Wednesday
Time: 12:30 – 13:20 (UTC +3)
The Zoom link shall be provided upon request: migration@bilkent.edu.tr

Esplugues on New Dimensions in the Application of Foreign Law by Courts (and Arbitrators) and Non-Judicial Authorities

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The issue of “foreign law” and its application, long considered essential to the functioning of private international law (PIL), continues to trigger interesting discussions and debates. Read more

The Procedural Law Unit at the University of Nicosia’s 5th Annual Symposium and JIWP 2025 Conference: “Judicial Independence and Liberal Democracy Under Threat: The Challenge of Implementing the ELI Mt Scopus Standards on Judicial Independence”

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A symposium on “Judicial Independence and Liberal Democracy Under Threat: The Challenge of Implementing the ELI Mt Scopus Standards on Judicial Independence” will take place from 10 to 12 December 2025 at the University of Nicosia. The event is organised by the Procedural Law Unit in cooperation with the International Association of Judicial Independence and World Peace (JIWP) and will be held at the UNESCO Amphitheatre.

Read more

Registration Open – Book Launch: The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: A Commentary

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Registration is open for the book launch celebrating the publication of The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements: A Commentary, to be held in hybrid format in The Hague on 11 December 2025 from 1.30 p.m. to 4.45 p.m. (CET). The book launch will coincide with the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the 2005 Choice of Court Convention.

The book launch will consist of two session. In the first session, the authors and discussants will explore selected chapters of the book. Brooke Marshall (University of Oxford) and Stephanie Francq (Catholic University of Louvain) will discuss the manifest injustice and public policy exception in Article 6 of the Convention; Louise Ellen Teitz (Roger Williams University) and Fausto Pocar (University of Milan) will discuss declarations under Articles 21 and 22 and accommodating multiple legal systems; and Gilles Cuniberti (University of Luxembourg, EAPIL) and Adrian Briggs KC (University of Oxford) will discuss the law applicable to the issue of consent to choice of court agreements. The second session of the event will discuss the practical operation of the Convention and the practical application of the text, with the participation of Delphia Lim (Ministry of Law of Singapore), Colin Seouw (Colin Seouw Chambers LLC), and Anselmo Reyes (Singapore International Commercial Court). Dr Christophe Bernasconi (HCCH) will provide opening remarks, and Melissa Ford and Dr Ning Zhao (HCCH) will moderate the discussions.

For more information, and to register, please visit: https://www.hcch.net/en/instruments/conventions/specialised-sections/choice-of-court/hcch-book-launch

This post is published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH).

Fourth Issue of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly for 2025

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The fourth issue of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly for 2025 has recently been published.  It contains the following articles, cases notes and book review.

Michael Howard, “The True History of the Origin of the Mareva Injunction or Freezing Order”

Fifty years ago, in 1975, a revolutionary innovation occurred in English procedural law, the introduction of what is officially named the freezing injunction, formerly and to some extent even now known as the Mareva injunction. It was the consequence of two decisions of the Commercial Court, the Karageorgis and Mareva cases. The thesis of this article, lightly camouflaged, is that these cases and this change were brought about by a combination of four factors which are present in most such developments of the common law: the personal, the institutional, the technical legal and the accidental. It is an attempt to present all of them and to show that the first and particularly the last were disproportionately large contributors.

Masood Ahmed, “State Immunity and the New York Convention”

 

Adrian Briggs, “Book Review of Hong Kong Private International Law” (by Wilson Lui and Anselmo Reyes)

 

My views

I  read the interesting—but in my view unconvincing—critical review by Emeritus Professor Adrian Briggs of “Private International Law in Hong Kong” (by Wilson Lui and Anselmo Reyes). My reading of the review is that Briggs laments the authors’ limited engagement with English sources, suggesting that because Hong Kong’s private international law is not as fully developed as Singapore’s, English texts and cases should operate as gap-fillers.

I take a different view. I am pleased to see Asian private international law scholars asserting a more autonomous and context-sensitive approach to developing their conflict-of-laws rules. That intellectual independence is healthy for the discipline, and it is precisely the direction I believe African private international law should pursue.

 

 

Virtual Workshop (in English) on December 5, 2025: Béligh Elbalti on “The Double Face of Private International Law: Reconsidering Its Colonial Entanglements”

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On Friday, December 5, 2025, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST). Dr. Béligh Elbalti (Osaka University) will speak, in English, about the topic

“The Double Face of Private International Law: Reconsidering Its Colonial Entanglements”

In its general discourse, private international law (conflict of laws) is often presented as a discipline grounded in principles such as sovereignty, the equality of states, and comity. Its defining traits are said to flow from this premise of equality between legal orders, including its claim to neutrality, its pursuit of international harmony in cross-border cases, and its role in coordinating diverse legal systems. However, it is striking that private international law developed in an international context marked by domination, inequality, and subordination, a context that challenged the very premises on which the discipline claimed to rest.

Within this broader context, private international law appears to have played a dual role. On the one hand, it served as an instrument of colonial domination, particularly by denying its foundational premises to legal systems not regarded as “civilized”. In these contexts, instead of applying the ordinary methods of private international law, alternative mechanisms were employed to manage foreignness, most notably through systems of extraterritoriality – whether in the form of consular jurisdiction, mixed courts, or foreign courts operating in colonized or semi-colonized territories. On the other hand, private international law also functioned as an instrument for restoring sovereignty and achieving independence. The abolition and dismantling of extraterritorial regimes required colonized and semi-colonized states to meet the substantive and institutional conditions considered necessary for recognition as a “civilized nation”. This included, among other reforms, the establishment of a functioning system of private international law, alongside the adoption of substantive and procedural legal frameworks that guaranteed equal rights and protection for foreigners.

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.

Call for papers: Bridging Jurisdictions: Rethinking Commercial Conflicts of Laws 10 Years After Brexit

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by Dr Georgia Antonopoulou (University of Birmingham) and Dr Ekaterina Pannebakker (Leiden University)

On 14 May 2026, the roundtable Bridging Jurisdictions: Rethinking Commercial Conflicts of Laws 10 Years After Brexit will take place at the University of Birmingham, in the UK. This roundtable will focus on highlighting cooperation opportunities in commercial conflicts of laws between the United Kingdom and the EU in light of current developments including jurisdictional competition, digitisation, sustainability, and international sanctions. The roundtable will feature policymakers and internationally renowned scholars.

We invite submissions of draft articles from researchers and academics, especially at their early stages of their careers, on private international law in the aftermath of the Brexit. The applications should be in English. Kindly email your application to Dr E. Pannebakker (e.s.pannebakker@law.leidenuniv.nl) and Dr G. Antonopoulou (g.antonopoulou@bham.ac.uk). The submissions should include:

  • an abstract (max. 200 words);
  • a draft or a detailed outline of the contribution (max. 5,000 words);
  • a bio/curriculum vitae of the author (max. 2 pages long).

The deadline for submission is 1 February 2026. The selected participants will be notified by the end of February 2026.

During the roundtable, the selected participants will give a presentation of their articles and then receive feedback. Accepted papers will be considered for publication in an edited special journal issue in an international review. The roundtable will cover reasonable costs of travel, accommodation, and meals for the selected participants.

Possible topics include:

  • Jurisdictional competition including arbitration and international commercial courts;
  • PIL in the United Kingdom post-Brexit;
  • The impact of digitisation on private international law (applicable law and/or jurisdiction);
  • Sustainability and private international law;
  • The impact of trade sanctions on private international law.

We particularly welcome applications from underrepresented groups. Special consideration will be given to female participants vested with childcare and/or other domestic responsibilities.

This project has received funding from the Birmingham – Leiden universities Strategic Collaboration Fund.

We are looking forward to receiving your application!