by Paul Patreider

The European Project “DXB – Identities on the move – Documents cross borders” aims at facilitating the dissemination and implementation of Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 in the everyday practice of several EU Member States, improve the knowledge of the links between circulation of public documents, fundamental rights and freedom of movement, ensure a sound implementation of the Regulation for “hard cases” and raise awareness among registrars and legal practitioners. The partnership is supported by a consortium of academic institutions and associations of registrars. More information on the Project and its partners on the official website.

DxB’s Final Conference takes place on 23–24 June 2022 at the premises of A.N.U.S.C.A.’s Academy in Castel San Pietro Terme, Bologna (Italy). The conference will offer a unique opportunity to take stock of the implementation status of Regulation (EU) 2016/1191. The event will also launch the Commentary and the EU-wide comparative survey placing the Regulation in the context of daily national practice.

The Conference will be a truly international event, gathering scholars, registrars, public administrators, political scientists, judges, PhD students and practitioners from all over Europe. Translation services are offered in English, Italian and German. To ensure wide participation as well as the variety of topics and viewpoints, we are pleased to announce a Call for Papers & Panels.

CONFERENCE TOPICS

Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents has so far gone largely unnoticed in scholarly debates and practitioners’ discussions. As issues related to the circulation and mutual recognition of authentic instruments in civil status and criminal matters are becoming more and more pressing, the Regulation represents a great opportunity to strengthen the principles and values of the European Union.

Given the strict connection between the scientific and practical dimension of Regulation 2016/1191, authors are invited to examine how this act is currently implemented in the context of national civil status systems and fundamental rights. They should explore the potential positive impact on the freedom of movement of European citizens and on the enjoyment of their fundamental rights as well as focus on critical aspects and deficiencies of the current legal framework.

We encourage applicants to submit proposals for papers and panels related to the Regulation and its context. Possible topics include:

• The creation of a common European civil status framework;
• The notion of “public document” under the Regulation and similar instruments (e.g. formal and substantial requirements) and under domestic law;
• The circulation of criminal records;
• Problems arising from the lack of standardized definitions shared by all Member States (e.g. “crime”, “sex”, “intended parent”, “intersex” );
• The impact of the Regulation on the effective exercise of the freedom of movement;
• Connections between EU citizenship, national citizenship status, and circulation of public documents;
• Case-law of the Court of Justice influencing the interpretation and implementation of the Regulation, with special regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the ECHR;
• Exercise of electoral rights and the circulation of public documents under Article 2.2. of the Regulation;
• Analysis of “hard cases” when applying the Regulation (e.g. marriages celebrated by religious authorities as third-country public documents etc.);
• The Regulation in comparison to the ICCS Conventions and other relevant international conventions (e.g. the Hague Apostille Convention (1961));
• E-Justice Portal tools (e.g. the multilingual form-filling system) and the efficiency of the Internal Market Information System (IMI) in the event of doubts as to the veracity of the documents, or the authenticity of the authority that signed them;
• The digitalization of documents and their circulation; how to ensure the authenticity of digital documents (both native digital size or digital copies of a paper original); forms of electronic signature or seals, with special regard to electronic signatures governed by the eIDAS Regulation and country-specific standards;
• Extension of the scope of the Regulation to public documents relating to, among others, the legal status and representation of a company or other undertakings, diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications, officially recognised disabilities, etc. (see article 23 of the Regulation);
• Critical issues related to multilingual standard forms (regional/local linguistic minorities; public documents for which multilingual standard forms are not yet established by the Regulation etc.).

WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE

Participation is not restricted to lawyers or to established scholars. We welcome registrars, public administrators, professionals, practitioners, doctoral students. We welcome proposals that offer multi-disciplinary perspectives from various areas of law (including European, civil, administrative, comparative, international, criminal, and labour law), as well as from scholars in the humanities and the social sciences (e.g. history, economics, political science, sociology) with an interest in the Conference’s themes. We also welcome submissions from both senior and junior scholars (including doctoral students) as well as interested practitioners.

PAPER AND PANEL SUBMISSIONS

• Submit your PAPER proposal with an abstract of a maximum of 500 words and 5 keywords. The abstract must also contain Title, Name, Affiliation (e.g. university, institution, professional association), Country and E-mail address.
• Submit your PANEL proposal with an abstract of a maximum of 800 words and 5 keywords. We welcome a state-of-the art symposium or a round-table providing on key issues. Fully formed panel proposals should include at least three and no more than five presentations by scholars or practitioners who have agreed in advance to participate. Panel proposals should also identify one panel chair/moderator. Include: title of the panel, names of speakers and of the chair/moderator and their affiliation (e.g. university, institution, professional association), title of each presentation (if applicable), e-mail address of panel participants, language(s) to be used.

We encourage submissions in English. However, as part of the vision of a truly European conference, paper and panel proposals will also be accepted in Italian and German.

Selected paper authors will receive further information on the publication of the proceedings.

Submission templates for paper & panel proposal are available on the DXB website.

HOW AND WHEN TO SUBMIT

Send proposals to: info@identitiesonthemove.eu. Indicate in the e-mail subject line: “Conference call – name of the (lead) author (or moderator) – Title of the paper or panel proposal”.

The deadline for submitting the paper or panel abstract proposal is 22 December 2021.

Applicants will be informed about the outcome of the abstract selection process no later than 15 January 2022. If successfully selected, full papers must be submitted by 15 April 2022.

PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION

The draft of the Conference Programme will be published on 1st March 2022. The final Conference Programme with all panel sessions will become available on 25 April 2022.

Registration for the Conference opens on the DXB website on 15 January and closes on 20 May 2022.

The event will be held in person, in compliance with the current health safety regulations, and will also be broadcast online via live streaming with free access.

Onsite participants will need a Covid-19 digital certificate (Green Pass), or equivalent certificate recognized under Italian law, if still so required by the Authorities at the time of the conference.

N.B. All speakers and moderators, including those invited under the call, are required to attend the event in person.

Registration fee: it includes conference materials, shuttle service (see website for details), tea/coffee and lunch refreshments as well as the certificate of attendance.

Ordinary fee: 80 Euros

Reduced student fee (including Ph.D. students): 40 Euros

Check the Project website for updates.

This project was funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014–2020). Project number: 101007502. The content of this Call represents the views of the partners only and is their sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.

Mag. Paul Patreider, Institut für Italienisches Recht, Fachbereich Privatrecht, Universität Innsbruck

The American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP) will be holding its annual XIV conference entitled “Private International Law and Modern Technologies” on 4-5 November 2021 for the first time online.

There is a full website dedicated to this conference, click here.

The Conference will be mostly in Spanish (with a few exceptions) but simultaneous English-Spanish interpretation will be provided on the first day of the conference, which has been made possible thanks to the Organization of American States (OAS).

The programme is available here. Many international organisations will take part in this conference, notably the OAS, UNCITRAL, HCCH, and UNIDROIT.

The Conference has many interesting panels but perhaps it is worth noting the one taking place on Thursday 4 November at 14:15 – 16:00 h (Argentinean time, 18:15 – 20:00 CET time) – PANEL II – “Blockchain, contratos inteligentes y Derecho internacional privado” (Blockchain, intelligent contracts and Private International Law), where Giesela Rühl, a conflictoflaws.net editor and former general editor, will be participating along with Matthias Lehmann, Luis Ernesto Rodríguez Carrera and Alfonso Ortega Giménez. As previously indicated, simultaneous English-Spanish interpretation will be provided on that day.

The Conference is free of charge and no previous registration is required. The platform that will be used is KUDO and there are four links that have been provided to join the conference, one for each session. Participants will be allowed as “spectators” and their cameras and microphones will be deactivated but it will nonetheless be possible to use the chat function with the moderator to ask questions.

To join each session, participants must click on the provided link (for the specific session) and enter their full name and their professional affiliation. For more information on how to join, click here and see below.

First session (morning) / Thursday 4 November
Hora: 9:45 am a 1:00 pm (Horario Argentina)
https://live.kudoway.com/br/110112440372
Meeting ID: 110112440372

Second session (afternoon) / Thursday 4 November
Hora: 2:15 pm a 5:30 pm (Horario Argentina)
https://live.kudoway.com/br/110111239295
Meeting ID: 110111239295

Third session (morning) / Friday 5 November
Hora: 9:45 am a 2:00 pm (Horario Argentina)
https://live.kudoway.com/br/110115267689
Meeting ID: 110115267689

Fourth Session (afternoon) / Friday 5 November
Hora: 3:00 pm a 5:30 pm (Horario Argentina)
https://live.kudoway.com/br/110115948325
Meeting ID: 110115948325

GD Goenka University, Gurugram is part of the GD Goenka Group. GD Goenka University was established in 2013 under the Haryana Private Universities (Amendment) Act, 2013. The GD Goenka University School of Law offers Law Degree Programs at Undergraduate, Post Graduate and Doctoral levels and strives to open new vistas in the arena of law through clinical legal studies and research. With an objective to raise the standards of clinical legal education in India, the GD Goenka University, School of Law regularly hosts Moot Court Competitions and encourages law students from various Law Schools and Universities from across India and world to learn the art and skills of advocacy.

In November 2020, School of law, GD Goenka University successfully organized an arbitration moot court competition “GD Goenka – CIArb (India) International Virtual Commercial Arbitration Competition 2020” in association with CIArb (India) Chapter. The University is now organising the Fifth edition of  “GD Goenka – CIArb (India) International Virtual Commercial Arbitration Competition 2021″ in association with CIArb (India) Chapter on 20th-21st November. The event is expected to have participation from various Law Schools and Universities from across India & abroad.

The Registration for the Competition is open. The registration fee is USD 11 /- only.

You would also be pleased to know the Prizes for winners in various categories-

Winners- Rs 70,000/- (USD 935/-)

Runners Up- Rs 40,000/- (USD 534/-)

Best Speaker Male & Female- Rs 10,000/- each. (USD 133/- each)

Best Memorial- Rs 10,000/- (USD 133/-)

The link to the registration form, posters and brochure is found below.

Registration Form- https://forms.gle/ZwJpZKmsPNDJiwMN6

With Warm Regards,

Prof. (Dr.) Tabrez Ahmad,

Vice Chancellor GD Goenka University &

Dean School of Law

Tulane University School of Law and The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel’s Legal Education Committee are organizing the 9th academic symposium financially supported by The ACTEC Foundation. The symposium, Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates will be held at the Tulane University School of Law on Friday, October 21, 2022. The keynote address will be given by Professor Jeffrey Schoenblum of Vanderbilt University Law School.

Among the objectives of this symposium are the following:

• To bring together prominent and up-and-coming scholars for the discussion of important issues in conflict of laws;
• To spur leading-edge research on conflict of laws in trusts and estates;
• To encourage professors of trusts and estates to incorporate and consider issues of conflict of laws in their scholarship and teaching;
• To promote collaborations and exchanges between conflict-of-laws scholars and scholars of trusts and estates.

Papers presented at the symposium will consist of papers selected from this Call for Papers and papers from invited speakers. The papers will be published in the Tulane Law Review.

If you would like to be considered to present a paper, please submit an abstract of your paper to Ron Scalise by email (rscalise@tulane.edu) by November 1, 2021. Those chosen to participate  in the symposium will be notified no later than December 1, 2021. Symposium speakers will be required to submit a draft of their papers by August 15, 2022, so that the panel commentators will have sufficient time to prepare their commentary.

Symposium speakers will be reimbursed for their travel expenses (economy airfare, the cost of ground transportation, and up to two nights’ hotel stay). Speakers will be invited to dinner on the evenings of Thursday, October 20, 2022, and (for speakers staying Friday evening) Friday, October 21, 2022.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided to speakers and attendees on Friday, October 21, 2022, courtesy of The ACTEC Foundation.

Questions about the symposium or this call for papers should be directed to Ron Scalise at the email address above.

This symposium was made possible through the financial support of The ACTEC Foundation, https://actecfoundation.org.

This post is by Emilia Beuger (LL.M. Utrecht), JD Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

As noted in an earlier post on this site, the United States Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation on September 30, 2021. Below is a more detailed discussion of the issues at play in this case.

This case originated in the state of California and was then appealed to the Ninth Circuit before filing a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States. The central legal issue concerns the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), whose application and interpretation has been split across Circuit Courts.

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a federal court hearing state law claims brought under the FSIA must apply the forum state’s choice-of-law rules to determine what substantive law governs the claims at issue, or whether it may apply federal common law. The state law is California’s choice-of-law test and the federal common law’s choice-of-law test is set forth in the Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws. The FSIA does not have an express choice of law provision.

Background

The Cassirer family has sought to recover a painting that was stolen from Lilly Cassirer by the Nazis in 1939, and it was subsequently smuggled into the United States and traded privately. This was unbeknownst to Lilly, who brought proceedings in the United States Court of Restitution Appeals under the assumption that the painting had been lost or destroyed. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation (TBC) purchased the painting in 1993. TBC is a public foundation, and it is considered an agency or instrumentality of the Kingdom of Spain. In 2000, Lilly’s grandson Claude Cassirer learned that TBC had possession of the painting and requested both Spain and TBC for the painting’s return. Spain refused. Claude filed suit against Spain and TBC in 2005. Spain was voluntarily dismissed as a party in 2011.

Claude passed away in 2010, and his children David and Ava, as well as the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County, were substituted as plaintiffs. Ava’s estate was substituted as a plaintiff after she passed away in 2018.

Issues and Arguments

A series of different proceedings have occurred since the original filing in 2005. The Ninth Circuit found that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies to the dispute because the painting was stolen by Germany in violation of international law.

The most recent case in the district court in 2015 was a result of the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment on the choice-of-law and its application. The district court found for TBC. Even though the buyer prior to TBC had not purchased the painting in good faith and did not pass good title to TBC, TBC lacked actual knowledge under Spanish law. Because TBC lacked actual knowledge under Spanish law, TBC was allowed to keep the stolen painting.

Cassirer’s theory on appeal was that the district court should have applied California law, not Spanish law. Under California law, a thief cannot pass title to anyone, even if there was a good faith purchaser (i.e. who TBC claims to be in this case). Therefore, if California law had been applied in this case, the outcome would have been different.

Key to both sides arguments is that the FSIA provides: “foreign state shall be liable in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.” 28 U.S.C. § 1606.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court, affirming the application of federal common law to the choice-of-law analysis under the FSIA, but remanded because the Ninth Circuit felt that the district court did not properly apply the Spanish law. Cassirer argues that this contrasts with other Circuit Courts, such as the Second, Fifth, Sixth and D.C. Circuits, who have applied the law of the forum state to the choice-of-law analysis for claims under the FSIA.

In Cassirer’s petition, he cites cases across the Second, Fifth, Sixth, and D.C. Circuits that say the law of the forum state should be applied, not federal common law. The decision to apply federal common law by the Ninth Circuit turned on the wording of past precedents that show that the court may “prefer” to apply it. In contrast, the Second Circuit has interpreted that the FSIA is a “pass-through” for the application of state law to be controlling when there is an issue of choice-of-law. If the goal of the FSIA is to apply the same laws to foreign states and private individuals, then the application must be done with the law that the court would use if the court was dealing with two private parties. Cassirer argues that the application of California’s choice-of-law test would have led to the application of California law because the state law interest of California would be more impaired than if the Spanish law was chosen to be applied in this case.

The Ninth Circuit’s approach, Cassirer argues, would lead to an inconsistency within the liability standards for foreign states and private individuals because the law applied in the state court would be different than the law applied if the suit was brought in federal court. Additionally, Cassirer puts forth public policy arguments. Because there is a split in the Circuit Courts, Cassirer argues that the Supreme Court should hear this case.

While Cassier argues that both tests would have warranted application of California law, TBC argues that both tests would have warranted application of Spanish law.

TBC filed a response to Cassirer’s Petition, arguing that while there may be a split amongst the Circuits, the split is a shallow one. TBC also argues that the outcome(s) will almost always be the same, no matter what choice-of-law test is applied. Public policy arguments are also advanced by TBC that the FSIA’s goal of holding foreign sovereigns accountable and that foreign sovereigns are to be dealt with differently than individuals, specifically at the federal level. Additionally, the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit rests on a federal question, not a diversity matter, so the Ninth Circuit should apply the federal common law test.

Briefs will be filed later this year and early next year.

The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments during its 2021 Term.