On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its 23rd monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00-12:30 CEST. Rosario Espinosa Calabuig (Universidad de Valencia) will speak, in English, about the topic

“Sorority, Equality and Private International Law“.

Gender perspective in Private International Law (PIL) can be claimed through the so-called Sorority: Solidarity between women against sexual discrimination. PIL becomes an ethical tool to fight for solidarity and against phenomena such as misogyny and sexism, among others. Different topics (such as application of Islamic law by national authorities, child abduction in cases of gender violence or transnational surrogacy) show how PIL can be a tool to promote equality rights and how sorority can reinforce this equality. So, there is a reciprocal influence between all of them.

Based on a tweet by the ‘enfant terrible of tech’, Elon Musk, Michael Douglas recently discussed ‘Conflict of Laws of Freedom of Speech on Elon Musk’s Twitter’ on this blog. In a new volume published by Mohr Siebeck, Anna Bizer adresses similar questions, from the point of view of German and European PIL. Starting from the observation that social media challenges the existing legal framework (even more so than the internet itself) by incentivizing the sharing of, and interaction with content, and thus perpetuating violations of personality rights, even where the original author of a post has already deleted it, the author focuses on three areas of law: contract law, tort law, and data protection.

As far as questions of contract law are concerned, Bizer rightly puts an emphasis on the fact that social media platforms often involve a triangle (or pyramid) of contractual relationships between the hosts and at least two users. Regarding the relationship between the host and individual users, she identifies the delineation between private and professional use (only one of which triggers the consumer rules in the Brussels Ia and Rome I Regulations) as the main problem and argues in favour of a much wider understanding of the consumer definition. Regarding the relationship between multiple users of the same service, she rightly acknowledges the potential of the platform contract to influence the applicable law via Art. 4(3) Rome I.

Concerning tort law, Bizer is generally critical of the existing legal framework under Art. 40–42 of the German EGBGB (infringements of personality rights being excluded from the Rome II Regulation). Instead of giving the claimant a choice between Handlungsort (place of acting) and Erfolgsort (place of damage), potentially leading to a mosaic of applicable laws, the applicable law should be determined by identifying the objective centre of the violation, with the intended readership of a given publication as the guiding criterion, which may be supplemented, if necessary, by the CJEU’s centre-of-interests criterion and the place of acting. Again, the author acknowledges that the contract for the social media platform might be taken into account via an escape clause (i.e. Art. 41 EGBGB).

In addition to questions of data protection, the author also addresses the role of the e-Commerce Directive’s country-of-origin rule and the ordre public in what is a well-argued, excellently researched book on a highly topical question.

The fourth German Conference for Young Scholars in Private International Law, held on site at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna on 23 and 24 February 2023 (we have posted about the event previously here), has issued a call for papers. Proposals are invited for conference presentations (20 min.; to be published) and short presentations (5-10 min.; non-published). Furthermore, the organizers proudly announced that the keynote lecture will be delivered by Professor Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po).

The organizers describe the purpose of these proposals and the goals of the conference as follows (emphasis added):

“The theme of the conference will be

Deference to the foreign
– empty phrase or guiding principle of private international law?

As part of any legal system, rules of private international law are determined by the principles of the respective national jurisdiction, but they also open up the national system to foreign rules. This creates the challenge of reconciling foreign law and foreign values with the national legal system. At the conference, we will seek to explore whether and to what extent deference to the foreign is a pervasive principle in private international law. In doing so, we will look at the methods of private international law as well as interdisciplinary approaches to the justification and implementation of said principle.

The theme invites discussion of fundamental questions:

• What is the history of deference to the foreign in private international law?
• Does European Union law lead to a new understanding of the foreign and, in particular, to a stronger delineation from third countries?
• To what extent does mutual trust function as a basis of deference to the foreign in the pro- cess of internationalisation and Europeanisation?
• What is the relationship between deference to the foreign and escape clauses, overriding mandatory provisions, preliminary questions, local data theory (Datumtheorie), renvoi, and public policy clauses?
• What is the role of fundamental and human rights in the context of deference to the foreign?
• Are there tendencies in private international law, specific to or across different areas of law, towards a decline of the principle of deference to the foreign?
• Which levels of acceptance, integration, or assimilation are recognised in private interna- tional law?
• What is the importance of deference to the foreign in the European area of justice?

Contributions can also focus on the relationship between deference to the foreign and the methods of private international law:

• What is the role of methods and private international law concepts in implementing the principle of deference to the foreign (e.g. substitution or recognition)?
• Which insights does legal pluralism offer in relation to deference to the foreign?
• What are the insights of interdisciplinary approaches to the justification and methodological implementation of the principle of deference to the foreign?
• Are there parallels between the conflict of laws approach to deference to the foreign and approaches in other sciences or arts?

Various examples can serve as illustrations of whether and how private international law imple- ments the principles of deference to the foreign in specific areas, for instance:

• The influence of EU freedom of movement on the recognition of legal situations or a per- son’s status, such as same-sex marriages or parenthood
• The recognition of foreign citizenship of multinationals
• The importance of deference to the foreign in the regulation of international supply chains
• Deference to the foreign in economic law within the EU, g. by means of the European Passport in banking and capital market law

We are looking forward to contributions which take up the theme of deference to the foreign. The examples given above are mere suggestions and should not limit the scope of suitable topics. We welcome contributions from all areas of private international law and international civil procedure as well as from international arbitration and uniform law.

Formalities

Speakers are invited to give a presentation of approximately 20 minutes (in either German or English). The written contributions will later be published in a conference volume with Mohr Siebeck.

The conference programme will also include smaller discussion rounds in which short presentations of approximately 5-10 minutes can be given. These contributions will not be published. We are also looking forward to abstracts for such short presentations.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is 12 September 2022. Please send your proposal to ipr@sfu.ac.at. The proposal should contain:

• an anonymised abstract (not exceeding 800 words) in pdf format, and
• a short cover letter, preferably in the e-mail, containing the speaker’s name, address, and institutional affiliation, as well as
• the indication whether the abstract proposes a conference presentation (20 minutes)

and/or a short presentation in the smaller discussion rounds.

Please do not hesitate to contact us, if you have any further questions (ipr@sfu.ac.at).

We are very much looking forward to your proposals.

Kind regards:
Andreas Engel | Florian Heindler | Katharina Kaesling | Ben Köhler
Martina Melcher | Bettina Rentsch | Susanna Roßbach | Johannes Ungerer

More information is available at https://tinyurl.com/YoungPIL.”

Our esteemed co-editor Mukarrum Ahmed has recently published a book titled Brexit and the Future of Private International Law in English Courts with Oxford University Press. He has kindly provided us with the following summary:

This book is the first full length study of the private international law implications of Brexit in a single consolidated resource. It provides an analytical and authoritative commentary on the impact of Brexit upon jurisdiction, foreign judgments, and the applicable law in civil and commercial matters. By discussing the principal post-Brexit changes in England, this book faces towards the future of private international law in English courts. It utilises a once-in-a-generation opportunity to analyse, understand, and reframe some fundamental assumptions about private international law with a view to suggesting adjustments and law reform.

Ahmed argues that a conscious unlearning of the central precepts of EU private international law would be detrimental to the future of English private international law. The multilateral issues that lie ahead for the discipline rely on the legal epistemology of EU private international law, which also serves as a useful reference point when comparing aspects of English private international law. Unshackled from the EU’s external competence constraints, the UK will have the opportunity to play a more prominent role in the development of the Hague Conference’s global instruments. A methodologically pluralist approach to English private international law may be the best route to sustain its global leadership in this field, as well as simultaneously assimilating the best private international law developments from the Commonwealth, Europe, and beyond.