The Chinese University of Hong Kong’ Cross-Border Legal issues Dialogue Seminar Series presents this online seminar by Professor Richard Garnett on 1st April 2022 12.30pm -2pm (Hong Kong time; GMT +8 hours).

The conflict of laws has traditionally drawn a sharp distinction between jurisdiction and applicable law. The conventional approach suggests that a court only reaches the question of the law to be applied to the merits after the tribunal has determined that it has the power to adjudicate the action. Common law systems have however long recognised that a court has a discretion to accept or decline jurisdiction (determine the appropriate forum) and that a relevant factor in this discretion is the applicable law.  Read more...

The University of Szeged Faculty of Law and the ELKH Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies are organizing an international online conference: “Cross-Border Litigation in Central-Europe: EU Private International Law before National Courts”. The conference will present the main results of the EU-funded CEPIL research project (“Cross-Border Litigation in Central-Europe: EU Private International Law before National Courts”, 800789 — CEPIL — JUST-AG-2017/JUST-JCOO-AG-2017). The CEPIL project inquires whether EU PIL functions optimally in the CE Member States in order to secure “a Europe of law and justice”. It examines whether EU PIL instruments are applied in CE Member States in a correct and uniform manner, whether Member State courts deal appropriately with disputes having a cross-border element and whether the current legal and institutional architecture is susceptible of securing legal certainty and an effective remedy for cross-border litigants. The project’s research output will be published by Kluwer International.  Read more...

Written by Dr Abubakri Yekini, a Lecturer in Law at Lagos State University

This is the fourth and penultimate online symposium on Private International Law in Nigeria initially announced on this blog. It was published today on Afronomicslaw.org. The first  introductory symposium was published here by Chukwuma Samuel Adesina Okoli and Richard Frimpong Oppong, the second symposium was published by Anthony Kennedy, and the third symposium was published by Richard Mike Mlambe. A final blog post on this online symposium will be published tomorrow.

I. Introduction

Private international law (PIL) is not one of those fanciful subjects that command the attention of students, academics and practitioners at least in Nigeria. As important as this field, it is still largely ignored. Several legal commentators have called our attention to the poor state of PIL in Africa generally (Oppong, 2006; Okoli, 2019). So, we can say Nigeria is not standing alone here. Dr Oppong is one of those who are passionate about the development of PIL in Africa, and I may add Nigeria. In a piece titled ‘Private International Law and the African Economic Community: A Plea for Greater Attention’, he lamented the general state of neglect of PIL in the African economic integration project. What caught my attention in that article was his remark on the treatment of jurisdiction agreements in some African countries such as Angola and Mozambique. He noted that:

“This hostility to jurisdiction agreements is akin to Latin American countries’ historical disdain for similar clauses founded on their rejection of the principle of party autonomy- a principle so important in international commerce. This treatment of jurisdiction agreements can be a disincentive to international commercial relations since they are very much part of the current modes of dealing across national boundaries” (p.917)  Read more...

Written by Anthony Kennedy, Barrister at Serle Court

This is the second online symposium on Private International Law in Nigeria initially announced on this blog. It was published today on Afronomicslaw.org. The first  introductory symposium was published here by Chukwuma Samuel Adesina Okoli and Richard Frimpong Oppong. More blog posts on this online symposium will follow this week.

Introduction

Authority exists for the proposition that a creditor of a foreign judgment may bring an action at common law in Nigeria, by which action he, in effect, seeks recognition and/or “enforcement” of that foreign judgment[1]. The common law action has not been abolished by statute or disapproved judicially but, sadly, it is not widely understood or used by practitioners/courts in Nigeria. This is unfortunate, especially where the statutory mechanism[2] for the enforcement of foreign judgments is certainly limited but otherwise shrouded in confusion[3]. This paper argues for a reawakening of the common law action.

The construction placed on the statutory regime

It is impossible properly to assess the scope for the common law action in Nigeria without first addressing the statutory mechanism for the enforcement of foreign judgments. The common law action only works in the space which has been left for it by the applicable statutory regime. Moreover, tactically, judgment creditors are likely to favour registration of the foreign judgment  under that statutory regime, where such registration is permitted, given the “better protection” which such regime affords them, at least theoretically, when compared with the common law[4].  Read more...