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Introduction to the Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) — Part I
The following entry is the first of two parts that provide an introduction to the Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). Together, the parts will offer readers an overview of the structure of the Companion (Part I) as well as of the core themes as they emerged from the 35 Chapters (Part II). Both parts are based on, and draw from, the Editors’ Introduction to the Elgar Companion to the HCCH, which Elgar kindly permitted.
Introduction
The Elgar Companion to the HCCH will be launched on 15 December 2020 as part of a 1 h long virtual seminar. The Companion, edited by Thomas John, Dr Rishi Gulati and Dr Ben Koehler, is a unique, unprecedented and comprehensive insight into the HCCH, compiling in one source accessible and thought-provoking contributions on the Organisation’s work. Written by some of the world’s leading private international lawyers, all of whom have directly or indirectly worked closely with the HCCH, the result is a collection of innovative and reflective contributions, which will inform shaping the future of this important global institution.
The Companion is timely: for more than 125 years, the HCCH has been the premier international organisation mandated to help achieve global consensus on the private international law rules regulating cross-border personal and commercial relationships. The organisation helps to develop dedicated multilateral legal instruments pertaining to personal, family and commercial legal situations that cross national borders and has been, and continues to be, a shining example of the tangible benefits effective and successful multilateralism can yield for people and businesses globally.
Approach to private international law
The Companion approaches private international law classically, that is, by understanding the subject matter with reference to its three dimensions: jurisdiction, applicable law, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. But, as the contributions in this work show, since its inception, and in particular since the 1980s, the HCCH has helped to reach international consensus concerning a further, a “fourth” dimension of private international law: cross-border legal cooperation.
In line with this development, and with the firm belief that such cooperation is crucial to the private international law of the 21st century, the Companion has adopted a strong focus on cross-border legal cooperation, including by an increased use of technology. This deliberate choice was fortuitous: the global pandemic is testing the domestic and international justice sector like never before, bringing into sharp focus the often non-existing or still arcane methods prevalent especially in the area of cross-border legal cooperation.
Structure of the Companion
The Companion comprises 35 Chapters that are organised into three Parts.
Part I of the Companion: Institutional perspectives
Part I consists of three Sections. Section 1 considers the HCCH as an international organisation and the contributions trace the development of the Organisation from its inception in 1893 until the present day, including its trajectory towards a truly global organisation. The initial Chapters specifically concern the history of the HCCH; its institutional setting, especially in terms of the HCCH’s privileges and immunities; as well as a contribution on the relationship between the HCCH, and the other two international organisations dealing with international private law issues, i.e., UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT, often also referred to as the HCCH’s ‘Sister Organisations’.
The following Section is dedicated to the HCCH as an organisation with global reach. The Chapters demonstrate how the HCCH is evolving from an organisation whose membership was historically European-based into an increasingly global institution. The HCCH currently has 86 Members (as of December 2020), comprising 85 States and the EU. Perhaps other Regional Economic Integration Organisations (REIO) may also become members one day, and this should be encouraged. Remarkably, since the turn of the century, the HCCH has added 39 New Members (or 45% of its current membership), including six South American States, two States from North America, one in Oceania, fourteen in Asia, eleven in Europe and five in Africa.[1] Since 3 December, the HCCH has a further Candidate State: Mongolia, which has applied for membership and for which the six-month voting period is now running. Importantly, this Section considers the HCCH’s expanded reach, including thoughtful contributions on the organisation’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean; Africa; and in the Asia Pacific. The Chapters also reflect on the work of the HCCH’s Regional Offices, namely, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP), which is based in Hong Kong and commenced its work in 2012; as well as the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC), operating out of Buenos Aires since 2005.
Part I’s final Section looks at the HCCH as a driver of private international law. The Chapters contain stimulating contributions concerning some of the contemporary philosophical dimensions of private international law as shaped by globalisation, and the ways in which the HCCH can be understood in this context; the role the Organisation can play in shaping private international law into the future; considering whether the 2015 Choice of Law Principles establish a good framework for regulatory competition in contract law; what role the HCCH can play in further strengthening legal cooperation across borders; and the concept of public order, including its relationship with mandatory law.
Part II of the Companion: Current instruments
Part II of the Companion concerns contributions on existing HCCH instruments. It traces the evolution, implementation, and effectiveness of each of those instruments, and looks forward in terms of how improvements may be achieved. The contributors not only provide a record of the organisation’s successes and achievements, but also provide a critical analysis of the HCCH’s current work. They canvassed the traditional tripartite of private international law, including forum selection, choice of law and the recognition and enforcement of judgments. In addition, they also provided their thoughts on the fourth dimension of private international law, i.e. cross-border legal cooperation, tracing the pioneering, as well as championing, role of the HCCH in this regard, resulting in cooperation being a quintessential feature, in particular of more modern conventions, developed and adopted by the HCCH.
Part II is organised following the three pillars of the HCCH: (1) family law; (2) international civil procedure, cross-border litigation and legal cooperation; and (3) commercial and financial law.
The first Section of Part II addresses HCCH instruments in the family law sphere. Contributions include an analysis of the HCCH and its instruments relating to marriage; the 1980 Child Abduction Convention; the 1993 Intercountry Adoption Convention; a Chapter on the challenges posed by the 1996 Child Protection Convention in South America; the 2000 Adult Protection Convention; a contribution on HCCH instruments in the area of maintenance Obligations; the work of the HCCH in the field of mediation in international children’s cases; and a contribution overviewing the interaction between various HCCH instruments concerning child protection.
The second Section concerns HCCH instruments that are some of its major successes. But as the Chapters show, more work needs to be done given the ever-increasing cross-border movement of goods, services and people, and the need to better incorporate the use of technology in cross border legal cooperation. Contributions concern the 1961 Apostille Convention; the 1965 Service and 1970 Evidence Conventions; the 2005 Choice of Court Convention; and finally, the 2019 Judgments Convention which was decades in the making.
The final Section in Part II consists of contributions on HCCH commercial and finance instruments. Contributions specifically focus on the 1985 Trusts Convention; the 2006 Securities Convention; and the 2015 Choice of Law Principles, which constitute a soft law instrument demonstrating versatility in the kind of instruments HCCH has helped negotiate.
Part III – Current and possible future priorities
Part III of the Companion consists of Chapters that discuss the substantive development of private international law focusing on current and possible future priorities for the HCCH. In that regard, this Companion seeks to bridge the HCCH’s past and its future.
The first Section focuses on current priorities. It consists of contributions on a highly difficult and sensitive area of international family law, i.e. parentage and international surrogacy and how the HCCH may assist with its consensual solutions; how the HCCH may play a global governance role in the area of the protection of international tourists; and how the exercise of civil jurisdiction can be regulated. Specifically, this Chapter shows how the doctrine of forum non conveniens is increasingly being influenced by access to justice considerations, a matter borne out by comparative analysis.
The second Section of Part III, and of the Companion, contemplates possible future priorities for the HCCH. Contributions concern how private international law rules ought to be developed in the context of FinTech; what role the HCCH may play in setting out the private international law rules in the sphere of international commercial arbitration; how the digitisation of legal cooperation ought to reshape the fourth dimension of private international law; the potential development of special private international law rules in the context of complex contractual relationships; how the HCCH can engage with and embrace modern information technology in terms of the development of private international law; and finally, what role there is for the HCCH in developing a regulatory regime for highly mobile international employees. It is hoped that in addition to providing ideas on how progress may be made on its current priorities, the contributions in Part III can also provide a basis for the HCCH’s future work.
Concluding remarks and outlook
The editors, who collaboratively prepared this entry, chose this structure for the Companion to provide the reader with an easy access to a complex organisation that does complex work. The structure also makes accessible the span of time the Companion bridges, chronicling the HCCH’s history, reaching back to 1893, while looking forward into its future.
The second entry on Conflict-of-Laws.net will outline the editor’s reflections on the 35 Chapters, drawing out some of the key themes that emerged from the Companion, including the HCCH’s contribution to access to justice and multilateralism.
[1] HCCH, ‘Members & Parties’ <https://www.hcch.net/en/states> accessed 6 December 2020. The latest Member State is Nicaragua for which the Statute of the HCCH entered into force on 21 October 2020.
Ulla Liukkunen on Chinese private international law, comparative law and international commercial arbitration – launch of Ius Comparatum
Guest post by Ulla Liukkunen, Professor of Labour Law and Private International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Finnish Center of Chinese Law and Chinese Legal Culture
The International Academy of Comparative Law launched a new open access publication in November 2020. Volume no 1 on the use of comparative law methodology in international arbitration contains articles by Emmanuel Gaillard, Sebastián Partida, Charles-Maurice Mazuy, S.I. Strong, Johannes Landbrecht, Morad El Kadmiri, Marco Torsello, Ulla Liukkunen, Alyssa King, Alexander Ferguson, Dorothée Goertz and Luis Bergolla as well as introductory remarks on the topic by the Secretary-General of the Academy, Diego P. Fernández Arroyo.
The volume no 1 is available on aidc-iacl.org/journal.
The article “Chinese context and complexities — comparative law and private international law facing new normativities in international commercial arbitration” was written by Ulla Liukkunen, Professor of Labour Law and Private International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Finnish Center of Chinese Law and Chinese Legal Culture.
Professor Liukkunen examines international commercial arbitration from the perspective of Chinese developments, noting that, in global terms, the organization of cross-border dispute resolution is changing as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development. With the BRI, Chinese interest in international commercial arbitration has gained a new dimension as BRI promotes the expansion of Chinese dispute resolution institutions and their international competitiveness.
According to Liukkunen, these developments challenge the current narrative of international arbitration. She explores private international law as a framework for unfolding noteworthy characteristics of the Chinese legal system and legal culture that are present in international commercial arbitration and can be linked to an assessment of the role of the BRI in shaping the arbitration regime. A rethink of comparative methodology is proposed in order to promote an understanding of Chinese law in the arbitration process.
Moreover, Liukkunen argues that considerations of the Chinese private international law and arbitration regime speak for a broader comparative research perspective towards international commercial arbitration. In the international commercial arbitration frame under scrutiny, we can see the conception of party autonomy placed in a Chinese context where the state is shaping the still relatively young private international law frame for exercise of that freedom and certain institutional structures are advocated where party autonomy is placed. Chinese development underlines the connection between the legal regime of arbitration and endeavours by the state, thereby requiring assessment of party autonomy from the perspective of the regulatory framework of private international law that expresses the complex dichotomy between private and public interests.
Report on the ERA conference of 29-30 October 2020 on ‘Recent Developments in the European Law of Civil Procedure’
This report has been prepared by Carlos Santaló Goris, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Luxembourg.
On 29-30 October 2020, ERA – the Academy of European Law – organized a conference on “Recent Developments in the European Law of Civil Procedure”, offering a comprehensive overview of civil procedural matters at the European and global level. The program proved very successful in conveying the status quo of, but also a prospective outlook on, the topics that currently characterise the debates on cross-border civil procedure, including the Brussels I-bis Regulation and 2019 HCCH Judgments Convention, the digitalisation of access to justice, the recent developments on cross-border service of documents and taking of evidence, and judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters in the aftermath of Brexit.
For those who did not have the opportunity to attend this fruitful conference, this report offers a succinct overview of the topics and ideas exchanged over this two-day event.
Day 1: The Brussels I (Recast) and Beyond
The Brussels regime, its core notions and the recent contributions by the CJEU via its jurisprudence were the focus of the first panel. In this framework, Cristina M. Mariottini (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg) tackled the core notion of civil and commercial matters (Art. 1(1)) under the Brussels I-bis Regulation. Relying, in particular, on recent CJEU judgments, among which C-551/15, Pula Parking; C-308/17, Kuhn; C-186/19, Supreme Site Services, she reconstructed the functional test elaborated by the CJEU in this area of the law, shedding the light on the impact of recent developments in the jurisprudence of the Court, i.a., with respect to immunity claims raised by international organizations.
Marta Pertegás Sender (Maastricht University and University of Antwerp) proceeded then with a comprehensive overview of the choice-of-court agreement regimes under the Brussels I-bis Regulation and the 2005 Hague Convention on choice of court agreements. Relying, inter alia, on the CJEU case law on Article 25 of the Brussels I-bis Regulation (C-352/13, CDC Hydrogen; C-595/17, Apple Sales; C-803/18, Balta; C-500/18, AU v. Reliantco; C-59/19, Wikingerhof (pending)), she highlighted the theoretical and practical benefits of party autonomy in the field of civil and commercial matters.
The interface between the Brussels I-bis Regulation and arbitration, and the boundaries of the arbitration exclusion in the Regulation, were the focus of Patrick Thieffry (International Arbitrator; Member of the Paris and New York Bars) in his presentation. In doing so he analysed several seminal cases in that subject area (C-190/89, Marc Rich; C-391/95, Van Uden; C-185/07, West Tankers; C?536/13, Gazprom), exploring whether possible changes were brought about by the Brussels I-bis Regulation.
The evolution of the CJEU’s jurisprudence vis-à-vis the notions of contractual and non-contractual obligations were at the heart of the presentation delivered by Alexander Layton (Barrister, Twenty Essex; Visiting Professor at King’s College, London). As Mr Layton effectively illustrated, the CJEU’s jurisprudence in this field is characterized by two periods marking different interpretative patterns: while, until 2017, the CJEU tended to interpret the concept of contractual matters restrictively, holding that “all actions which seek to establish the liability of a defendant and which are not related to a contract” fall within the concept of tort (C-189/87, Kalfelis), the Court interpretation subsequently steered towards an increased flexibility in the concept of “matters relating to a contract” (C-249/16, Kareda; C-200/19, INA).
The principle of mutual trust of the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice vis-à-vis the recent Polish judicial reform (and its consequential backlash on the rule of law) was the object of the presentation delivered by Agnieszka Fr?ckowiak-Adamska (University of Wroc?aw). Shedding the light on the complex status quo, which is characterized by several infringement actions initiated by the European Commission (C?192/18, Commission v Poland; C?619/18, Commission v Poland; C?791/19 R, Commission v Poland (provisional measures)) as well as CJEU case law (e.g. C?216/18 PPU, Minister for Justice and Equality v LM), Ms Fr?ckowiak-Adamska also expounded on the decentralised remedies that may be pursued by national courts in accordance with the EU civil procedural instruments, among which public policy, where available, and refusal by national courts to qualify Polish judgments as “judgments” pursuant to those instruments.
The second half of the first day was dedicated to the 2019 HCCH Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. In this context, it is of note that the EU, among others, has opened a Public Consultation into a possible accession to the Convention (see, esp., Thomas John’s posting announcing the EU’s public consultation). While Ning Zhao (Senior Legal Officer, HCCH) gave an overview of the travaux preparatoires of the 2019 HCCH Convention and of the main features of this instrument, Matthias Weller (University of Bonn) delved into the system for the global circulation of judgments implemented with the Convention, highlighting its traditional but also innovative features and its potential contributions, in particular to cross-border dealings.
The roundtable that followed offered the opportunity to further expound on the 2019 HCCH Judgments Convention. Namely, Norel Rosner (Legal and Policy Officer, Civil Justice, DG for Justice and Consumers, European Commission) explained that the EU has a positive position towards the Convention, notably because it facilitates the recognition and enforcement of EU judgments in third countries and because it will help create a more coherent system of recognition and enforcement in the EU Member States of judgments rendered in other (of course, non-EU) Contracting States. The roundtable also examined the features and objectives of Article 29, which puts forth an “opt-out” mechanism that allows Contracting States to mutually exclude treaty obligations with those Contracting States with which they are reluctant to entertain the relations that would otherwise arise from the Convention. As Ms Mariottini observed, this provision – which combines established and unique characters compared to the systems put forth under the previous HCCH Conventions – contributes to defining the “territorial geometry” of the Convention: it enshrines a mechanism that counterbalances the unrestricted openness that would otherwise stem from the universality of the Convention, and is a valuable means to increase the likelihood of adherence to the Convention. Matthias Weller proceeded then to explore the consequences of limiting a Contracting State’s objection window to 12 months from adherence to the Convention by the other Contracting State and raised the case of a Contracting State whose circumstances change so dramatically, beyond the 12-month window, that it is no longer possible to assure judicial independence of its judiciary. In his view, solutions as the ones proposed by Ms Fr?ckowiak-Adamska for the EU civil procedural instruments may also apply in such circumstances.
Day 2: European Civil Procedure 4.0.
Georg Haibach (Legal and Policy Officer, Civil Justice, DG for Justice and Consumers, European Commission), opened the second day of the conference with a detailed presentation on the ongoing recast of the Service Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1393/2007). Emphasizing that the main objective of this reform focuses on digitalization – including the fact that the proposed recast prioritises the electronic transmission of documents – Mr Haibach also shed the light on other notable innovations, such as the possibility of investigating the defendant’s address.
The Evidence Regulation (Council Regulation No. 1206/2001), which is also in the process of being reformed, was at the core of the presentation delivered by Pavel Simon (Judge at the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic, Brno) who focuses not only on the status quo of the Regulation as interpreted by the CJEU (C-283/09, Wery?ski; C-332/11, ProRail; C-170/11, Lippens), but also tackled the current proposals for a reform: while such proposals do not appear to bring major substantive changes to the Regulation, they do suggest technological improvements, for instance favouring the use of videoconference.
In her presentation, Xandra Kramer (University of Rotterdam and Utrecht University) analysed thoroughly two of the CJEU judgments on “satellite” instruments of the Brussels I-bis Regulation: the EAPO Regulation (Regulation No. 655/2014); and the EPO Regulation (Regulation No. 1896/2006). C-555/18, was the very first judgment that the CJEU rendered on the EAPO Regulation. Xandra Kramer remarked the underuse of this instrument. In the second part of her lecture, she identified two trends in the judgments on the EPO Regulation (C?21/17, Caitlin Europe; Joined Cases C?119/13 and C?120/13, ecosmetics; Joined Cases C?453/18 and C?494/18, Bondora), observing that the CJEU tries, on the one hand, to preserve the efficiency of the EPO Regulation, while at the same time seeking to assure an adequate protection of the debtor’s position.
In the last presentation of the second day, Helena Raulus (Head of Brussels Office, UK Law Societies) explored the future judicial cooperation in civil matters between the EU and the United Kingdom in the post-Brexit scenario. Ms Raulus foresaw two potential long-term solutions for the relationship: namely, relying either on the 2019 Hague Convention, or on the Lugano Convention. In her view, the 2019 Hague Convention would not fully answer the future challenges of potential cross-border claims between EU Member States and the UK: it only covers recognition and enforcement, while several critical subject areas are excluded (e.g. IP-rights claims); and above all, from a more practical perspective, it is still an untested instrument. Ms Raulus affirmed that the UK’s possible adherence to the Lugano Convention is the most welcomed solution among English practitioners. Whereas this solution has already received the green light from the non-EU Contracting States to the Lugano Convention (Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland), she remarked that to date the EU has not adopted a position in this regard.
The conference closed with a second roundtable, which resumed the discussions on the future relations between the EU and the UK on judicial cooperation in civil law matters. Christophe Bernasconi (Secretary General, HCCH) offered an exhaustive review on the impact of the UK withdrawal from the EU on all the existing HCCH Conventions. From his side, Alexander Layton wondered if it might be possible to apply the pre-existing bilateral treaties between some EU Member States and the UK: in his view, those treaties still have a vestigial existence in those matters non-covered by the Brussels I-bis Regulation, and thus they were not fully succeeded. In Helena Raulus’s view, such treaties would raise competence issues, since the negotiating of such treaties falls exclusively with the EU (as the CJEU found in its Opinion 1/03). As Ms Raulus observed, eventually attempts to re-establish bilateral treaties between the Member States and the UK might trigger infringement proceedings by the Commission against those Member States. The discussion concluded by addressing the 2005 Hague Convention and it is applicability to the UK after the end of the transition period.
Overall, this two-day event was characterized by a thematic and systematic approach to the major issues that characterize the current debate in the area of judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters, both at the EU and global level. By providing the opportunity to hear, from renowned experts, on both the theoretical and practical questions that arise in this context, it offered its audience direct access to highly qualified insight and knowledge.
News
Book Launch: International Child Abduction, Mayela Celis (Madrid: Dykinson, 2023) on 5 October 2023 (in Spanish)
The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on 5 October 2023 at 2:30 pm (Mexico City time), 10:30 pm (Europe, CEST time) to launch the book entitled:
International Child Abduction: jurisprudential, doctrinal and critical study of the 1980 Child Abduction Convention. Key concepts and solutions to application problems (Madrid: Dykinson, 2023) 604 pp.
For more information about the book, see our previous post here.
The book will be presented by the author and the following AMEDIP members: Professors Jorge Alberto Silva Silva and Nuria González Martín, as well as the family law attorney María Virginia Aguilar.
The webinar will be held in Spanish and the details are:
Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89498755044?pwd=NmFjQjAxZ2pSTW9tNVlqTC81NnM1dz09
Meeting ID: 894 9875 5044
Password: AMEDIP
Participation is free of charge.
This event will also be streamed live: https://www.facebook.com/AmedipMX
Symposium on Reparation for “Crimes of the Past” in Strasbourg (Oct. 19–20)
Written by Dr. Delphine Porcheron, Associate Professor at the University of Strasbourg Law Faculty
On October 19 and 20, the University of Strasbourg is organizing a symposium on Reparation for “Crimes of the Past”.
Mass crimes, deportations, spoliations, colonial exploitation, slavery… The “crimes of the past” are first known to us as historical facts. Their protagonists have mostly disappeared; they have been documented by historians; almost all of them are mentioned in school textbooks. They have become part of our collective memory as disastrous episodes of a bygone past.
Book Launch: Blockchain & Private International Law
The Series Editors of International and Comparative Business Law and Public Policy are hosting a book launch and cocktail party to celebrate the publication of Blockchain & Private International Law, edited by Andrea Bonomi, Matthias Lehmann, and Shaheeza Lalani (reviewed here by Christina Blanchet Valle).
The hybrid event will take place on 5 October, 5pm Swiss Time, both at the University of Lausanne, IDHEAP, AULA, and online (Zoom-Link; pw: 832357).
The event had originally been scheduled for 11 October (indicated wrongly above) but has been postponed for logistical reasons. The new date will be advertised shortly.