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“Towards an EU Law on International Commercial Arbitration?” A Sorbonne Law School Research Project
Written by Dr. Nima Nasrollahi-Shahri (Sorbonne Law School) and Vincent Bassani-Winckler (PhD Candidate, Sorbonne Law School), both authors participated in the Working Group.
A few days ago, the Sorbonne Law School released the final report of a collective research project chaired by Professors Mathias Audit and Sylvain Bollée, entitled “Towards an EU Law on International Commercial Arbitration?”.
Conducted within the IRJS (Institut de Recherche Juridique de la Sorbonne), and more specifically its research group on private international law, SERPI (Sorbonne – Étude des Relations Privées Internationales), this project sets out to examine whether and how to improve the relationship between commercial arbitration and EU law.
Civil Personal Status Law in the UAE and the Paradox of the Application of Foreign Law: A Legal Trap?
I. Introduction (*)
(*) For the sake of simplicity, reference will be made only to Federal Decree-Law No. 41/2022 of 2 October 2022 on Civil Personal Status. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi has enacted a separate law that addresses similar matters at the local level. For a comparison of the various applicable legal frameworks in family law in the UAE, see Béligh Elbalti, “The Personal Status Regimes in the UAE — What’s New and What Are the Implications for Private International Law? A Brief Critical Appraisal”.
There is no doubt that the introduction of the Civil Personal Status Law (CPSL) in the United Arab Emirates marks a significant turning point in the region’s legal landscape, particularly in areas traditionally governed by religious norms. The CPSL refers to the special law adopted at the federal level, which allows family law disputes involving non-Muslims (both foreigners and UAE citizens) to be resolved under a legal framework, that is intended to be modern, flexible, based on “rules of justice and fairness” and “the best international practices from comparative legal systems” (cf. article 19 of the Cabinet Resolution Concerning the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law on the Civil Personal Status). However, the incorporation of the CPSL into the existing legal frameworks in the UAE has raised several issues. These include, among others, the articulation of the CPSL with the other applicable legal frameworks, and more importantly, the extent to which parties may opt out of this “modern” regime in favor of applying their own national laws (for a general overview, see Elbalti, op. cit.). Read more
Report on the ABLI/HCCH 4th Joint Webinar on “Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution – Electronic Service of Documents and Remote Taking of Evidence“
by Achim Czubaiko-Güntgen, Research Fellow („Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter“) and PhD Candidate, supported by the German Scholarship Foundation, Institute for German and International Civil Procedural Law, University of Bonn.
With the fourth instalment in their ongoing webinar series on “Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution”, the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) and the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) returned to the topic of “Electronic Service of Documents and Remote Taking of Evidence”. Contrary to the first webinar in 2021, this session focussed not solely on the HCCH 1970 Evidence but equally on the HCCH 1965 Service Convention. Having finally overcome the immediate constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, this time the renowned speakers were able to elaborate more on the long-term development and visions in the practice of the two legal instruments with regard to their respective areas of law.
News
Launch of public consultation on a possible new HCCH convention
The Permanent Bureau of the HCCH is pleased to announce the launch of a public consultation on the Draft Text of a possible new convention on parallel proceedings and related actions, to be held from 18 November 2025 to 26 January 2026.
Experts, practitioners and judges from diverse legal traditions with experience in cross-border litigation and private international law more broadly are encouraged to participate in the consultation.
In 2021, the HCCH established a Working Group on matters related to jurisdiction in transnational civil or commercial litigation (WG), comprised of over 60 subject-matter experts from across the globe. The WG, after nine meetings, has developed a Draft Text containing provisions aimed at addressing parallel proceedings and related actions taking place in multiple States, acknowledging the primary roles of both jurisdictional rules and the doctrine of forum non conveniens. The objective of this future instrument would be to enhance legal certainty, predictability, and access to justice by reducing litigation costs and mitigating inconsistent judgments in transnational litigation in civil or commercial matters.
The public consultation seeks feedback on whether the Draft Text would, in practice, assist in addressing such matters and how the provisions in the Draft Text could be improved. The consultation is supported by a Consultation Paper comprising an Executive Summary, a detailed explanation of the key provisions and the operation of the Draft Text, and specific questions. Responses received from this consultation will be submitted to all HCCH Members for consideration in advance of the next meeting of the Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP), the governing body of the HCCH, in March 2026, at which the Members of the HCCH will decide on the next steps for the project.
For more information on the public consultation, please visit: https://www.hcch.net/en/projects/legislative-projects/jurisdiction/public-consultation
This post is published by the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH).
LEX and FORUM VOLUME I /2025
The sweeping pace of technological advancement and the accelerated transition to the digital realm are generating novel and complex challenges for the law. Established legal frameworks are increasingly being tested within the digital environment, where cutting-edge technologies — such as digital platforms and artificial intelligence — have come to play a decisive role in both social and economic activity.
Although the European Union may not yet have attained its full technological maturity, it stands at the forefront of confronting the legal implications of the digital era. The Union’s legislative agenda seeks to maintain a delicate equilibrium between, on the one hand, promoting innovation and technological development, and, on the other, safeguarding the fundamental rights of individuals while ensuring transparency and accountability among digital service providers. Read more
Special Issue: Proceedings of the Bremen Conference on Informed Consent to Dispute Resolution Agreements
The German Law Journal has published a Special Issue featuring the proceedings of the international conference on Informed Consent to Dispute Resolution Agreements, held in Bremen on 20–21 June 2024 (see our earlier announcement here).
Edited by Gralf-Peter Calliess and Nicholas Mouttotos of the University of Bremen, the special issue brings together contributions from leading scholars in private international law, international civil procedure, and international arbitration. Contributors include: Symeon C. Symeonides, Nancy S. Kim, Gralf-Peter Calliess, Frederick Rieländer, Peter McColgan, Laura E. Little, Kermit Roosevelt III, Sören Segger-Piening, John F. Coyle, Hannah L. Buxbaum, Marta Pertegás Sender, Stephen Ware, Stefan F. Thönissen and Nicholas Mouttotos.
The collection addresses a central tension in modern dispute resolution: how to reconcile party autonomy in forum and choice-of-law agreements with the requirement of consent, and how informed should consent be, particularly where such agreements are embedded in standard-form contracts affecting weaker parties such as consumers and employees.
The issue encompasses perspectives from both the United States and the European Union, examining questions of constitutional fairness, access to justice, and the legitimacy of contractual self-determination. Contributions trace the historical development of party autonomy, critique the adequacy of existing consent models, examine their outward abandonment while also exploring comparative regulatory approaches to protecting vulnerable contracting parties.
The special issue is available in the German Law Journal, Volume 26, Special Issue 5, and the editorial can be found here. The German Law Journal is a pioneering (Gold) open-access, peer-reviewed forum for scholarship and commentary on comparative, European, and international law, offering free and unrestricted online access to its publications since 1999.