Views
Montana Supreme Court Decides International Child Custody Case
The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which has been enacted by every U.S. state, discourages forum shopping in child custody disputes by assigning subject-matter jurisdiction to the court located in the “home state” of the child. In Allen v. Allen, decided on April 21, 2026, the Montana Supreme Court had to determine whether the child’s “home state” was Montana or the Netherlands. This case shines an important spotlight on the importance of timing in international child custody disputes. The left-behind parent’s likelihood of success is strongly correlated with how quickly her or she acts to vindicate their legal rights. Read more
China’s Countering Improper Foreign Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Regulation Blocked EU’s Extraterritorial Data Acquisition
Written by Jeremy MEI Ziyang
LLM student at Wuhan University
Visiting student at Singapore Management University
I. Background
On 15 May this year, Ministry of Justice (MOJ) of China issued its Official Notice No 5 of 2026 (‘the MOJ Notice’), announcing that the relevant extraterritorial investigation carried out by EU on Chinese entities Nuctech constitutes improper extraterritorial jurisdiction measures under China’s Regulation on Countering Improper Foreign Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ROCIFEJ, State Council Decree No 835).[1] This Regulation was promulgated and entered into force on 7 April 2026. As a nationwide regulation promulgated by State Council, although it cannot be called an ‘Act’ that should be passed by the National People’s Congress, its legal hierarchical force directly follows an ‘Act’, higher than the previous Blocking Rules issued by Ministry of Commerce (MOC).[2]
Enforcement of New York Judgments in Côte d’Ivoire: Insights from a Recent Decision of the Abidjan Commercial Court
Many thanks to Boris Awa (Kigali Independent University ULK, Kigali, Rwanda) for the tip-off
I. Introduction
The recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Francophone African countries remains a largely underexplored subject in the literature, including in French-language scholarship. The laws of many countries have not yet been systematically analysed from a comparative perspective, and in several jurisdictions access to even the most basic information is itself a considerable challenge. This note aims to raise awareness of African private international law, in particular in Francophone Sub-Saharan African countries. The case discussed here concerns the enforcement of a New York judgment in Côte d’Ivoire. It provides an opportunity to present the Ivorian system of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and to examine some of the key issues addressed by the Ivorian court.
News
Out Now: Calliess & Renner, Rome Regulations: Commentary (4th Edition)
【Out Now】Silberman’s Hague Academy General Course: The Counter-Revolution in U.S. Private International Law: From Standards to Rules?
For anyone who begins studying private international law – particularly from a civil law perspective – one of the first concepts encountered, after Savigny’s ‘Copernican Revolution’, is the American ‘Choice-of-Law Revolution’. Since the late 1950s, American courts and scholars have progressively abandoned the rigid territorial methodology embodied in the First Restatement of Conflict of Laws in favour of more flexible approaches based on standards and policy-oriented analyses. The pioneering contributions of Brainerd Currie, David Cavers, Robert Leflar, and William Baxter, among others, fundamentally reshaped American conflicts law and made the United States a laboratory of modern choice-of-law theory.
New Publication: Second Edition of the Elgar’s Research Handbook on EU PIL
While much of Europe slows down for August, there is still some fresh academic news to share: the publication of the second edition of the *Research Handbook on EU Private International Law*, edited by Youseph Farah, of the University of East Anglia and Elisabetta Bergamini, of the University of Udine, and published by Edward Elgar Publishing as part of the *Research Handbooks in European Law* series.
Thoroughly revised and updated, the new edition brings together civil-law and common-law perspectives to examine some of the most important questions and continuing challenges in EU private international law. Alongside the traditional fields of jurisdiction, contractual and non-contractual obligations, the Handbook addresses significant developments in family law, parental responsibility and cross-border succession.