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Investment Awards vs Sovereign Immunity: Navigating the Enforcement Maze
By Cara North, Counsel, Ashurst
The intersection of foreign State immunity and the enforcement of international arbitral awards has been a hotly contested issues in recent years. First the question was whether a State has waived immunity from court processes concerning recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards by ratifying the 1965 Convention of Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID Convention) – to which the answer has been yes in Australia and the England and Wales (among other jurisdictions). More recently, the question has been whether a State’s ratification of the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) constitutes an implicit waiver of sovereign immunity, to which the High Court of Australia most recently held no.
In CCDM Holdings, LLC v The Republic of India [2026] HCA 9, the High Court of Australia unanimously held that ratification of the New York Convention does not, of itself, waive foreign State immunity under the Foreign States Immunities Act 1985 (Cth). The decision aligns Australia with the current position in the United States, Canada, and England and Wales, reinforcing an emerging common law consensus in that regard.
Courtroom Attendance as a Forum Conveniens Factor in Hamilton v Barrow
This post is written by Timon Milan Solár, Doctoral researcher, Faculty of Law, Trnava University, Slovakia.
In October 2025, the High Court of England and Wales (King’s Bench Division) handed down its judgment in Hamilton v Barrow [2025] EWHC 2593 (KB). The case concerned a failed unregulated investment scheme that collapsed in 2017, leaving investors without the possibility of recovering their investments, which ranged from £2,930 to £410,969. At first glance, the decision discusses important procedural questions, including abuse of process and champerty. However, on closer inspection, it also raises an interesting issue of English private international law that has gone overlooked. Can courtroom attendance be a factor in the forum conveniens test?
Greenpeace Anti-SLAPP Suit Blocked by International Antisuit Injunction
This post was written by Hannah Buxbaum, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law. The post is cross-posted from the Transnational Litigation Blog with kind permission.
In 2019, Energy Transfer, the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline, sued Greenpeace International, a Dutch foundation, in North Dakota state court. Last year, Greenpeace responded with an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuit against Energy Transfer in Dutch court. In the latest twist in this lengthy dispute, the North Dakota Supreme Court issued an antisuit injunction last week blocking (partially) that anti-SLAPP suit.
The injunction is unusual in two respects. First, it does not actually bar Greenpeace from pursuing the Dutch action; rather, it purports to limit the issues that Greenpeace can raise in that litigation. Second, it was entered after judgment had already been reached in the North Dakota lawsuit. Read more
News
AMEDIP: Annual seminar to take place from 15 to 16 October 2026 (in Spanish)
The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) will be holding its XLIX Seminar entitled “Towards a new codification of Private International Law in Mexico” (Hacia una nueva codificación del Derecho Internacional Privado en México) from 15 to 16 October 2026. The venue of the seminar will be the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (Mérida, Mexico).
This edition of the seminar will primarily focus on the draft bill on Private International Law for the state of Yucatán, an initiative presented by AMEDIP to the authorities of that state. This draft breaks from previous practice, according to which state PIL rules are contained in civil codes, by suggesting the adoption of a standalone Act (available here). Read more
Out now: Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law by Tine Van Hof
The publisher’s blurb, including a discount code, is as follows:
Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law
Conflicts in International Child Abduction Cases
Tine Van Hof
This book examines the relationship between two legal fields when courts decide on cross-border child abduction. While private international law prioritises the child’s prompt return and applies the best interests principle in abstracto, children’s rights law demands an in concreto, individualised assessment of the child’s best interests. These differing approaches can lead to legal friction in practice.
Through a detailed analysis of legal instruments and supranational case law, the book explores how these conflicts arise and how they might be resolved.
Offering clear recommendations for lawmakers, international organisations, and courts, the book provides a roadmap for fostering constructive relationships between legal fields. It is an essential resource for scholars of private international law, judges and practitioners in cross-border family law, and policymakers working at the intersection of international law and children’s rights.
Tine Van Hof is a legal researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Jun 2026 | 9781509977055 | 288pp | Hbk | RRP: £90
Discount Price: £72
Order online at www.hartpublishing.co.uk – use the code GLR BD8 to get 20% off!
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New Empirical Study in Comparative Law: “The Reasons Highest Courts Give: England, France, Germany; 1880–89 and 2007–16”
This post has kindly been provided by Markus Lieberknecht (University of Osnabrück).
It is our great pleasure to bring to readers’ attention the publication of the article “The Reasons Highest Courts Give: England, France, Germany; 1880–89 and 2007–16”, co-authored by Holger Spamann (Harvard Law School), Stefan Vogenauer and Jasper Kunstreich (MPI Hamburg), Heinrich Nemeczek (Scalable Capital) and Markus Lieberknecht (Osnabrück University), in The Journal of Legal Studies.
One of the core debates in comparative law concerns the characteristics, extent, and development of the common/civil law divide. In this context, it is a familiar trope that common and civil lawyers reason differently, but that the systems are converging. However, the empirical basis for such claims is thin to nonexistent. To address this paucity of data-backed research, we present the first systematic quantitative comparison of three paragon jurisdictions of common law (England) and civil law (France and Germany), and across two centuries (1880–89 vs. 2007–16). Specifically, we analyze the use of legal authorities (cases, statutes, and literature) in 40 representative opinions of each apex court in each of the two decades we surveyed.