Views
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
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.
Perspectives Contentieuses Internationales (PCI), Volume 6
The following announcement was kindly shared with us by Fabienne Jault-Seseke.
The 6th issue of Perspectives contentieuses internationales has been released and is online.
It contains seven articles related to the consolidation of cross-border litigation. These articles form the first part of the proceedings of a conference held in Toulouse in November 2025. The second part will be published in Volume 7. Volume 6 also includes two further articles, one on the law applicable to air transport and one of theclassification, and three short notes (focus).
Here is the list of papers, along with their abstracts.
Out Now (Open Access): Heiderhoff/Queirolo (eds), Private International Law and the European Union: Developments in Contemporary Private Law, 2026
A new volume coming out of the Programme in European Private Law for Postgraduates (PEPP) has just been published as part of the Scritti di diritto privato europeo ed internazionale series.
The book, available in open access here, focuses on the emergence of new legal personality for environmental features; protection of children; alternative dispute resolution; protection of the internal market and access to justice; SLAPPs; onlice activities and private international law; jurisdiction and choice of court agreements, and tax arbitrability.