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Online Symposium on Recent Developments in African PIL (II) – The Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments within the CEMAC Zone
As part of the second online symposium on recent developments in African private international law, we are pleased to present the second contribution, kindly prepared by Boris Awa (Kigali Independent University, Rwanda), on The Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments within the CEMAC Zone.
Article V(1)(e) of the 1958 New York Convention in Light of a Decision of the Turkish Court of Cassation
Posted on behalf of Erdem Küçüker, an attorney-at-law registered at the Istanbul Bar Association and a private law LL.M student at Koç University. Mr. Küçüker specializes in commercial arbitration, arbitration-related litigation and commercial litigation, and acts as secretary to arbitral tribunals.
Article V of the 1958 New York Convention (“NYC”) lists the grounds of non-enforcement of a foreign arbitral award. Accordingly, Article V(1)(e) provides that when “[t]he award has not yet become binding on the parties, or has been set aside or suspended by a competent authority of the country in which, or under the law of which, that award was made” the award’s enforcement may be refused.
In 2024, the Turkish Court of Cassation quashed the lower courts’ decision that declared an International Centre for Dispute Resolution of the American Arbitration Association (“ICDR”) award as enforceable, stating that the courts should have further investigated whether the award is final, enforceable and binding (Court of Cassation, 11th Civil Chamber, Docket No: E. 2022/5986, Decision No: K. 2024/2257, Date: 20.03.2024). This article explains the decision of the Turkish Court of Cassation and comments on the final, enforceable and binding character of an arbitral award in relation to Article V(1)(e) of the NYC. Read more
Online Symposium on Recent Developments in African PIL (I) – Recognition and Enforcement of International Judgments in Nigeria
As previously announced, we are launching the second online symposium on recent developments in African private international law. As part of this symposium, a series of blog posts addressing various aspects of recent developments in African private international law will be published on this platform over the coming days.
We open the series with a blog post by Abubakri Yekini (Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester) and Chukwuma Samuel Adesina Okoli (Assistant Professor in Commercial Conflict of Laws at the University of Birmingham and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Private International Law in Emerging Countries at the University of Johannesburg), focusing on the recognition and enforcement of international judgments in Nigeria.
News
Foreign Judgment Enforcement: Zimbabwean High Court holds that a Confirmed Mareva Injunction is a Final Judgment
In the Zimbabwe High Court decision of Ser and Another v Yong and Another (92 of 2026; HC/SUM 1957/2025) [2026] ZWHHC 137 (8 April 2026), the applicant obtained a freezing (Mareva) injunction from a foreign court in Singapore against assets linked to the respondents and then sought to have that order registered and enforced in Zimbabwe. The respondents resisted enforcement, arguing that the order should not be recognised because it was interlocutory in nature and because a relevant foreign defendant had not been joined to the original proceedings. The dispute therefore arose in the context of an attempt to extend the effect of a foreign asset-preservation order into Zimbabwe against parties and assets within its jurisdiction.
Virtual Workshop (in German) on May 5, 2026: Thomas Pfeiffer on „Anwaltliche Erfolgshonorare im Internationalen Privatrecht“
On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST).
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Thomas Pfeiffer (Universität Heidelberg) will speak, in German, about the topic
“Anwaltliche Erfolgshonorare im Internationalen Privatrecht”
In Deutschland dürfte zum juristischen Allgemeinwissen zählen, dass anwaltliche Erfolgshonorare in den USA (und manchen anderen Rechtsordnungen) zulässig und vielfach sogar üblich sind, in Deutschland hingegen früher generell als unzulässig galten und auch heute noch deutlichen rechtlichen Grenzen unterliegen. Im IPR wird meist angenommen, dass sich diese Grenzen auch international zwingend durchsetzen, soweit es um deutsche Anwälte geht. Die schon früher relevante Frage nach Differenzierungen im Einzelnen hat durch die spürbaren Lockerungen der maßgebenden sachrechtlichen Regeln in jüngerer Zeit nochmals an Bedeutung gewonnen.
The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.
If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.
Stigma in the Lives of Refugees Living in Turkey
You are invited to the next Migration Talk organized by the Jean Monnet Chair in Legal Aspects of Migration Management in the European Union and in Türkiye.
Speakers: Dr. Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar (Istinye University), Khaled Elazab, MA (Clark University), Yomna Nassar, MA (Koç University), Farah Amayreh (Koç University), Dr. Ibrahim Yigit (Florida State University), Prof. Dr. Janet Molzan Turan (Koç University), and Prof. Dr. Bülent Turan (Koç University)
Title:Stigma in the Lives of Refugees Living in Turkey
Date and Time: Monday, May 4, 2026 – 12:30 PM – 1:20 PM (Turkish Time)
Event Location: via Zoom (The Zoom link shall be provided upon request: migration@bilkent.edu.tr)
The event will be held in English.
Abstract
The research is conducted with Syrian and Afghan refugees living in Istanbul, Turkiye to explore and examine effects of stigma and microaggressions in these populations.
It is based on 8 focus groups separately for men and women, four groups with Syrian refugees and four with Afghan refugees, with 4-10 participants in each group. Participants shared that stigma and microaggressions were central forces shaping every dimension of their daily life, well-being, and future plans. The intensity and ubiquity of these experiences appeared to exceed what is commonly documented in other stigmatized populations, owing in part to the visibility and politicization of refugee identity in the current sociopolitical climate in Türkiye, which allows and condones stigma and microaggressions against these populations. Refugees described that they and their children experienced mental and physical health problems not only due to trauma and difficulties faced before and during migration, but also due to post-displacement stigma and microaggressions that they experienced on a daily basis. Refugees employed a range of coping strategies to deal with these challenges, avoidance of interactions with Turks, forms of identity concealment (e.g., not revealing nationality, changing names, or not speaking their native language in public), avoidance of confrontation, and in some cases educating their neighbors to confront and correct stereotypes.
In the quantitative phase of the research, the research group developed the Refugee Stigma Scale (RSS) informed by the literature and qualitative and quantitative data. The scale includes four theoretical dimensions of stigma: perceived community stigma, experienced stigma, anticipated stigma, and internalized stigma. In a sample of 404 Syrian and 447 Afghan refugees in Türkiye, confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized four-factor structure of the RSS. Results also supported convergent validity of the four subscales showing correlations with validated measures of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), somatic symptoms, post-migration difficulties, and contact experiences.
The research group also developed a subscale assessing microaggressions (subtle/ambiguous discriminatory remarks or behaviors). Convergent validity of the Microaggression Scale for Refugees (MSR) was supported by high correlations between microaggressions and experienced stigma, somatic symptoms, post-migration difficulties, and contact experiences with the host country. Importantly, both experienced stigma and microaggressions contributed independently to explaining variance in psychological and somatic symptoms.
It is also explored the concept of identity denial in the context of refugee stigma using the new scales. Even after many years of immigrating, immigrants can have their new cultural identity (in this case, their Turkish identity) denied or unacknowledged. Based on a survey of 156 young Syrian adults living in Türkiye for many years, the research found that Turkish identity denial was associated with higher depressive symptoms and lower psychological well-being, mediated by perceived and anticipated stigma. Furthermore, a challenged sense of belonging was an independent parallel mediating mechanism by which identity denial was associated with psychological well-being and depressive symptoms.