Views
The Aftermath of the CJEU’s Kuhn Judgment – Hellas triumphans in Vienna. Really.
Written by Stephan Walter, Research Fellow at the Institute for German and International Civil Procedure Law, University of Bonn, Germany
Claims brought by creditors of Greek state bonds against Greece in connection with the 2012 haircut do not fall under the substantive scope of the Brussels Ibis Regulation because they stem from the exercise of public authority. Hence, they cannot be regarded as civil and commercial matters in the sense of Article 1(1) Brussels Ibis Regulation. This is the essence of the CJEU’s Kuhn judgment (of 15 November 2018, Case C-308/17, ECLI:EU:C:2018:911), which was already discussed on this blog.
In said blog post, it was rightly pointed out that the judgment could be nothing but a Pyrrhic victory for Greece. Not least the – now possible – application of national (sometimes exorbitant) jurisdictional rules was considered to have the potential to backfire. This was, however, only the case, if Greece was not granted immunity in the first place. In short: the fallout of the CJEU’s judgment was hardly predictable. Read more
Is there a need for international conventions on legal parentage (incl. international surrogacy arrangements)?
The Experts’ Group on Parentage / Surrogacy of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) has answered in the affirmative.
At its fifth meeting earlier this year, the Experts’ Group agreed that it would be feasible to develop both:
- a general private international law instrument on the recognition of foreign judicial decisions on legal parentage; and
- a separate protocol on the recognition of foreign judicial decisions on legal parentage arising from international surrogacy arrangements (abbreviated as “ISA”).
As announced on the HCCH website, the Experts’ Group will recommend to the governance body of the HCCH (i.e. Council on General Affairs and Policy) during its meeting in March 2019 that “work continue with a view to preparing proposals for inclusion in future instruments relating to the recognition of judicial decisions.” The Council will have the last word.
In my opinion, there are many reasons for drafting two separate instruments, which may range from legal to political as these are very sensitive topics. One that particularly struck me relates to the indirect grounds of jurisdiction when considering the recognition of such decisions:
“Most Experts concluded that the indirect grounds previously identified in the context of general legal parentage would not work in ISA cases, and instead supported the State of birth of the child as the primary connecting factor in an ISA case as this would provide certainty and predictability. A qualifier to that connecting factor (such as the habitual residence of the person giving birth to the child) might be necessary to guarantee sufficient proximity, as well as to prevent and combat trafficking of persons and law evasion.” See also para 25 of the Report.
Please note that these instruments would deal with the recognition and not with the enforcement of foreign judicial decisions given the nature of decisions on legal parentage. See in contrast my previous post on the HCCH draft Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters.
The HCCH news item is available here.
The full report is available here.
Sweden: New rules on non-recognition of underage marriages
Written by Prof. Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg, Uppsala University, Sweden
On 1 January 2019, new restrictions came into force in Sweden’s private international law legislation in respect of marriages validly concluded abroad. The revised rules are found in the Act (1904:26 p. 1) on Certain International Relationships on Marriage and Guardianship, Chapter 1 § 8a, as amended by SFS 2018:1973. The content of the new legislation is, briefly, the following: no marriage shall be recognised in Sweden if the spouses or either one of them was under the age of 18 years at the time of the marriage. By way of exception, this rule may be set aside once both parties are above 18 years of age, if there are exceptional reasons to recognise the marriage. Read more
News
Webinar: Les relations entre le droit comparé, l’identité nationale et le colonialisme (13 December 2023)
On Wednesday, 13 December 2023, the comité de redaction of the Revue de droit international et de droit comparé will be hosting a webinar to celebrate the 100th issue of the journal. It will be dedicated to Les relations entre le droit comparé, l’identité nationale et le colonialisme and have the following programme:
Conference on Recent Trends in the Case Law of the Court of Justice of the EU (Luxembourg, 18/19 January 2024)
Each year, the European Centre for Judges and Lawyers – EIPA Luxembourg hosts a conference on ‘Recent Trends in the Case Law of the Court of Justice of the EU’. The next edition will take place on 18 and 19 January 2024. The hosts have kindly shared the following information with us, which can also be found here.
Read more
Online seminar on International Child Abduction & Muslim (Islamic law) States: 6 December
Reminder: on 6 December from 13-14.00 GMT the University of Aberdeen,’s Centre for Private International Law is organising the second online seminar in their series . The topic of the day is Reciprocating the return of abducted children Under The 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention with Muslim (Islamic Law) States. The speaker is Nazia Yaqub, who wrote her phd on this topic. The phd has been converted into a book in the Hart Private International Law series.
The focus of the seminar is the practical application and the challenges of the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and the results of Nazia Yaqub’s empirical study, for which she interviewed young people in the abduction situations.
See more information about the seminar on the Centre of Private International Law’s website.