Views
Reports of HCCH Experts’ Groups on the Surrogacy/Parentage and the Tourism Projects available
The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law has made available two reports for the attention of its governance Council (i.e. the Council on General Affairs and Policy): the Report of the Experts’ Group on the Parentage / Surrogacy Project and the Report of the Experts’ Group on the Co-operation and Access to Justice for International Tourists.
The Group on Parentage/Surrogacy Project will need to meet one more time early next year to reach final Conclusions on future work. In particular, the Group discussed possible methods to ensure cross-border continuity of legal parentage both established by and in the absence of a judicial decision.
Importantly, “[t]he Group recalled that the absence of uniform PIL rules on legal parentage can lead to limping parentage across borders in a number of cases and can create significant problems for children and families. The Group further recalled that uniform PIL rules can assist States in resolving these conflicts and can introduce safeguards for the prevention of fraud involving public documents, while ensuring that the diverse substantive rules on legal parentage of States are respected. Any new instrument should aim to provide predictability, certainty and continuity of legal parentage in international situations for all persons involved, taking into account their fundamental rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in particular the best interests of children. The Group agreed that any international instrument would need to be developed with a view to complementing the existing Hague Family Conventions and to attracting as many States as possible.”
Regarding the Group on the Tourism Project, it should be noted that it is currently exploring the need for an international instrument on the co-operation and provision of access to justice for international tourists. The Group concluded that “[t]he Experts’ Group recommends to the CGAP that it mandates the Experts’ Group to continue its work, with a view to assessing the need for, the nature (soft law and hard law options) and the key elements of, a possible new instrument. The composition of the Experts’ Group should remain open, and, if possible, also include representatives of Stakeholders, such as the UNWTO, as well as representatives of relevant organisations and private international law experts.” It was noted that the Consultant will finalise his draft (substantive) Report, which will be circulated at the end of this year.
The aide-mémoire of the Chair of the Tourism Project noted: “[i]f a new instrument were to be developed, the Experts identified a number of possible expected values such instrument might add. These included that tourists might be able to obtain appropriate information, including in a language they understand, to ascertain and understand their rights, and the potentially available options to seek redress. It might also provide co-operation mechanisms among suitable bodies that can work in a concerted manner to facilitate the resolution of complaints, with a view to guaranteeing access to justice in the broadest sense, including through alternative dispute resolution, in a non- discriminatory way. The instrument might also have a preventive effect. Finally, it might create an official record of the complaint, including for subsequent use abroad.”
In March 2019, the HCCH governance Council will determine whether work on these two subjects will go forward.
Forcing a Square Peg into a Round Hole – The Actio Pauliana and the Brussels Ia Regulation
Earlier today, the Court of Justice held that, under certain circumstances, special jurisdiction for an actio pauliana can be based on Art. 7(1) Brussels Ia (Case C-337/17 Feniks).
The actio pauliana is an instrument provided by the national laws of several EU member states that allows the creditor to challenge fraudulent acts by their debtor that have been committed to the creditor’s detriment. The ECJ already had several opportunities to decide on the availability of individual grounds of special jurisdiction for such an action, but has reliably denied their availability. In today’s decision however, the Court confirmed the availability of special jurisdiction for matters relating to contract, contrary to the proposition of AG Bobek (Opinion delivered on 21 June 2018). Read more
International commercial courts: should the EU be next? – EP study building competence in commercial law
By Erlis Themeli, Xandra Kramer, and Georgia Antonopoulou, Erasmus University Rotterdam (postdoc researcher, PI, and PhD candidate ERC project Building EU Civil Justice)
Previous posts on this blog have described the emerging international commercial and business courts in various Member States. While the primary aim is and should be improving the dispute resolution system for businesses, the establishment of these courts also points to the increase of competitive activities by certain Member States that try to attract international commercial litigation. Triggered by the need to facilitate business, prospects of financial gain, and more recently also by the supposed vacuum that Brexit will create, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium in particular have been busy establishing outlets for international commercial litigants. One of the previous posts by the present authors dedicated to these developments asked who will be next to enter the competition game started by these countries. In another post, Giesela Rühl suggested that the EU could be the next. Read more
News
Out Now: Treatment of Foreign Law in Asia
A book edited by Kazuaki Nishioka on Treatment of Foreign Law in Asia has just been published in the Hart Studies in Private International Law -Asia.
The blurb read as follows:
How do Asian courts ascertain, interpret, and apply a foreign law as the law governing the merits of the case? What should judges do if parties do not raise or disagree on the content of foreign law? This thematic volume in the Studies in Private International Law – Asia series analyses the treatment of foreign law before judicial authorities, that is, how the courts of Asian states deal with the proof of foreign law in court litigation involving cross-border elements.
The individual chapters cover 15 Asian jurisdictions: Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.
The Introduction and Conclusion examine similarities and differences in the approaches taken by the 15 Asian states with a view to assessing the extent to which those approaches are consistent or different from each other. The book also puts forward suggestions for harmonising differing approaches, especially between Asian common law and civil law states.
The book is a one-stop reference guide on the treatment of foreign law in Asia and will be indispensable to judges, practitioners, and scholars not just in Asia, but worldwide.
Out Now: Internationales Privat- und Prozessrecht in Lateinamerika by Jürgen Samtleben
Jürgen Samtleben just published a collection of his work on the PIL of Latin America; he kindly shared the following announcement with us:
Jürgen Samtleben has authored numerous articles over the years on private international law and international civil procedure in Latin America. These contributions have now been updated and systematically organized into a single volume, thereby offering a unique overview of the conflict of laws in Latin American countries. The collection of articles in German, Spanish and English is supplemented by a comprehensive volume containing the relevant statutory materials in their original language as well as in German translation.
The indices of volume I (‘Rechtsordnungen’) and volume II (‘Gesetzestexte’) can be found here and here. More information is available here.
New article published in African Journal of International and Comparative Law
A new conflict of laws article was just published today on the African Journal of International and Comparative Law. It is titled: CSA Okoli, A Yekini & P Oamen, “The Igiogbe Custom as a Mandatory Norm in Conflict of Laws: An Exploration of Nigerian Appellate Court Decisions.”
The abstract reads as follows:
Under the Igiogbe custom of the Bini Kingdom of Edo State Nigeria, the eldest surviving son exclusively inherits the ancestral home of his deceased father. This custom is a mandatory norm in conflict of laws. Litigation on the custom has been described as a matter of life and death. There is a widely shared view among academic writers, practitioners, and judges that this customary law is absolute. Contrary to this popular view, this work argues that the Igiogbe custom can be displaced by statute and other customary or religious laws. To substantiate this position, this article examines all the reported appellate court decisions on the Igiogbe custom and other connected principles. It is often taken for granted that every Bini man is subject to customary law, thereby leading to the overriding application of the Igiogbe custom. Recent developments in case law suggest otherwise. There is a conflict of personal law question that is often ignored in most litigation concerning the Igiogbe. Careful consideration of this question can potentially lead to the application of other systems of succession law (statutory, religious, and other customary laws) other than the Igiogbe custom. Besides, these conflict of laws techniques and constitutional human rights norms can be used to strike the appropriate balance between competing interests and reasonable legitimate expectations of the deceased and their heirs.