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Online Symposium on Recent Developments in African PIL (IV) – Party Autonomy, Genuine Connection, Convenience, Costs, Privity, and Public Policy: The Kenyan High Court on Exclusive Jurisdiction Clauses

As part of the second online symposium on recent developments in African private international law, we are pleased to present the fourth contribution, kindly prepared by Anam Abdul-Majid (Advocate and Head of Corporate and Commercial Department, KSM Advocates, Nairobi, Kenya) and Kitonga Mulandi (Lawyer, KSM Advocates, Nairobi, Kenya), on Party Autonomy, Genuine Connection, Convenience, Costs, Privity, and Public Policy: The Kenyan High Court on Exclusive Jurisdiction Clauses
Online Symposium on Recent Developments in African PIL (III) – Foreign Judgments in Mozambique through the Lens of the Enforcement of a Chinese Judgment: Liberal Practice in the Shadow of Statutory Rigidity

As part of the second online symposium on recent developments in African private international law, we are pleased to present the third contribution, prepared by Béligh Elbalti (The University of Osaka, Japan), on Foreign Judgments in Mozambique through the Lens of the Enforcement of a Chinese Judgment: Liberal Practice in the Shadow of Statutory Rigidity.
From Deference to Objectivity: How Courts Are Rewriting the Commercial Reservation
By Taimoor Raza Sultan, Stockholm University
Introduction
The 1958 New York Convention (‘NYC’) is widely regarded as international arbitration’s most significant achievement. Having been ratified by over 160 states, , establishing a credible system of enforcement for arbitral awards. Yet the commercial reservation under Article 1(3), which allows the reserving state to limit the application of the ‘Convention only to differences …. considered as commercial’ under its own national law, risks jeopardizing the uniformity of the convention. By domesticating the definition of commerciality, the reservation invites forum shopping and inconsistent enforcement. Read more
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Research Fellowship at University College London
Proceedings of the 18th Jornadas ASADIP 2025 published
The proceedings of the 18th Jornadas ASADIP in Rio de Janeiro 2025 have been published. María Mercedes Albornoz César González, Jaime Moreno-Valle and Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm as editors have collected no less than 46 contributions (plus a prologue and a foreword) by authors from Latin America and elsewhere to the 800 page tome entitled “Imaginario regional – resonancia global. El derecho internacional privado interamericano y el escenario mundial”. Most are in Spanish or Portuguese, a few in English. They cover a vast array of topics, doctrinal and/or theoretical, structured along seven themes: (i) foundations, (ii) normative structure, (iii) procedure, (iv) substantive protections, (v) digitization, (vi) human rights, (vii) teaching of private international law. The volume once again demonstrates both the ambition and the high quality of private international law reasoning on the continent. It can, as can many other excellent OAS publications, be downloaded free of charge from the OAS website.
Reminder: Deadline for submitting proposals to the JPIL Conference in Zurich (30 June 2026)
As announced previously, the next Journal of Private International Law Conference will take place in Zurich on 1–3 April 2027. With the deadline for submitting proposals for papers to present at the conference, 30 June 2026, approaching fast, the organizers would like to remind everyone of the opportunity to submit a proposal. The same deadline also applies for the travel grants offered by the University of Zurich.
More information can be found on the conference website.



