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“Towards an EU Law on International Commercial Arbitration?” A Sorbonne Law School Research Project
Written by Dr. Nima Nasrollahi-Shahri (Sorbonne Law School) and Vincent Bassani-Winckler (PhD Candidate, Sorbonne Law School), both authors participated in the Working Group.
A few days ago, the Sorbonne Law School released the final report of a collective research project chaired by Professors Mathias Audit and Sylvain Bollée, entitled “Towards an EU Law on International Commercial Arbitration?”.
Conducted within the IRJS (Institut de Recherche Juridique de la Sorbonne), and more specifically its research group on private international law, SERPI (Sorbonne – Étude des Relations Privées Internationales), this project sets out to examine whether and how to improve the relationship between commercial arbitration and EU law.
Civil Personal Status Law in the UAE and the Paradox of the Application of Foreign Law: A Legal Trap?
I. Introduction (*)
(*) For the sake of simplicity, reference will be made only to Federal Decree-Law No. 41/2022 of 2 October 2022 on Civil Personal Status. The Emirate of Abu Dhabi has enacted a separate law that addresses similar matters at the local level. For a comparison of the various applicable legal frameworks in family law in the UAE, see Béligh Elbalti, “The Personal Status Regimes in the UAE — What’s New and What Are the Implications for Private International Law? A Brief Critical Appraisal”.
There is no doubt that the introduction of the Civil Personal Status Law (CPSL) in the United Arab Emirates marks a significant turning point in the region’s legal landscape, particularly in areas traditionally governed by religious norms. The CPSL refers to the special law adopted at the federal level, which allows family law disputes involving non-Muslims (both foreigners and UAE citizens) to be resolved under a legal framework, that is intended to be modern, flexible, based on “rules of justice and fairness” and “the best international practices from comparative legal systems” (cf. article 19 of the Cabinet Resolution Concerning the Executive Regulation of Federal Decree-Law on the Civil Personal Status). However, the incorporation of the CPSL into the existing legal frameworks in the UAE has raised several issues. These include, among others, the articulation of the CPSL with the other applicable legal frameworks, and more importantly, the extent to which parties may opt out of this “modern” regime in favor of applying their own national laws (for a general overview, see Elbalti, op. cit.). Read more
Report on the ABLI/HCCH 4th Joint Webinar on “Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution – Electronic Service of Documents and Remote Taking of Evidence“
by Achim Czubaiko-Güntgen, Research Fellow („Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter“) and PhD Candidate, supported by the German Scholarship Foundation, Institute for German and International Civil Procedural Law, University of Bonn.
With the fourth instalment in their ongoing webinar series on “Cross-Border Commercial Dispute Resolution”, the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) and the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) returned to the topic of “Electronic Service of Documents and Remote Taking of Evidence”. Contrary to the first webinar in 2021, this session focussed not solely on the HCCH 1970 Evidence but equally on the HCCH 1965 Service Convention. Having finally overcome the immediate constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, this time the renowned speakers were able to elaborate more on the long-term development and visions in the practice of the two legal instruments with regard to their respective areas of law.
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SLS Annual Conference 2026: Private International Law Section: Call for Papers
The following call was kindly shared with us by Michiel Poesen (University of Aberdeen).
This is a call for papers and panels for the Private International Law subject section at the SLS Annual Conference 2026. This year, the annual conference will take place at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The conference dates are: 2-4 September 2026. 
The Private International Law section will meet in the first half of the conference on 2-3 September, and we can run up to four sessions, each lasting 90 minutes.?Doctoral students are very welcome and are encouraged to submit papers for consideration in the Subject Sections Programme. The conference theme is Doing Law Differently, but the Private International Law Subject Section welcomes paper and panel proposals on any topics connected to our discipline.
Registrations now open: “Digitalisation of Justice: Perspectives from Germany and the Netherlands”
On Friday 29 May 2026 in Groningen, the Netherlands, Dr. Benedikt Schmitz from the University of Groningen is hosting a larger symposium on the topic of “Digitalisation of Justice: Perspectives from Germany and the Netherlands”
Theme
This event brings together leading and upcoming scholars to explore how digital transformation – from AI in adjudication to fully online proceedings – is reshaping our legal systems, while raising important questions about access to justice, procedural fairness, and the rule of law.
ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 1/2026
A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available and includes contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, legal unification, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here: https://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/zeup.