Views
The New Zealand Court of Appeal on the cross-border application of New Zealand consumer and fair trading legislation
The New Zealand Court of Appeal has just released a judgment on the cross-border application of New Zealand consumer and fair trading legislation (Body Corporate Number DPS 91535 v 3A Composites GmbH [2023] NZCA 647). The Court held that local consumer legislation – in the form of the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA) – applies to foreign manufacturers. It also clarified that fair trading legislation – in the form of the Fair Trading Act 1986 (FTA) – applies to representations made to recipients in New Zealand. The decision is of particular interest to New Zealand consumers and manufacturers of goods that are supplied in New Zealand, as well as traders advertising their products to New Zealanders. More generally, the judgment provides a useful analysis of the interrelationship between statutory interpretation and choice of law, and lends weight to the proposition that product liability is properly governed by the law of the place of supply (or injury).
China’s New Foreign State Immunity Law: Some Foreign Relations Aspects
Written by Wenliang Zhang (Associate Professor at Renmin University of China Law School), Haoxiang Ruan (PhD Candidate at Renmin University of China Law School), and William S. Dodge (the John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law).
On September 1, 2023, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC Standing Committee) passed the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Foreign State Immunity (FSIL) (English translation here). The FSIL will enter into force on January 1, 2024.
Australia’s statutist orthodoxy: High Court confirms the extraterritorial scope of the Australian Consumer Law in the Ruby Princess COVID-cruise case
The Ruby Princess will be remembered by many Australians with disdain as the floating petri dish that kicked off the spread of COVID-19 in Australia. The ship departed Sydney on 8 March 2020, then returned early on 19 March 2020 after an outbreak. Many passengers became sick. Some died. According to the BBC, the ship was ultimately linked to at least 900 infections and 28 deaths.
News
Second Issue of the Journal of Private International Law for 2024
The second issue of the Journal of Private International Law for 2024 has just been published. It contains the following articles:
Reid Mortensen & Kathy Reeves, The common law marriage in Australian private international law
The common law marriage is a curiosity in the private international law of marriage in the Commonwealth and Ireland. In some cases, a marriage that is invalid under the law of the place where it was solemnised (lex loci celebrationis) may nevertheless be recognised as valid if it meets the requirements of a common law marriage. These originate in the English canon law as it stood in the eighteenth century and include the central requirement of the parties’ present declaration that they are married. The parties also had to meet the essentials of a Christian marriage as described in Hyde v Hyde (1866): “a voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. Read more
Review of Afifah Kusumadara, Indonesian Private International Law, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2021, 288 pp, hb $140
After reading and reviewing a thought-provoking book on the choice of law in international commercial contracts in Indonesia last year, I decided to delve further into the subject by picking up a book on Indonesian private international law. The book, titled Indonesian Private International Law, is part of the prestigious Hart series on Private International Law in Asia. Authored by Dr. Afifah Kusumadara, with contributions from a team of Indonesian scholars (hereafter referred to as “the authors”), this work was published during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spanning 226 pages across six chapters, the book aims to be the leading English-language text on private international law in Indonesia. This review provides an overview of its content.
Review of Kazuaki Nishioka, Treatment of Foreign Law in Asia, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2023, 327 pp, hb £117
It is a great pleasure to review the book titled Treatment of Foreign Law in Asia, edited by Kazuaki Nishioka. This volume contains 17 chapters, including an introduction and conclusion, spanning 298 pages (excluding the series editor’s preface, table of contents, bibliography and index). The book examines 15 Asian jurisdictions, representing a variety of legal systems, including civil law (China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand), common law (Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, and India), and mixed jurisdictions (Philippines and Sri Lanka). Read more