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How many monetary judgments that Chinese courts decided to enforce are successfully enforced?
It is necessary to distinguish (1) a court’s decision to acknowledge the validity of a foreign judgment (judgment recognition and enforcement), and (1) whether a judgment creditor successfully recovers the awarded amount in practice.
Insights and Future Directions of PIL Based on the 2024 Online Summer Courses at The Hague Academy of International Law
By Birgit van Houtert, Assistant Professor of Private International Law at Maastricht University
From 29 July till 16 Augustus 2024, the Summer Courses on Private International Law (PIL) were held at the 93rd session of the summer courses of the Hague Academy of International Law. The PIL courses were followed by 250 onsite attendees and remotely 61 attendees from 74 different countries. The inaugural lecture was presented by Lord Lawrence Collins of Mapesbury (Former Justice at the United Kingdom Supreme Court) on the “Use and Abuse of Comity in International Litigation”. In the next three weeks, the general course was given by Charalambos Pamboukis (Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) titled “The Metamorphoses of Private International Law”. During these three weeks, six special courses were given by Alessandra Zanobetti (Professor at the University of Bologna) on “The Effects of Economic Sanctions and Counter-Measures on Private Legal Relationships”; Natalie Y. Morris-Sharma (Director at the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore) on “The Singapore Convention and the International Law of Mediation”; Carlos Esplugues Mota (Professor at the University of Valencia) on “New Dimensions in the Application of Foreign Law by Courts (and Arbitrators) and Non-judicial Authorities”; Jack Coe (Professor at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law) on “Non-ICSID Convention Investor-State Awards in Domestic Courts”; Eva Lein (Professor at the University of Lausanne) on “Breathing Space in International Commercial Litigation”; Andrew Dickinson (Professor at the University of Oxford) on “Natural Justice in Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgements”. These PIL experts provided very interesting and valuable insights, including future (desirable) directions on PIL that can guide and inspire students, researchers, legal practitioners, courts, and legislators. The courses will be published by Brill in the series Collected Courses of The Hague Academy of International Law / Recueil des cours de l’Académie de La Haye. The fact that the courses commonly focused on PIL globally, by including national, regional and international PIL, is particularly laudable in view of our interconnected world. This blog aims to describe common threads of the 2024 Online Summer Courses on PIL that may encourage you to read the Hague Academy Collected Courses and inspire further research.[1]
The Public Law-Private Law Divide and Access to Frozen Russian Assets
By Csongor István Nagy, Professor of Law at the University of Galway, Ireland, and at the University of Szeged, Hungary, and research professor at the HUN-REN Center for Social Sciences, Hungary.
The overwhelming majority of the international community condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine as a gross violation of international law and several countries introduced unilateral measures freezing Russian assets. It has been argued that countries should go beyond that and use these assets for the indemnification of Ukrainian war damages. Confiscation would, however, be unprecedented and raise serious international law concerns. While states have, with good reason, been reluctant to react to one wrongful act with another, this question has given rise to intensive debate. Recently, the EU authorized the use of net profits from the frozen assets but not the assets themselves to support Ukraine.
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Mediating Across Borders: A Guide to Cross-Border Family Dispute Resolution by Costanza Honorati and Ester di Napoli
In response to the growing complexity of cross-border family disputes – driven by increasing mobility and evolving family configurations – the recently published Guida alla mediazione familiare internazionale in materia di responsabilita genitoriale e sottrazione internazionale di minori, authored by Costanza Honorati and Ester di Napoli (Pacini Editore, 2025; available online in open access, in Italian), offers a rigorous and thematically cohesive guide to the law and practice of cross-border family mediation. Grounded in both European and multilateral legal instruments, the volume brings together doctrinal precision, procedural clarity, and practical insight, establishing itself as an essential reference for legal practitioners, judges, mediators, and scholars navigating the intricate terrain of cross-border family justice. Read more
[OUT NOW] Yeshniyazov and Abdel Mottaleb on Kazakhstan, in International Encyclopaedia of Laws – Private International Law (Kluwer Law International)
Private international law in post-Soviet Central Asian countries is clearly underrepresented in the literature, despite the fact that countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have fairly detailed legislation on international jurisdiction, applicable law, and the enforcement of foreign judgments. (For a general overview of Kazakhstan, see the entry on the country in J. Basedow et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Private International Law, Vol. III (Edward Elgar), p. 2229, and the English translation of the relevant provisions in Vol. IV, p. 3358.) Read more
Making private law resilient: The role of private litigation in a democracy – PhD scholarship at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
Axel Halfmeier (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany) has kindly shared the following advertisement for a 3-year PhD scholarship with us, which will be part of a research project on ‘Making private law resilient: The role of private litigation in a democracy’.
The research project will investigate the role of private litigation in a democracy, in particular collective litigation, public interest actions or strategic litigation. There is an ongoing discussion about these phenomena and whether they support deliberative democracy by empowering citizens or are anti-democratic in the sense that they transfer excessive power to the judiciary in political questions. To answer this question, normative (legal doctrine, legal theory, political theory) but also empirical approaches are possible. The project can also focus on specific areas of private law, such as media and data protection law, climate litigation, capital markets or tort law in general. The exact study design will be discussed with a view to the interests and qualifications of the candidate.
Application deadline is October 1st, 2025.
Further information on the ‘Embracing Transformation’ scholarships can be found here.
Further information on the specific research project on ‘Democratic Resilience’ is available here.
Questions may be directed to Axel Halfmeier.