By Ana Koprivica, Research Fellow MPI Luxembourg.

On 20^th and 21^st November 2017 in Brussels, the Academy of European Law (ERA) hosted the seminar: “Access to Documents in the EU and Beyond: Regulation 1049/2001 in Practice”, bringing together national and EU civil servants, lawyers, active members of the NGOs and civil society, and academics. The seminar aimed at providing participants with answers to practical questions on access to information and documents in the European Union. The focus in particular was on the practical implementation of Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents by the EU institutions, on one hand, and by the relevant institutions in Member States, on the other. The seminar further provided for an overview of recent relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the opportunity to deliberate about how best to implement those judgments in practice. Lastly, it offered a platform for a discussion of the future development of access to information. This post provides a brief overview of the presentations. For a full report on the presentations and of the discussions on the issues raised, see Full Report.

Following the introductory remarks by the organisers, Prof. Päivi Leino-Sandberg (University of Eastern Finland) provided the audience with a comprehensive overview of the diverse European Union legal landscape in which the right to information operates: namely, the EU Treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights.

This set the scene for the discussion about the challenges of practical implementation of the Regulation by the representatives of the European Commission (Martine Fouwels), the European Parliament (Chiara Malasomma) and the Council of the EU (Emanuele Rebasti). The audience was next given a valuable insight into the best practices of several Member States, namely Sweden (Sara Johanesson), Finland (Anna Pohjalainen), and Poland (Ewa Gromnicka), in the application of Regulation 1049/2001 as well as the insight into the common challenges they are confronted with in this context.

Katarzyna Szychowska (General Court of the European Union) provided the audience with a comprehensive overview of the recent case law of the CJEU in matters relating to access to documents under Regulation 1049/2001. In this respect, a distinction was made between the different types of documents to which access has been requested and on which the Court has built its case law.

Day One closed with a stimulating workshop, which was prepared and conducted by Emanuele Rebasti. The participants were presented with a hypothetical problem of handling a request for access to documents and asked to apply the information gained during the seminar.

The next morning Vitor Teixeira from Transparency International Brussels presented the activities of his organisation, oriented towards creating a new system of EU lobby transparency. The focus in particular was on the idea of a mandatory EU lobby register.

The conference closed with a round table discussion on new ideas with regard to access to documents. Nick Aiossa (Transparency International Brussels), Helen Darbishire (Access Info Europe), Graham Smith (European Ombudsman Cabinet), exchanged their views on the ways in which to improve the dialogue between the citizens and the authorities in the area of access to information. This prompted a lively discussion amongst the participants.

The overall conclusion of the conference was that the debate on transparency and access to documents has become much more sophisticated since the adoption of the Regulation 1049/2001 and that a lot has been done in order to improve its implementation. The importance was stressed of the dialogue among all the stakeholders in order to better the situation.

Report on the Conference held in Luxembourg on 12 October 2017, by Martina Mantovani, Research Fellow MPI Luxembourg

On 12 October 2017, the Brussels Privacy Hub (BPH) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Department of European and Comparative Procedural Law of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg held a joint conference entitled “Jurisdiction, Conflicts of Law and Data Protection in Cyberspace”. The conference, which was attended by nearly 100 people, included presentations by academics from around the world, as well as from Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The entire conference was filmed and is available for viewing on the YouTube Channel of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg (first and second parts)

Participants were first welcomed by Prof. Dr. Burkhard Hess, Director of the MPI, and Prof. Dr. Christopher Kuner, Co-Director of the BPH. Both highlighted the importance of considering each of the discussed topics from both a European and a global perspective.

The first panel was entitled “Data Protection and Fundamental Rights Law: the example of cross-border exchanges of biomedical data – the case of the human genome”. The speaker was Dr. Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, who discussed the regulatory challenges arising in connection to the processing and transfer of biomedical data, including data exchanges between research hubs within the EU and to third-countries (namely the US). The need for innovative regulatory solutions, originating from a bottom-up approach, was discussed against the backdrop of the impending entry into force of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whose Article 40 encourages the adoption of Codes of Conduct intended to contribute to the proper application of the Regulation in specific sectors. According to Dr. Molnár-Gábor, however, in order to establish an optimal normative framework for biomedical research, the regulatory approach should be combined with appropriate privacy-enhancing technologies and privacy-by-design solutions (such as the emerging federated clouds, the European Open Science Cloud, and data analysis frameworks bringing analysis to the data). This approach should also be paired with the development of adequate incentives prompting non-EU established companies to express binding and enforceable commitments to abide by EU-approved Codes of Conduct. Her presentation demonstrated the basic problem of data protection and data transfer: The creation of appropriate and applicable legal frameworks often lags behind the necessarily more rapid pace of data exchange seen in successful scientific research.

The second panel was entitled “Territorial Scope of Law on the Internet”. According to Prof. Dr. Dan Svantesson of Bond University in Australia, the focus on territoriality, which characterises contemporary approaches to the solution of conflicts of laws, is the result of an inherent “territorial bias” in legal reasoning. A strict application of territoriality would however be destructive when dealing with cyberspace. Here, the identification of the scope of remedial jurisdiction should follow a more nuanced approach. Prof. Svantesson specifically focused on Article 3 of the new GDPR, which he deemed “too unsophisticated” for its intended purposes as a result of its “all-or-nothing approach” In other words, either a data controller is subject to the Regulation in its entirety, or it is totally excluded from its scope of application. As an alternative, he proposed a layered approach to its interpretation, grounded in proportionality. The GDPR, he contended, should be broken down into different sets of provisions according to the objectives pursued, and each of these sets should be assigned a different extraterritorial reach. Against this backdrop, the spatial scope of the application of provisions pertaining to the “abuse prevention layer” may, and should, be different from that of the provisions pertaining to the “rights layer” or “the administrative layer”.

A response was made by Prof. Dr. Gerald Spindler of University of Göttingen, who conversely advocated the existence of an ongoing trend toward a “reterritorialization” of the Cyberspace, favoured by technological advance (geo-blocking, Internet filtering). This segmentation of the Internet is, in Prof. Spindler’s opinion, the result of a business strategy that economic operators adopt to minimise legal risks.  As specifically concerns private international law rules, however, a tendency emerges towards the abandonment of “strict territoriality” in favour of a more nuanced approach based on the so-called market principle or “targeting”, which is deemed better adapted to the more permeable borders that segment cyberspace.

The third panel was entitled “Contractual Issues in Online Social Media”. The speaker was Prof. Dr. Alex Mills of University College London. A thorough analysis of Facebook’s and Twitter’s general terms and conditions brought to light private international law issues stemming from “vertical contractual relationships” between the social media platform and final users. Professor Mills highlighted, in particular, the difficult position of social media users within the current normative framework. In light of the ECJ case-law on dual purpose contracts, in fact, a characterisation of social media users as “consumers” under the Brussels I bis and the Rome I Regulations may be difficult to support. Against this backdrop, social media users are left at the mercy of choice of court and choice of law clauses unilaterally drafted by social media providers. In spite of their (generally) weaker position vis-à-vis social media giants, European social media users will in fact be required to sue their (Ireland-based) contractual counterpart in Californian courts, which will then usually apply Californian substantive law. In addition to generating a lift-off of these transactions from EU mandatory regulation, these contractual clauses also result in an uneven level of protection of European social media users. In fact, Germany-based social media users seem to enjoy a higher level of protection than those established in other EU countries. Since the contract they conclude with the social media provider usually encompass a choice of law clause in favour of German substantive law, they may in fact benefit from the European standard of protection even before Californian courts.

Prof. Dr. Heike Schweitzer of Freie Universität Berlin, highlighted a fundamental difference between E-Commerce and social media platforms. While the former have an evident self-interest in setting up a consumer-friendly regulatory regime (e.g., by introducing cost-efficient ADR mechanisms and consumer-oriented contractual rights) so as to enhance consumer trust and attract new customers, the latter have no such incentive. In fact, competition among social media platforms is essentially based on the quality and features of the service provided rather than on the regulatory standard governing potential disputes. This entails two main consequences. On the one hand, from the standpoint of substantive contract law, “traditional” contractual rights have to adapt to accommodate the need for flexibility, which is inherent to the new “pay-with-data” transactions and vital to survival in this harshly competitive environment. On the other hand, from the standpoint of procedural law, it must be noted that within a system which has no incentive in redirecting disputes to consumer-friendly ADR mechanisms (Instagram being the only exception), private international law rules, as applied in state courts, still retain a fundamental importance.

The final roundtable dealt with “Future Challenges of Private International Law in Cyberspace”. Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe discussed the delicate balance between privacy and security in the light of the judgment of the Court of Justice in the case C-203/15, Tele2 Sverige, as well as the specifications brought to the protective legal regime applicable to consumers by case C-191/15, Verein für Konsumenteninformation v Amazon EU Sarl. Prof. Kevin D. Benish of New York University School of Law illustrated the US approach to extraterritoriality in the protection of privacy, having particular regard to the recent Microsoft case (the U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari). Prof. Dr. Gloria Gonzalez Fuster of Vrije Universiteit Brussels pointed to a paradox of EU data protection legislation, which, on the one hand, regards the (geographic) localisation of data as irrelevant for the purpose of the applicability of the GDPR and, on the other hand, establishes a constitutive link with EU territory in regulating data transfers to third countries. Finally, Dr. Cristina Mariottini, Co-Rapporteur at the ILA Committee on the Protection of Privacy in Private International and Procedural Law, provided an overview of the European Court of Human Rights’ recent case-law on the interpretation of Article 8 ECHR. Specific attention was given to the conditions of legitimacy of data storage and use in the context of criminal justice and intelligence surveillance, namely with respect to the collection of biological samples in computerised national databases (case Aycaguer v. France), the use as evidence in judicial proceedings of video surveillance footage (Vukota-Bojic v. Switzerland) and the telecommunication service providers’ obligation to store communications data (case Breyer v. Germany and case C?alovic? v. Montenegro, concerning specifically the police’s right to access the stored data).

Overall, the conference demonstrated the growing importance of private international and procedural law for the resolution of cross-border disputes related to data protection. The more regulators permit private enforcement as a complement to the supervisory activities of national and supranational data protection authorities, the more issues of private international law become compelling. As of today, conflict of laws and jurisdictional issues related to data protection have not been sufficiently explored, as the discussion on private law issues related to the EU General Data Protection Regulation demonstrates. With this in mind, both Brussels Privacy Hub and MPI have agreed to regularly organize conferences on current developments in this expanding area of law.

The XXIII Annual Conference of the Italian Society of International and EU Law (SIDI-ISIL) will take place at the University of Ferrara on 7 and 8 June 2018.

The conference’s theme is Codification in International and EU Law.

One session of the Conference will deal with The coordination between different codification instruments (8 June 2018, 9 am – 1 pm). Speakers will be selected through a call for papers.

Scholars of any affiliation and at any stage of their career are invited to submit proposals relevant to the session topic, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Relationship between codification instruments covering the same topics and promoted by different organizations or entities (e.g., the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; uniform private international law instruments promoted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law and by the European Union; international environmental law and transnational criminal law instruments promoted at UN and regional levels)
• Relationship between codification instruments covering different fields (eg, human rights and other areas of international or EU law; law of international responsibility and other areas of international law)
• Succession of codification instruments in the same field.

The deadline for submitting proposals is 10 January 2018.

Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional, vol. 9, nr. 2, has just been released. Cuadernos is a bi-annual electronic law journal specialized in International Private Law, Uniform Law and Private Comparative Law, open to contributions in different languages. It is edited by the Private International Law Department of the University Carlos III, Madrid.

All contents can be freely downloaded. Here is the index of the section “Estudios”:

Miguel Gómez Jene, El convenio arbitral: statu quo (The arbitration agreement: statu quo)

Hilda Aguilar Grieder, Problemas de Derecho Internacional Privado en la contratación de seguros: especial referencia a la reciente directiva (UE) 2016/97 sobre la distribución de seguros (Private International Law problems of the international insurance contracts: the new directive (UE) 2016/1997 about distribution of insurance)

Isabel Antón Juárez, La oposición del régimen económico matrimonial y la protección del tercero en Derecho Internacional Privado (The opposition of the matrimonial property regime and the protection of the third party in Private International Law)

Ilaria Aquironi, L’addebito della separazione nel diritto internazionale privato dell’Unione Europea (Judicial decisions as to the causes of separation under EU private international law)

Naiara Arriola Echaniz, La Unión Europea y la Organización Mundial del Comercio: comenzando un diálogo proto- constitucional (The European Union and the World Trade Organization: a budding proto-constitutional dialogue)

Irene Blázquez Rodríguez, Libre circulación de personas y Derecho Internacional Privado: un análisis a la luz de la jurisprudencia del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (Free movement of persons and International Private Law: an analysis in the light of the case law of the European Court of Justice)

María Asunción Cebrián Salvat, La competencia judicial internacional residual en materia contractual en España (The Spanish rules of residual jurisdiction in matters related to contract)

Silvia Pilar Badiola Coca, Algunas consideraciones sobre el régimen de la responsabilidad civil del porteador en la legislación marítima de Emiratos Árabes Unidos (Some considerations regarding the maritime carrier liability under the United Arab Emirates maritime law)

Clara Isabel Cordero Álvarez, Incidencia de las normas imperativas en los contratos internacionales: especial referencia a las normas de terceros estados desde una aproximación europea (Overriding mandatory provisions in international contracts: a special reference to foreign overriding mandatory provisions from a European approach)

Eva de Götzen, Recognition of same-sex marriages, overcoming gender barriers in Italy and the Italian law no. 76/2016 on civil unions. First remarks (Riconoscimento dei matrimoni omosessuali, superamento delle barriere di genere in Italia e legge n. 76/2016 sulle unioni civili. Prime riflessioni)

Carlos Manuel Díez Soto, Algunas cuestiones a propósito del derecho de participación del autor de una obra de arte original sobre el precio de reventa (droit de suite) (Some questions concerning the artist’s resale right (droit de suite)

Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Protección de las personas migrantes indocumentadas en España con arreglo al Derecho Internacional y Europeo de los derechos humanos (Protection of undocumented migrant persons in Spain under international and European human rights law)

Ádám Fuglinszky, Hungarian law and practice of civil partnerships with special regard to same-sex couples (Das Ungarische Recht und praxis von lebenspartnerschaften mit besonderer rücksicht auf gleichgeschlechtliche pare)

Natividad Goñi Urriza, El sometimiento de las adquisiciones minoritarias que no otorgan el control a las normas sobre el control de las concentraciones (The control under merger rules of acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings)

Luis Ignacio Gordillo Pérez, El TJUE y el Derecho Internacional: la defensa de su propia autonomía como principio constitucional básico (The CJEU and International Law: the defence of its own autonomy as a basic constitutional principle)

Thais Guerrero Padrón, Sobre los funcionarios de la Unión Europea y su régimen de seguridad social: los tributos como cotizaciones sociales a efectos del TJUE (Issues about officials of the European Union and its social security regime: taxes as social contributions to the effects of the CJEU)

Carlos María López Espadafor, Lagunas en el Derecho Tributario de la Unión Europea (Gaps in the tax law of the European Union)

Isabel Lorente Martínez, Brexit y cláusulas de sumisión en los contratos internacionales (Brexit and prorrogation clauses in international contracts)

Diana Marín Consarnau, Las uniones registradas en España como beneficiarias del derecho de la UE a propósito de la Directiva 2004/38/CE y del Reglamento (UE) 2016/1104 (Spanish “registered partnerships” as beneficiaries of EU law according to the Directive 2004/38 (EC) and the Regulation (EU) 2016/1104)

Fabrizio Marongiu Buonaiuti, La disciplina della giurisdizione nel Regolamento (UE) n. 2016/679 concernente il trattamento dei dati personali e il suo coordinamento con la disciplina contenuta nel regolamento “Bruxelles I-bis” (Jurisdiction under Regulation (EU) no. 2016/679 concerning the processing of personal data and its coordination with the “Brussels I-bis” regulation)

Alfonso Ortega Giménez, El fenómeno de la inmigración y el problema de los denominados “matrimonios de conveniencia” en España (The phenomenon of immigration and the problem of the denominated “convenience marriages” in Spain)

Marta Requejo Isidro, La protección del menor no acompañado solicitante de asilo: entre Estado competente y Estado responsable (The protection of unaccompanied minors asylum-seekers: between competent state and responsible state)

Mercedes Sánchez Ruiz, La regulación europea actual sobre emplazamiento de producto y la propuesta de reforma de la directiva de servicios de comunicación audiovisual (The current European rules governing product placement and the new legislative proposal amending the audiovisual media services directive)

Stella Solernou Sanz, Los límites a la autonomía privada en el marco del contrato de transporte de mercancías por carretera (Limits on private autonomy in the framework of the contract for carriage of goods by road)

Lenka Válková, The interplay between jurisdictional rules established in the EU legal instruments in the field of family law: testing functionality through simultaneous application with domestic law (L’interazione tra le regole di giurisdizione all’interno degli strumenti giuridici dell’UE nell’ambito del diritto di famiglia: la prova del funzionamento attraverso l’applicazione simultanea del diritto nazionale)

Professor S.I. Strong has just posted a new paper on international procedural law.  From the abstract:

General principles of law have long been central to the practice and scholarship of both public and private international law. However, the vast majority of commentary focuses on substantive rather than procedural concerns. This Article reverses that trend through a unique and innovative analysis that provides judges, practitioners and academics from around the world with a new perspective on international procedural law.

The Article begins by considering how general principles of procedural law (international due process) are developed under both contemporary and classic models and evaluates the propriety of relying on materials generated from international arbitration when seeking to identify the nature, scope and content of general principles of procedural law. The analysis adopts both a forward-looking, jurisprudential perspective as well as a backward-looking, content-based one and compares sources and standards generated by international arbitration to those derived from other fields, including transnational litigation, international human rights and the rule of law.

The Article then tackles the novel question of whether general principles of procedural law can be used to develop a procedural form of jus cogens (peremptory norms). Although commentators have hinted at the possible existence of a procedural aspect of jus cogens, no one has yet focused on that precise issue. However, recent events, including those at the International Court of Justice and in various domestic settings, have demonstrated the vital importance of this inquiry.

The Article concludes by considering future developments in international procedural law and identifying the various ways that both international and domestic courts can rely on and apply the principles discussed herein. In so doing, this analysis provides significant practical and theoretical assistance to judges, academics and practitioners in the United States and abroad and offers ground-breaking insights into the nature of international procedural rights.

The latest issue of the „Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts (IPRax)“ features the following articles:

C. Kohler: Limits of mutual trust in the European judicial area: the judgment of the ECtHR in Avotin?š v. Latvia

In Avoti?š v. Latvia the European Court of Human Rights opposes the consequences of the principle of mutual trust between EU Member States which the Court of Justice of the European Union highlighted in Opinion 2/13. The ECtHR sees the risk that the principle of mutual trust in EU law may run counter to the obligations of the Member States flowing from the ECHR. In the context of judgment recognition the State addressed must be empowered to review any serious allegation of a violation of Convention rights in the State of origin in order to assess whether the protection of such rights has been manifestly deficient. Such a review must be conducted even if opposed by EU law. The author evaluates the Avoti?š judgment in the light of the recent case-law of the CJEU which gives increased importance to the effective protection of fundamental rights. In view of that case-law the opposition between the two European courts seems less dramatic as their competing approach towards the protection of fundamental rights shows new elements of convergence.

S. L. Gössl: The Proposed Article 10a EGBGB: A Conflict of Laws Rule Supplementing the Proposed Gender Diversity Act (Geschlechtervielfaltsgesetz)

In 2017 the German Institute for Human Rights published an expertise for the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth on the topic of “Gender Diversity in Law”. The expertise proposed several legal changes and amendments, including a conflict of laws rule regarding the determination of the legal sex of a person (art. 10a EGBGB). The proposal follows the current practise to use the citizenship of the person in question as the central connecting factor. In case of a foreigner having the habitual residence in Germany, or a minor having a parent with a habitual residence in Germany, a choice of German law is possible, instead. The rule reflects the change of substantive law regarding the legal sex determination from a binary biological-medical to a more open autonomy-based approach.

R. Geimer: Vertragsbruch durch Hoheitsakt: „Once a trader, not always a trader?“ – Immunitätsrechtlicher Manövrierspielraum für Schuldnerstaaten?

A debtor state’s inability to invoke state immunity: The issuance of bonds constitutes an actus gestionis, which cannot be altered to an actus imperii by legislative changes that unilaterally amend the terms of the bonds.

P. Mankowski: Occupied and annected territories in private international law

Private international law and international law are two different cups of tea. Private international law is not bound in the strict sense by the revelations of international law. An important point of divergence is as to whether occupied territories should be regarded as territories reigned by the occupying State or not. Private international law answers this in the affirmative if that State exerts effective power in the said territory. Private parties simply have to obey its rules and must adapt to them, with emigration being the only feasible exit. The State to whom the territory belonged before the occupation has lost its sway. This applies regardless whether UNO or EU have for whichever reasons uttered a different point of view. For instance, East Jerusalem should be regarded as part of Israel for the purposes of private international law, contrary to a recent decision of the Oberlandesgericht München.

F. Eichel: Cross-border service of claim forms and priority of proceedings in case of missing or poor translations

In recent times, there has been a growing number of inner-European multifora disputes where the claimant first lodged the claim with the court, but has lost his priority over the opponent’s claim because of trouble with the service of the claim forms. Although Art. 32 (1) (a) Brussels Ibis Regulation states that the time when the document is lodged with the courts is decisive on which court is “the court first seised” in terms of Art. 29 Brussels Ibis Regulation, there has been dissent among German Courts whether the same is true when the service has failed due to a missing or poor translation under the EU Service Regulation (Regulation EC No 1393/2007; cf. also the French Cour de Cassation, 28.10.2008, 98 Rev. Crit. DIP, 93 [2009]). Although the claimant is responsible for deciding whether the claim forms have to be translated, the author argues that Art. 32 (1) (a) Brussels Ibis Regulation is applicable so that the claimant can initiate a second service of the document after the addressee has refused to accept the documents pursuant to Art. 8 para. 1 EU Service Regulation. The claimant does not loose priority as long as he applies for a second service accompanied by a due translation as soon as possible after the refusal. In this regard, following the Leffler decision of the ECJ (ECLI:EU:C:2005:665), a period of one month from receipt by the transmitting agency of the information relating to the refusal may be regarded as appropriate unless special circumstances indicate otherwise.

P. Huber: A new judgment on a well-known issue: contract and tort in European Private International Law

The article discusses the judgment of the ECJ in the Granarolo case. The core issue of the judgment is whether an action for damages founded on an abrupt termination of a long-standing business relationship qualifies as contractual or as a matter of tort for the purposes of the Brussels I Regulation. The court held that a contract need not be in writing and that it can also be concluded tacitly. It stated further that if on that basis a contract was concluded, the contractual head of jurisdiction in Art. 5 Nr. 1 Brussels I Regulation will apply, even if the respective provision is classified as a matter of tort in the relevant national law. The author supports this finding and suggests that it should also be applied to the distinction between the Rome I Regulation and the Rome II Regulation.

D. Martiny: Compensation claims by motor vehicle liability insurers in tractor-trailer accidents having German and Lithuanian connections

The judgment of the ECJ of 21/1/2016 deals with multiple accidents in Germany caused by a tractor unit coupled with a trailer, each of the damage-causing vehicles being insured by different Lithuanian insurers. Since in contrast to Lithuanian law under German law also the insurer of the trailer is liable, after having paid full compensation the Lithuanian insurer of the tractor unit brought an indemnity action against the Lithuanian insurer of the trailer. On requests for a preliminary ruling from Lithuanian courts, the ECJ held that Art. 14 of the Directive 2009/103/EC of 16/9/2009 relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles deals only with the principle of a “single premium” and does not contain a conflict rule. According to the ECJ there was no contractual undertaking between the two insurers. Therefore, there exists a “non-contractual obligation” in the sense of the Rome II Regulation. Pursuant to Art. 19 Rome II, the issue of any subrogation of the victim’s rights is governed by the law applicable to the obligation of the third party – namely the civil liability insurer – to compensate that victim. That is the law applicable to the insurance contract (Art. 7 Rome I). However, the law applicable to the non-contractual obligation of the tortfeasor also governs the basis, the extent of liability and any division of his liability (Art. 15 [a] [b] Rome II). Without mentioning Art. 20 Rome II, the ECJ ruled that this division of liability was also decisive for the compensation claim of the insurer of the tractor unit. A judgment of the Supreme Court of Lithuania of 6/5/2016 has complied with the ruling of the ECJ. It grants compensation and applies also the rule of German law on the common liability of the insurers of the tractor unit and trailer.

P.-A. Brand: Jurisdiction and Applicable Law in Cartel Damages Claims

It can be expected that the number of cartel damages suits in the courts of the EU member states will substantially increase in the light of the EU Cartel Damages Directive and its incorporation in the national laws of the EU member states. Quite often the issues of jurisdiction and the applicable law play a major role in those cases, obviously in addition to the issues of competition law. The District Court Düsseldorf in its judgement on the so-called “Autoglas-cartel” has made significant remarks in particular with regard to international jurisdiction for claims against jointly and severally liable cartelists and on the issue of the applicable law before and after the 7th amendment of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB) on 1 July 2005. The judgement contributes substantially to the clarification of some highly disputed issues of the law of International Civil Procedure and the Conflict of Law Rules. This applies in particular to the definition of the term “Closely Connected” according to article 6 para 1 of the Brussels I Regulation (now article 8 para 1 Brussels I recast) in the context of international jurisdiction for law suits against a number of defendants from different member states and the law applicable to cartel damages claims in cross-border cartels and the rebuttal of the so-called “mosaic-principle”.

A. Schreiber: Granting of reciprocity within the German-Russian recognition practice

Germany and the Russian Federation have not concluded an international treaty which would regulate the mutual recognition of court decisions. The recognition according to the German autonomous right requires the granting of reciprocity pursuant to Sec. 328 para. 1 No. 1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure. The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg has denied the fulfilment of this requirement by (not final) judgement of 13 July 2016 in case 6 U 152/11. The comment on this decision shows that the estimation of the court is questionable considering the – for the relevant examination – only decisive Russian recognition practice.

K. Siehr: Marry in haste, repent at leisure. International Jurisdiction and Choice of the Applicable Law for Divorce of a Mixed Italian-American Marriage

An Italian wife and an American husband married in Philadelphia/Pennsylvania in November 2010. After two months of matrimonial community the spouses separated and moved to Italy (the wife) and to Texas (the husband). The wife asked for divorce in Italy and presented a document in which the spouses agreed to have the divorce law of Pennsylvania to be applied. The Tribunale di Pordenone accepted jurisdiction under Art. 3 (1) (a) last indent Brussels II-Regulation and determined the applicable law according to Rome III-Regulation which is applicable in Italy since 21 June 2012. The choice of the applicable law as valid under Art. 5 (1) (d) Rome III-Regulation in combination with Art. 14 lit. c Rome III-Regulation concerning states with more than one territory with different legal systems. The law of Pennsylvania was correctly applied and a violation of the Italian ordre public was denied because Italy applies foreign law even if foreign law does not require a legal separation by court decree. There were no effects of divorce which raised any problem.

M. Wietzorek: Concerning the Recognition and Enforcement of German Decisions in the Republic of Zimbabwe

The present contribution is dedicated to the question of whether decisions of German courts – in particular, decisions ordering the payment of money – may be recognized and declared enforceable in the Republic of Zimbabwe. An overview of the rules under Zimbabwean statutory law and common law (including a report on the interpretation of the applicable conditions, respectively grounds for refusal, in Zimbabwean case law) is followed by an assessment of whether reciprocity, as required by section 328 subsection 1 number 5 of the German Civil Procedure Code, may be considered as established with respect to Zimbabwe.

A. Anthimos: Winds of change in the recognition of foreign adult adoption decrees in Greece

On September 22, 2016, the Plenum of the Greek Supreme Court published a groundbreaking ruling on the issue of the recognition of foreign adult adoption decrees. The decision demonstrates the respect shown to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, especially in the aftermath of the notorious Negrepontis case, and symbolizes the Supreme Court’s shift from previous rulings.

A book by Jean- Sylvestre Bergé and Geneviève Helleringer, Elgar Publishing 2017, just published.

Lawyers have to adapt their reasoning to the increasingly global nature of the situations with which they deal. Often, rules formulated in a national, international or European environment have all to be jointly applied to a given case. In a single situation, several laws must be mobilised, alternatively, cumulatively, at the same time or at different moments, in or on one or several spaces or levels, by one or by multiple actors. The book seeks to make explicit the analysis the lawyer engages in every time he is confronted by the operation of several laws in different contexts.

The subject matter of the book is not the definition or description of a so-called ‘global law’. The book focuses on the needs of a global lawyer who is required to reach conclusions in a pluralistic context. It makes explicit the required global reasoning. Readers are presented with concrete cases involving more than one legal rule and different levels as well as a modus operandi that the authors found to be invariant in global contexts. Legal reasoning in a global context has to be organised according to a basic three-step approach, consisting of the comparison (Part I), then the combination (Part II) and, finally, the ordering or ‘prioritisation’ (Part III) of the methods and solutions of national, international and European law to be used to solve the case. The book conveys in detail how the law is operated through a wide range of situations and concrete examples cutting across domains, including criminal law, contract law, fundamental rights, internal market, international trade, procedure.

The book is aimed at an international audience. Illustrations of how lawyers have to combine different contexts are taken in various domestic case law including the UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the US, as well as France. The book is adapted from an analytical framework that was developed in a book written in French by Jean-Sylvestre Bergé, L’application du droit national, international et européen, Paris: Dalloz, Méthodes du droit, 2013.

Academic lawyers as well as practitioners often realise that some cases trigger uncertainty as to the applicable legal reasoning. For example, in cases presented before an international court, lawyers may wonder whether the effects produced by a law applied at a national or European level may be considered. In a European context, lawyers need to be able to determine precisely whether the methods and solutions that have been developed over the last 60 years substitute or add to the legal constructions defined at other levels which came before: national or international.

The difficulty facing lawyers increases even more when a case might fall to be decided under a series of different legal environments. Thus, a case presented before a national judge can sometimes give rise to proceedings before a European court, for example, a preliminary ruling on the interpretation or validity of EU law brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union or an application made to the European Court of Human Rights after the exhaustion of all national remedies. More rarely, a national conflict may become an interstate conflict brought before the International Court of Justice. In the same way, a situation addressed by a public or private international court may have consequences for European and/or national courts (for example, a sanction announced by the United Nations and executed at a European and national level or an international arbitral award presented to a national judge who decides to apply European Union law and to consult, in that capacity, the Court of Justice of the European Union).

Lawyers may therefore be worried that in spite of all their efforts to put into operation the legal methods and solutions applied in a given context, their analysis could be challenged on the occasion of the re-examination of the case in another national, international or European context. To prevent a new examination from entirely escaping, or weakening, their expertise, what can lawyers (including students training to practice in a global environment) do? Should they open themselves up to other legal environments beyond the one in which they are used to? Or should they revert to the one context that they know best and will therefore provide for a solution with a maximum degree of foreseeability? The book provides a method for tackling these questions.

Jean-Sylvestre Bergé is Professor at Lyon University – Fellow of the University Institute of France – France; Geneviève Helleringer is Professor in Essec Business School, Paris – Fellow of the Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford – UK.

Professor Gilles Cuniberti (University of Luxembourg) has just published a new monograph on default arbitration in the Rethinking Law series of Edward Elgar Publishing.

The official abstract kindly provided by the publisher reads as follows:

This innovative book proposes a fundamental rethink of the consensual foundation of arbitration and argues that it should become the default mode of resolution in international commercial disputes.

The book first discusses the most important arguments against this proposal and responds to them. In particular, it addresses the issue of the legitimacy of arbitrators and the compatibility of the idea with guarantees afforded by European human rights law and US constitutional law. The book then presents several models of non-consensual arbitration that could be implemented to afford neutral adjudication in disputes between parties originating from different jurisdictions, to offer an additional alternative forum in the doctrine of forum non conveniens or to save judicial costs.

The first dedicated exploration into the groundbreaking concept of default arbitration, Rethinking International Commercial Arbitration will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners in arbitration and international litigation.

Further information, including a table of contents and some extracts, is available on the publisher’s website.

The International Law Association (ILA) has a new website (please click here) with an improved look. The ILA hopes that visitors will find the site more informative and easier to navigate; in particular, the Members Only Area has been upgraded and will continue to be developed in order to provide members with more targeted and relevant information.

The ILA was founded in Brussels in 1873. Its objectives, under its Constitution, are “the study, clarification and development of international law, both public and private, and the furtherance of international understanding and respect for international law”. The ILA has consultative status, as an international non-governmental organisation, with a number of the United Nations specialised agencies. For further information and a welcome address from ILA chairman Lord Mance, please click here.

The German branch of the ILA will hold its annual meeting on 23 June, 2017, in Frankfurt (Main). This year’s topic is „Human Rights in International Business”. The list of distinguished speakers will include Professors Marc-Philippe Weller (Heidelberg) and Karsten Nowrot (Hamburg) as well as lawyers Dr. Birgit Spießhofer and Prof. Dr. Remo Klinger (both from Berlin). You may find the full programme and further information here.

Professor Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot has just published an article on The Rule of Law and Access to Justice in Recent and Key Decisions of the UK Courts

The English abstract reads:

Following an Introduction that points out the current significance of transnational human rights litigations, and their implications arising out of the recent stance taken by the United Kingdom Supreme Court in the case Belhaj v. Straw, the present study underlines throughout Section II the approach to this case, linked with the “Extraordinary Renditions Programme”, of the United States, and with tortures as well as unlawful detention suffered by the plaintiffs, in which the British Government is denounced as an accomplice.

This Section also reflects decisions of the High and Appeal Courts, giving way all along Section III to the Supreme Court judgment, in the same direction of the one of the Court of Appeal as far as immunity of jurisdiction and the Act of State are concerned, and that afterwards it is scrutinized by the author of the present study in a positive way to the extent that access to justice by victims of serious violations of HHRR prevails. And that is so above all through the inactivation in the case of State of Act for the english public policy, allowing such an access and largely in agreement with a great deal of initiatives emerging from the international community and at the same time widespread doctrinal opinions.

This study comes to an end with some Conclusive Reflections (Section IV), bringing to light the way the Supreme Court has come to find a path in order to respond to a question involving sensitive edges, enhancing the rule of law, the access to justice and the defense of HHRR as foundations that cannot be waived in the course of its performance.

The full article (in Spanish) is available in the Papeles el Tiempo de los Derechos (open access): https://redtiempodelosderechos.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/wp-3-17.pdf 

and on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2960256