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The CJEU on Procedural Rules in Child Abduction Cases: private international law and children’s rights law
Comment on CJEU case Rzecznik Praw Dziecka e.a., C-638/22 PPU, 16 February 2023)
Written by Tine Van Hof, post-doc researcher in Private International Law and Children’s Rights Law at the University of Antwerp, previously published on EU live
The Court of Justice of the EU has been criticised after some previous cases concerning international child abduction such as Povse and Aguirre Zarraga for prioritising the effectiveness of the EU private international law framework (i.e. the Brussels IIa Regulation, since replaced by Brussels IIb, and the principle of mutual trust) and using the children’s rights law framework (i.e. Article 24 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of the child’s best interests) in a functional manner (see e.g. Silvia Bartolini and Ruth Lamont). In Rzecznik Praw Dziecka the Court takes both frameworks into account but does not prioritise one or the other, since the frameworks concur.
Reappreciating the Composite Approach with Anupam Mittal v Westbridge II
Written by: Aditya Singh, BA.LL.B. (Hons) student at the National Law School of India University(NLSIU), Bengaluru and line editor at the National Law School Business Law Review (NLSBLR)
I. INTRODUCTION
The debate surrounding the composite approach i.e., the approach of accommodating the application of both the law applicable to the substantive contract and the Lex Fori to the arbitration clause has recently resurfaced with Anupam Mittal v Westbridge Ventures II (“Westbridge”). In this case, the Singapore Court of Appeal paved way for application of both the law governing substantive contract and the Lex Fori to determine the arbitrability of the concerned oppression and mismanagement dispute. The same was based on principle of comity, past precedents and s 11 of the International Arbitration Act. The text of s 11 (governing arbitrability) does not specify and hence limit the law determining public policy to Lex Fori. In any event, the composite approach regardless of any provision, majorly stems from basic contractual interpretation that extends the law governing substantive contract to the arbitration clause unless the presumption is rebuttable. For instance, in the instant case, the dispute would have been rendered in-arbitrable with the application of Indian law (law governing substantive contract) and hence the Singapore law was inferred to be the implied choice.[1] Read more
Measure twice, cut once: Dutch case Presta v VLEP on choice of law in employment contracts
Presta v VLEP (23 june 2023) illustrates the application of the CEJU’s Gruber Logistics (Case C-152/20, 15 July 2021) by the Dutch Supreme Court. In order to determine the law applicable to an individual employment contract under article 8 Rome I, one must compare the level of protection that would have existed in the absence of a choice of law (in this case, Dutch law) with the level of protection offered by the law chosen by the parties in the contract (in this case, the laws of Luxembourg), thereafter, the law of the country offering the highest level of employee protection should be applied.
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Happy New Year from ConflictofLaws.net (now also on Bluesky)!
The editors of ConflictofLaws.net would like to wish you a year filled with happiness, health, and success, academically and otherwise.
2024 has been another great year for the blog, with close to one new post per day (bringing us to more than 5,500 posts in total) and record numbers of readers and subscribers. Our content, just like our readership, reflects the global scope of the blog, with popular posts including Saloni Khanderia & Shubh Jaiswal’s article on the application of the lex fori ‘by default’ in Indian courts, Mayela Celis’ note on Smith & Wesson v Mexico, Orji A Uka & Damilola Alabi’s contribution on service under Nigerian law, Yasmín Aguada & Laura Martina Jeifetz two-part piece on international judicial cooperation and technology in private international law, and Tobias Lutzi’s comment on the CJEU’s decision in Real Madrid.
In addition to our e-mail newsletter (which continues to be surprisingly popular), you can subscribe to our blog on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and – from this year on – Bluesky.
The FAMIMOVE project ends today – A summary of its achievements
Today (31-December 2024), FAMIMOVE 2.0. is coming to an end after having accomplished all of its goals and created a solid network of experts. The project’s full name is Families on the Move: The Coordination between international family law and migration law and is an international project co-funded by the European Commission under the JUST-2022-JCOO program. For more information, click here.
The project aimed to improve the protection of migrant children and families by bringing actual practice more in line with EU goals and values, such as the protection of fundamental rights and best interests of the child. It sought to provide more effectiveness to EU objectives through a better coordination of instruments in overlapping fields, such as Regulations in private international law in family law matters and migration law rules.
Out now: Issue 4/2024 of RabelsZ
The last issue of RabelsZ 2024 has just been released. It contains the following contributions (which are all available Open Access: CC BY 4.0):
Holger Fleischer & Simon Horn, Unternehmensskandale und skandalgetriebene Regulierung: Die Stavisky-Affäre als Prüfstein (Corporate Scandals and Scandal-Driven Regulation: The Stavisky Affair as Touchstone), pp. 648–693, https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsz-2024-0062 Read more