Views
Denial of Natural Justice as a Defence to Enforcement of a Chinese Judgment in Australia
In Yin v Wu [2023] VSCA 130, the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria set aside a judgment[1] which had affirmed the enforcement a Chinese judgment by an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.[2] This was a rare instance of an Australian court considering the defence to enforcement of a foreign judgment on the basis that the judgment debtor was denied natural justice—or procedural fairness—before the foreign court.
Background
The dispute concerned a payment made by a Chinese national living in China, Di Wu, to a Chinese national living in Australia, Ke Yin. The payment was made pursuant to a foreign exchange agreement: Yin had promised to pay Wu a sum of US Dollars in exchange for Wu’s Chinese RMB.
The arrangement was made unusually through a series of Telegram and WhatsApp messages, from accounts with different numbers and aliases. (In Australia, we would say that the arrangement sounded ‘suss’.) The agreement was seemingly contrary to Chinese law, which may have contributed to the clandestine character of communications underlying the agreement; see [30].
Change of gender in private international law: a problem arises between Scotland and England
Written by Professor Eric Clive
The Secretary of State for Scotland, a Minister of the United Kingdom government, has made an order under section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 blocking Royal Assent to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill 2022, a Bill passed by the Scottish Parliament by a large majority. The Scottish government has challenged the order by means of a petition for judicial review. The case is constitutionally important and may well go to the United Kingdom Supreme court. It also raises interesting questions of private international law.
At present the rules on obtaining a gender recognition certificate, which has the effect of changing the applicant’s legal gender, are more or less the same in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Scottish Bill would replace the rules for Scotland by less restrictive, de-medicalised rules. An unfortunate side effect is that Scottish certificates would no longer have automatic effect by statute in other parts of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom government could remedy this by legislation but there is no indication that it intends to do so. Its position is that it does not like the Scottish Bill.
One of the reasons given by the Secretary of State for making the order is that having two different systems for issuing gender recognition certificates within the United Kingdom would cause serious problems. A person, he assumes, might be legally of one gender in England and another in Scotland. There would therefore be difficulties for some organisations operating at United Kingdom level – for example, in the fields of tax, benefits and pensions. This immediately strikes a private lawyer as odd. Scotland and England have had different systems in the law of persons for centuries – in the laws on marriage, divorce, legitimacy, incapacity and other matters of personal status – and they have not given rise to serious problems. This is because the rules of private international law, even in the absence of statutory provision, did not allow them to.
Judgments Convention – No Thanks?
On September 1st, 2023, the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention will enter into force for the Member States of the EU and Ukraine. According to the HCCH, the Convention is “a true gamechanger in international dispute resolution”, which will “reduce transactional and litigation costs, facilitate rule-based multilateral trade and investment, increase certainty and predictability” and “promote effective justice for all”. The international conference taking place in Bonn later this week will likely strike an equally celebratory tone.
This sentiment is not shared universally, though. In a scathing article just published in Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht (ZEuP) entitled ‘Judgments Convention: No Thanks!‘, Haimo Schack (University of Kiel) labels the Convention as “evidently worthless”.
Schack comes to this damning conclusion in three steps. First, he argues that the 2005 Choice of Court Convention, the first outcome of the decades-long HCCH Jurisdiction Project, has been of minimal use for the EU and only benefited Singapore and London. Read more
News
AMEDIP’s upcoming webinar: Private International Law in the Inter-American system: A glance in the light of the 50 anniversary of the CIDIP (27 February 2025 – in Spanish)
The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on Thursday 27 February 2025 at 14:30 (Mexico City time – CST), 21:30 (CET time). The topic of the webinar is ‘Private International Law in the Inter-American system: A glance in the light of the 50 anniversary of the CIDIP’ and will be presented by OAS Director Dante Negro (in Spanish).
CIDIP is the Spanish acronym for the Inter-American Specialized Conferences on Private International Law. For a history of the CIDIP, click here. Read more
Book Launch: Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law – Oxford, March 19, 4pm-6pm
In 2024, Oxford University Press published Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law, edited by Roxana Banu, Michael S Green, and Ralf Michaels. The book represents the first inter-disciplinary engagement with questions of private international law from a philosophical perspective, covers a wide range of philosophical questions in private international law and brings philosophers in conversation with private international law scholars to demystify the analytical tools of each discipline in relationship to the other. More information on the book, including a table of contents, is here.
Now, Oxford University is organizing a hybrid book launch on March 19, 4pm-6pm. An introduction from the Editors will be followed by a discussion on key themes by Gabriel Encinas, Verónica Ruiz Abu-Nigm, Robert Stevens, Antonios Tzanakopoulos, and Emmanuel Voyiakis. More information on the event and on how to sign up for physical or virtual participation is here.
Workshop on Cross-border Protection of Cultural Property-Agenda
Workshop on Cross-border Protection of Cultural Property Agenda
2025.2.28, UTC 8:00 – 12:15 (London Time)
| 8:00 – 8:05 | Opening Remarks | ||
| Zheng Tang | professor of Law, editor in chief, Chinese Journal of Transnational Law; Associate Dean, Wuhan University Academy of International Law and Global Governance | ||
| 8:05 – 8:45 | Keynote Address | ||
| Christa Roodt | Senior Lecturer of History of Art, University of Glasgow | ||
| Zhengxin Huo | Professor of Law, China University of Political Science and Law | ||
| Panel 1: Legal Mechanisms of Cross-Border Cultural Property Protection | |||
| 8:45 – 9:00 | Elena Moustaira | The contribution of Postcolonial Theory to the cross-border protection of Indigenous cultural heritage | |
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Yehya Badr | Restitution of stolen foreign cultural property and hurdles in choice of law | |
| 9:15 – 9:30 | Maggie Fleming Cacot | Forfeiture and freezing orders in transborder cultural property litigation | |
| 9:30 – 9:50 | Commentary and Discussion | ||
| Panel 2: Regional Practices and Challenges in Cultural Property Restitution | |||
| 9:50 – 10:05 | Andrzej’s Jakubowski | Moving People, Shifting State Borders and the Return of Cultural Property: The Case of Poland | |
| 10:05 – 10:20 | Miroslaw Michal Sadowski | From freedom to restitution (with special focus on Central and Eastern Europe and the Lusophone community) | |
| 10:20 – 10:35 | Ekin Omeroglu | The Issue of Applicable Law in Disputes Arising from Violations of Private Law Regulations on Cultural Properties: The Case of Turkiye | |
| 10:35 – 10:50 | Ruida Chen | Restitution of cultural property in China: In search of a new paradigm for cross-border cultural property claims | |
| 10:50 – 11:10 | Commentary and Discussion | ||
| Panel 3: Looking to the Past and the Future | |||
| 11:10 – 11:25 | Dabbie De Girolamo | The Relevance of ADR for transnational cultural property disputes: A Survey and Analysis of China’s experience | |
| 11:25 – 11:40 | Andreas Giorgallis | Restitution of cultural objects unethically acquired during the colonial era: The intersection of Public and Private International Law | |
| 11:40 – 11:55 | Evelien Campfens | Evolving Legal Models of Restitution | |
| 11:55 – 12:15 | Commentary and Discussion | ||
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/87424891864?pwd=8rHX72dmzi7FCDWWnm7F2n1OLIOFaC.1
Meeting ID: 874 2489 1864 Password: 574150