Views
Towards an EU Regulation on the International Protection of Adults
On 31 May 2023, the European Commission presented a proposal for a Regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of measures and cooperation in matters relating to the protection of adults (in the following: EU Adult Protection Regulation – EUAPR). This proposal is a response to significant demographic and social changes in the EU: Many Member States face enormous challenges posed by an increasingly aging population. Due to considerable improvements in medical care in recent decades, people grow much older than they used to, and this lengthening of the average lifespan in turn leads to an increase in age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease. This demographic change creates problems for private international law, because the mobility of natural persons has increased within the EU where borders may, in principle, be crossed without restrictions. Many people who have left their state of origin in search for work elsewhere in their youth or middle age do not return to their home state after retirement, but rather spend the last part of their lives where they have established a new habitual residence. Besides, more and more people decide to leave their home state once they have reached the age of retirement. Such processes of migration at a late stage in life may have different reasons: Some old-age movers may want to avoid a heavy taxation of their estates that would put a burden on their heirs, some may wish to circumvent other restrictions of domestic inheritance laws (e.g. the right to a compulsory portion), others may simply wish to spend the remaining parts of their lives in milder climates, e.g. the Mediterranean, or look for a place to stay where the cost of living is lower, e.g. in some parts of Eastern Europe. When these persons begin to suffer from an impairment or an insufficiency of their personal faculties which no longer allows them to protect their interests themselves, however, intricate conflict of laws problems may arise: The authorities or courts of which state shall have jurisdiction to take protective measures concerning vulnerable adults or their property? Which law is to be applied to such measures? Under which conditions may protective measures taken in one state be recognised and enforced in other states?
The EUAPR is meant to solve these problems. Read more
Dubai Courts on the Recognition of Foreign Judgments: “Recognition” or “Enforcement”? – that’s the Problem!
“Recognition” and “enforcement” are fundamental concepts when dealing with the international circulation of foreign judgments. Although they are often used interchangeably, it is generally agreed that these two notions have different purposes and, ultimately, different procedures (depending on whether the principle of de plano recognition is accepted or not. See Béligh Elbalti, “Spontaneous Harmonization and the Liberalization of the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, Japanese Yearbook of Private International Law, Vol. 16, 2014, p. 269).
However, in legal systems where this fundamental distinction is not well established, the amalgamation of the two notions may give rise to unnecessary complications that are likely to jeopardize the legitimate rights of the parties. The following case, very recently decided by the Dubai Supreme Court, is nothing but one of many examples which show how misconceptions and confusion regarding the notion of “recognition” would lead to unpredictable results (cf. e.g., Béligh Elbalti, “Perspective of Arab Countries”, in M. Weller et al. (eds.), The 2019 HCCH Judgments Convention – Cornerstones, Prospects, Outlook (Hart, 2023) pp. 1983-184ff).
Van Den Eeckhout on CJEU Case Law in PIL matters
Written by Veerle Van Den Eeckhout, working at the Research and Documentation Directorate of the CJEU
On 29 April 2023, Veerle Van Den Eeckhout gave a presentation on recent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The presentation, now available online, was entitled “CJEU case-law. A Few Observations on Recent CJEU Case Law with Attention for Some Aspects of Logic and Argumentation Theory.” The presentation was given during the Dialog Internationales Familienrecht 2023 at the University of Münster. This presentation builds upon a previous presentation of the Author, “Harmonized interpretation of regimes of judicial cooperation in civil matters?”, which is now also available online.
News
Children-parents in the EU: Stakeholders’ meeting 13 and 14 March
The Unipar project partners are organising a stakeholders’ meeting on the EU’s proposal on filiation/parenthood, domestic private international law, human and children’s rights, and EU law. The meeting will be held in Brussels on 13 and 14 March, and will be livestreamed for persons who wish to follow.
The programme is available on the Unipar website. There you will also find the registration link for online participation.
Unipar is co-funded by the European Union. It is a two-year project that comments on the EU’s proposal on private international law on filiation, but also investigates the larger context of filiation/parenthood across borders. The first outcome is a report on the impact on parentage of the EU acquis.
Call for Papers: OGEL Special Issue on ‘Space Mining: National and International Regulation for and against Commercial Mining of Outer Space Resources’
OGEL Special Issue on ‘Space Mining: National and International Regulation for and against Commercial Mining of Outer Space Resources’ will include dispute resolution over space mining plans as well as dispute resolution among participants in space mining operations – state vs state and space versus corporations and corporations versus corporations.
Outer Space clearly involves interesting private international law issues.
Proposals should be submitted to the editors by 31st March 2025, with final papers to be submitted before 31st May 2025.
For more information, please refer to here.
CoL.net Virtual Roundtable on the Commission’s Rome II Report
ConflictofLaws.net will be hosting an ad-hoc virtual roundtable on the Commission’s Rome II Report
on 11 March 2025, 12pm–1.30pm (CET).
The conversation will focus on the long-awaited report published by the Commission on 31 January 2025 and its implications for a possible future reform of the Regulation.
The event will feature the following panellists:
Rui Dias
University of Coimbra
Thomas Kadner Graziano
University of Geneva
Xandra Kramer
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Eva Lein
University of Lausanne &
British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Tobias Lutzi
University of Augsburg
Everyone interested is warmly invited to join via this Zoom link.