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The New Saudi Civil Transaction Act and its Potential Impact on Private International Law in Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has recently enacted a new Civil Transactions Law (Royal Decree No. M/199, dated June 16, 2023). The law will enter into force on December 16, 2023, 180 days after its enactment (hereinafter referred to as “the new law”). This law has been rightly described as “groundbreaking” because, prior to the enactment of the new law, there has been no codification of civil law in the Kingdom, and civil law issues have traditionally been governed by the classical rules of Islamic Sharia according to the teachings of the prevailing school of fiqh (religio-legal jurisprudence) in the Kingdom (Hanbali School). Like most of the civil law codifications in the region, the new law focuses mainly on the so-called “patrimonial law,” i.e., property rights and obligations (contractual and non-contractual). Family relations and successions are dealt with in a separate law, which was previously enacted in 2022 and entered into force the same year (Personal Status Act, Royal Decree No. M/73 of 9 March 2022, entered into force on June 18, 2022).
Book Review: The UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights
This book review was written by Begüm Kilimcioglu, PhD researcher, Research Groups Law & Development and Personal Rights & Property Rights, University of Antwerp
Barnali Choudbury, The UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights- A Commentary, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023
The endorsement of the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs) in 2011 represents a milestone for business and human rights as the principles successfully achieved to put the duties of different actors involved in (possible) human rights abuses on the international agenda. The UNGPs provide a non-binding yet authoritative framework for a three-pillared scheme to identify and contextualize the responsibilities with regard to business and human rights: the State’s responsibility to protect, businesses’ responsibility to respect, and facilitating access to remedy. However, although the impact of the principles can be described as ground-breaking, they have also been criticized for their vague and generic language which provides for a leeway for certain actors to circumvent their responsibilities (see Andreas Rasche & Sandra Waddock, Surya Deva, Florian Wettstein).Therefore, it is important to determine and clarify the content of the principles to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. In this light, this commentary on the UNGPs which examines all the principles one-by-one through the inputs of various prominent scholars, academics, experts and practitioners is indeed a reference guide to when working on corporate social responsibility.
The Visible College of International Lawyers and the HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention – Conference in Bonn
The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention has been the subject of an ever-growing body of academic research and discussion ever since it was signed; but due to the pandemic, almost all of it had to happen in writing. Just in time for its entry into force, though, and thus perfectly timed, the first international conference on the HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention Cornerstones – Prospects – Outlook took place a week ago at the University of Bonn, hosted by Matthias Weller together with Moritz Brinkmann and Nina Dethloff, in cooperation with the Permanent Bureau of the HCCH, and with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Justice.
The conference brought together much of the aforementioned discussion between a range of academics, practitioners and policymakers, including the contributors to the book of the same title, edited by Matthias Weller, João Ribeiro-Bidaoui, Moritz Brinkmann, and Nina Dethloff, for which the conference doubled as a launch event. It accordingly followed the same structure, organized into seven panels overall that were split into three larger blocks.
The first of those (“Cornerstones”) focused on some of the core concepts underpinning the Convention. Wolfgang Hau (LMU Munich) discussed the meaning of ‘judgments’, ‘recognition’, and ‘enforcement’; Pietro Franzina (Catholic University of Milan) focused on the jurisdictional filters (with an emphasis on contractual obligations, i.e. Art. 5(1)(g)); and Marcos Dotta Salgueiro (University of the Republic of Montevideo) discussed the grounds for refusal. After some lively discussion, the block continued with papers on the Convention’s much-discussed Art. 29 (Cristina Mariottini (Luxembourg)) and on its interplay with the 2005 Choice of Court Convention (Paul Beaumont (University of Stirling)).
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AAPrIL’s June online seminar: The Law of the Arbitration Agreement – Australasian Perspectives
On Wednesday, 11 June 2025, the Australasian Association of Private International Law (AAPrIL) will hold its latest instalment of its online Seminar Series, as Timothy Lindsay of Lindsay Francis & Mangan presents on ‘The Law of the Arbitration Agreement – Australasian Perspectives’.
The topic:
Contracts with international arbitration agreements can engage a complex interaction of different laws: the governing law of the contract, the law of the seat, and the law of the arbitration agreement itself. Parties to international commercial contracts usually address the first two of these issues, but are often silent as to the law of the arbitration agreement. A light has recently shone on this well-known issue by the United Kingdom’s Arbitration Act 2025, which includes a new default rule for determining the law of the arbitration agreement, and similar changes to the Rules of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, as well as developing case law in other jurisdictions. How might Australian and New Zealand courts react? Read more
Open Position as a Research Associate at Freiburg University
The Institute for Comparative and Private International Law (Department 3) at Freiburg University (Germany) is seeking a Research Associate (m/f/d), 26%, to begin as soon as possible. Read more
ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht 2/2025
A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available and includes contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, legal unification, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here.
The following contributions might be of particular interest for the readers of this blog:
- Anspruchsverjährung im deutsch-spanischen Rechtsverkehr
David Cuenca Pinkert and Alexander Kronenberg on the statute of limitation in cross-border situations involving Germany and Spain: Against the background of the relevance of the application of foreign law in practice, the article analyses the institute of the statute of limitations under Spanish substantive law and also deals with similarities and differences to German law as well as selective references to conflict of laws and particularities. Due to its practical relevance, the article focuses on the treatment of the limitation period for tortious claims for damages, especially as a result of road traffic accidents. - EGMR „Klimaseniorinnen“ – Konsequenzen für private Klimaklagen?
Marc-Philippe Weller and Franka Weckner comments on the decision by the ECtHR in Klimaseniorinnen and discuss the consequences of this decision for climate litigation brought before civil courts.