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UK Supreme Court in Jalla v Shell: the claim in Bonga spill is time barred
The UK Supreme Court ruled that the cause of action in the aftermath of the 2011 Bonga offshore oil spill accrued at the moment when the oil reached the shore. This was a one-off event and not a continuing nuisance. The Nigerian landowners’ claim against Shell was thus barred by the limitation periods under applicable Nigerian law (Jalla and another v Shell International Trading and Shipping Company and another [2023] UKSC 16, on appeal from [2021] EWCA Civ 63).
On 10 May 2023, the UK Supreme Court has ruled in one of the cases in the series of legal battles started against Shell in the English courts in the aftermath of the Bonga spill. The relevant facts are summarized by the UK Supreme Court as follows at [6] and [7]:
Data on Choice-of-Court Clause Enforcement in US
The United States legal system is immensely complex. There are state courts and federal courts, state statutes and federal statutes, state common law and federal common law. When I imagine a foreign lawyer trying to explain this system to a foreign client, my heart fills with pity.
This feeling of pity is compounded when I imagine this same lawyer trying to advise her client as to whether a choice-of-court clause will be enforced by a court in the United States. The law on this subject is complicated. It is, moreover, not easy to determine how it is applied in practice. Are there differences in clause enforcement rates across the states? Across federal circuits? Do state courts enforce these clauses at the same rate as federal courts? Until recently, there was no data that would allow a foreign lawyer – or a U.S. lawyer, for that matter – to answer any of these questions.
Over the past several years, I have authored or co-authored several empirical articles that seek to answer the questions posed above. This post provides a summary of the data gathered for these articles. All of the cases referenced involve outbound choice-of-court clauses, i.e. clauses that select a jurisdiction other than the one where the suit was filed. Readers interested in the data collection process, the caveats to which the data is subject, or other methodological issues should consult the articles and their appendices. This post first describes state court practice. It then describes federal court practice. It concludes with a brief discussion comparing the two.
Polish Constitutional Court about to review the constitutionality of the jurisdictional immunity of a foreign State?
Written by Zuzanna Nowicka, lawyer at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and lecturer at Department of Logic and Legal Argumentation at University of Warsaw
In the aftermath of the judgment of the ICJ of 2012 in the case of the Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece intervening) that needs no presentation here (for details see, in particular, the post by Burkhard Hess), by its judgment of 2014, the Italian Constitutional Court recognized the duty of Italy to comply with the ICJ judgment of 2012 but subjected that duty to the “fundamental principle of judicial protection of fundamental rights” under Italian constitutional law (for a more detailed account of those developments see this post on EAPIL by Pietro Franzina and further references detailed there). In a nutshell, according to the Italian Constitutional Court, the fundamental human rights cannot be automatically and unconditionally sacrificed in each and every case in order to uphold the jurisdiction immunity of a foreign State allegedly responsible for serious international crimes.
Since then, the Italian courts have reasserted their jurisdiction in such cases, in some even going so far as to decide on the substance and award compensation from Germany. The saga continues, as Germany took Italy to the ICJ again in 2022 (for the status of the case pending before the ICJ see here). It even seems not to end there as it can be provocatively argued that this saga has its spin-off currently taking place before the Polish courts.
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Migrant Workers and Social Security Rights across Borders: a Right or a Privilege?
You are invited to the third meeting of Migration Talks organized by the Jean Monnet Chair in Legal Aspects of Migration Management in the European Union and in Türkiye.
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Laura Carballo Piñeiro, Chair of Private International Law, Dean, Faculty of International Relations, University of Vigo
Title: Migrant Workers and Social Security Rights across Borders: a Right or a Privilege?
Date and Time: Wednesday, March 19, 2024, 10.30 a.m. -11.30 a.m. (CET)
Location: via Zoom (The link shall be provided upon request: migration@bilkent.edu.tr)
Abstract
Access to social security is a human right that only a quarter of the world population enjoy. Such an access is particularly challenging for workers who cross national borders, as they may not get access to a national scheme, get access only in a limited way compared to other national or resident workers in the country, be obliged to contribute to more than one system, or not benefit from a system to which had previously contributed due to relocation to their home country or a third country. State coordination in these matters is thus of the essence, in particular to ensure that contributions are only paid to one system at a time, aggregation and maintenance of acquired rights for those workers that are in the course of acquisition, and portability of benefits. Even in a coordinated scenario, legal divergence across countries might further complicate access to benefits. For example, the funding of a benefit by taxes and not contributions might automatically exclude posted workers from their enjoyment. The EU Social Security Coordination Regulation will be used in the presentation to address these principles, the challenges faced by States and social partners in their enforcement, and tools developed to address them. Outside this privileged area, coordination relies on a complex, but insufficient network of treaties which very much focus on the role of receiving countries. As the movement of workers increases, more attention should be paid to the role of sending States by researching the interplay between social protection and migrant studies.
Limitation period of the enforcement of a UK judgment in Greece
Limitation period of the enforcement of a UK judgment in Greece
A judgment issued by the Division of Maritime Disputes of the Piraeus first instance court at the end of last year [nr. 3400/2024, unreported] was confronted with an issue which seldomly appears before Greek courts.
The issue raised before the Piraeus Court of First Instance, in the context of Regulation 44/01, was the following: Is it permissible to revoke the recognition of a foreign (English) judgment (order) that was declared enforceable in Greece, when allegedly it is no longer enforceable in the State of origin? Read more
Exploring the Inference of Similarity in Foreign Law
Hot off the press and published in the Cambridge Law Journal, the article “The Inference of Similarity,” written by Marcus Teo, delves into the intricacies of what has traditionally been referred to as the “presumption of similarity” in English legal proceedings. Teo’s work challenges the conventional understanding of this presumption, arguing that it should be seen not as a true presumption but rather as an inference that courts can draw under certain circumstances.
Teo begins by outlining the challenges litigants who wish to rely on foreign law in English courts face. They must first demonstrate that the relevant choice-of-law rule selects the foreign law as applicable and then prove that the foreign law supports their claim or defence. This task is often complicated by the patchy or vague nature of foreign law evidence, leading courts to apply what has been termed a “presumption of similarity”—the idea that foreign law is presumed similar to English law when not sufficiently proven. Read more