Conventions & Instruments

On 1 March 2023, the 1993 Adoption Convention entered into force for Botswana. The Convention currently has 105 Contracting Parties. More information is available here.

On 8 March 2023, China deposited its instrument of accession to the 1961 Apostille Convention and Malta deposited its instrument of ratification of the 2000 Protection of Adults Convention during the meeting of the Council on General Affairs and Policy. The 1961 Apostille Convention, which has 124 Contracting Parties, will enter into force for China on 7 November 2023. The Convention is already in force in the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China. The 2000 Protection of Adults Convention, which has 15 Contracting Parties, will enter into force for Malta on 1 July 2023. More information is available here.

On 9 March 2023, the 1961 Apostille Convention entered into force for Pakistan. The Convention currently has 124 Contracting Parties. More information is available here.

On 20 March 2023, the 1961 Apostille Convention entered into force for Senegal. The Convention currently has 124 Contracting Parties. More information is available here.

Publications & Documentation

On 6 March 2023, the Permanent Bureau published the Practical Guide to Access to Justice for International Tourists and Visitors. More information is available here.

On 8 March 2023, the Permanent Bureau published the HCCH 2022 Annual Report. More information is available here.

Meetings & Events

From 7 to 10 March 2023, the Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP) of the HCCH met in The Hague, with over 450 participants joining both in person and online. HCCH Members reviewed progress made to date and agreed on the work programme for the year ahead in terms of normative, non-normative and governance work. More information is available here.

Among other important developments, during the meeting CGAP took the historic decision to adopt Spanish as an official language as of 1 July 2024, on which more information is available here. It also decided to recommend Dr Christophe Bernasconi to the Netherlands Standing Government Committee on Private International Law for the position of Secretary General, on which more information is available here.

On 22 March, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific of the HCCH hosted the webinar “HCCH 1961 Apostille Convention – Application and Future Prospects in the Asia Pacific Region”.

Upcoming Events

Registrations are open for the conference “The HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention: Cornerstones – Prospects – Outlook”, which will be held in person on 9 and 10 June 2023 at the University of Bonn in Germany. More information is available here.

CC Rainer Lück 1RL.de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesverfassungsgericht_IMGP1634.jpg

I.

Yesterday, on March 29, 2023, the German Constitutional Court published its long-awaited (and also long) decision on the German “Act to Combat Child Marriage” (Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Kinderehen). Under that law, passed in 2017 in the midst of the so-called “refugee crisis”, marriages celebrated under foreign law are voidable if one of the spouses was under 18 at the time of marriage (art. 13 para. 3 no. 2 EGBGB), and null and void if they were under 16 (art. 13 para. 3 no. 1 EGBGB) – regardless of whether the marriage is valid under the normally applicable foreign law. In 2018, the German Federal Court of Justice refused to apply the law in a concrete case and asked the Constitutional Court for a decision on the constitutionality of the provision.

That was a long time ago. The wife in the case had been fourteen when the case started in the first instance courts; she is now 22, and her marriage certainly no longer a child marriage. And as a matter of fact, the Constitutional Court decision itself is  already almost two months old; it was rendered on February 1. This and the fact that the decision cites almost no sources published after 2019 except for new editions of commentaries, suggests that it may have existed as a draft for much longer. One reason for the delay may have been internal: the president of the Court, Stephan Harbarth, was one of the law’s main drafters. The Court decided in 2019 that he did not have to recuse himself, amongst others for the somewhat questionable reason that his support for the bill was based on political, not constitutional, considerations. (Never mind that members of parliament are obligated by the constitution also in the legislative process, and that a judge at the Constitutional Court may reasonably be expected to be hesitant when judging on the unconstitutionality of his own legislation.)

II.

In the end, the Court decided that the law is, in fact, unconstitutional: it curtails the special protection of  marriage, which the German Constitution provides, and this curtailment is not justified. The decision is long (more than sixty pages) but characteristically well structured so a summary may be possible.

Account to the Court, the state’s duty to protect marriage (art. 6 para. 1 of the Basic Law, the German Constitution) includes not only marriage as an institution but also discrete, existing marriages, and not only the married status itself but also the whole range of legal rules surrounding it and ensuing from it. Now, the Court has provided a definition of marriage as protected under the Basic Law: it is a union, in principle in perpetuity, freely entered into, equal and autonomously structured, and established by the marriage ceremony as a formalized, outwardly recognizable act. (Early commentators have spotted that “between one man and one woman” is no longer named as a requirement, but it seems far-fetched to view this as a stealthy inclusion of same-sex marriage within the realm of the Constitution.) The stated definition includes marriages celebrated abroad under foreign law. Moreover, it includes marriages celebrated at a very young age as long as the requirement is met that they were entered into freely.

A legislative curtailment of this right could be justified. But the legislator has comparably little discretion where a rule, as is the case here, effectively amounts to an actual impediment to marriage. Whether a curtailment is in fact justified is a matter for the classical test of proportionality: the law must have a proper and legitimate purpose; it must be suitable towards that purpose; it must be necessary towards that purpose; and it must be adequate (“proportional” in the narrow sense) towards the purpose, in that the balance between achieving the purpose and curtailment of the right must not be out of proportion.

Here, the law’s purposes themselves – the protection of minors, the public ostracization of child marriage, and legal certainty – isarelegitimate. The worldwide fight against child marriage is a worthy goal. So is the desire for legal certainty regarding the validity of specific marriages.

The law is also suitable to serve these purpose: the minor is protected from the legal and factual burdens arising from the marriage; the law may deter couples abroad from getting married (or so the legislator may legitimately speculate; empirical data substantiating this is not available.) A clear age rule avoids the uncertainty of a case-by-case ordre public analysis as the law prior to 2017 had required.

According to the Court, the measures are also necessary towards these purposes, because alternative measures would not be similarly successful. Automatic nullity of the affected marriages is more effective, and potentially less intrusive, than determining nullity in individual proceedings. It is also more effective than case-by-case determinations under a public policy analysis. And it offers better protection of minors than forcing them to go through a procedure aimed at annulling the marriage would.

Nonetheless, the Court sees in the law a violation of the Constitution: the measure is disproportionate to the curtailment of rights. That curtailment is severe: the law invalidates a marriage that the spouses may have considered valid, may have consummated, and around which they may have built a life. Potentially, they would be barred from living together although they consider themselves to be married.

The Court grants that the protection of minors is an important counterargument in view of the risks that child marriages pose to them. So is legal certainty regarding the question of whether a marriage is or is not valid.

But the legislation is disproportionate for two reasons. First, the law does not regulate the consequences of its verdict on nullity. So, not only does the minor spouse lose the legal protections of marriage, including the right to cohabitation; they also lose the rights arising from a proper dissolution of the marriage, including financial claims against the older, and frequently wealthier, spouse. These consequences run counter to the purpose of protecting the minor. Second, the law does not enable the spouses to carry on their marriage legally after both have reached maturity unless they remarry, and remarriage may well be complicated. This runs counter to the desire to protect free choice.

The court could have simply invalidated the law and thereby have gone back to the situation prior to 2017. Normally, substantive validity of a marriage is determined by the law of each spouse’s nationality (art. 13 para. 1 EGBGB). Whether that law can be applied in fact, is then a matter of case-by-case determinations based on the public policy exception (art. 6 EGBGB). That is in fact the solution most private international lawyer (myself included) preferred. The Court refused this simple solution with the speculation that this might have resulted in bigamy for (hypothetical) spouses who had married someone else under the assumption that their marriages were void. (Whether such cases do in fact exist is not clear.) Therefore, the Court has kept the law intact and given the legislator until June 30, 2024 to reform it. In the meantime, the putative spouses of void marriages are also entitled to maintenance on an analogy to the rules on divorce.

III.

The German Constitutional Court has occasionally ruled on the constitutionality of choice-of-law rules before. Its first important decision – the Spaniard decision of 1971 – dealt with whether the Constitution had anything to say about choice of law at all, given that choice of law was widely considered to be purely technical at the time, with no content of constitutional relevance. That decision, which addressed a Spanish prohibition on remarrying after divorce, already concerned the right to marry. Another, more recent decision held that a limping marriage, invalid under German law though valid under foreign law, must nonetheless be treated as a marriage for purposes of social insurance. Both decisions rear their heads in the current decision, forming a prelude to a constitutional issue that now resurfaces: the court is interested less in the status of marriage itself and more in the actual protections that emerge from a marriage.

The legal consequences of a marriage are, of course, manifold, and the legislator’s explicit determination that the child marriage should yield no consequences whatsoever is therefore far-reaching. (Konrad Duden’s proposal to interpret the act so as to restrict this statement to consequences that are negative for the minor is not discussed, unfortunately). Interestingly, the Court accords no fewer than one fifth of its decision, thirteen pages, to a textbook exposition of the relevance of marriage in private international law. Its consequences were among the main reasons for near-unanimity in the German conflict-of-laws field in opposition to the legal reform. Indeed, another fifth of the decision addresses the positions of a wide variety of stakeholders and experts –the federal government and several state governments, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, a variety of associations concerned with the rights of women, children, and human rights as well as psychological associations. Almost all of them urged the Court to rule the law unconstitutional.

These critics will regard the decision as an affirmation, though perhaps not as a full one, because the Court, worried only about consequences, essentially upholds the legislator’s decision to void child marriages entered into before the age of sixteen. This is unfortunate not only because the status of marriage itself is often highly valuable to spouses, as we know from the long struggles for the acceptance of same-sex marriage rather than mere life partnership. Moreover, the result is the acceptance of limping marriages that are however treated as though they were valid. This may be what the Constitution requires. From the perspective of private international law, it seems slightly incoherent to uphold the nullity of a marriage on one hand and then afford its essential protections on the other, both times on the same justification of protecting minors. In this logic, the Court does not question whether the voiding of the marriage is generally beneficial to all minors in question. Moreover, in many foreign cultures, these protections are the exclusive domain of marriage. It must be confusing to tell someone from that culture that the marriage they thought was valid is void, but that it is nonetheless treated as though it were valid for matters of protection.

IV.

An interesting element in the decision concerns the Court’s use of comparative law. Germany’s law reform was not an outlier: it came among a whole flurry of reforms in Europe that were quite comprehensively compiled and analyzed in a study by the Hamburg Max Planck Institute (it is available, albeit only in German, open access). In recent years, many countries have passed stricter laws vis-à-vis child marriages celebrated under foreign law: France (2006), Switzerland (2012), Spain (2015), the Netherlands (2015), Denmark (2017), Norway (2007/2018), Sweden (2004/2019) and Finland (2019). Such reforms were successful virtue-signaling devices vis-a-vis rising xenophobia (not surprisingly, right-wingers in Germany have already come out again to criticize the Constitutional Court). Substantively, these laws treat foreign child marriages with different degrees of severity – the German law is especially harsh. However, comparative law reveals more than just matters of doctrine. Several empirical reports have demonstrated that foreign laws were not more successful at reducing the number of child marriages than was the German law, which is more a function of economic and social factors elsewhere than of European legislation. Worse, the laws sometimes had harmful consequences, not only for couples separated against their will, but even for politicians: in Denmark, one former immigration minister was impeached after reports by the Danish Red Cross of a suicide attempt, depression, and other negative psychosocial effects of the law on married minors. And surveys have shown that enforcement of the laws has been spotty in Germany and elsewhere.

The Constitutional Court did not need to pay much attention to these empirical reports. In assessing whether annulling foreign marriages was necessary, the Court did however take guidance from the Max Planck comparative law study, pointing out (nos 182, 189) that the great variety of alternative measures in foreign legislation made it implausible that the German solution – no possibility to validate a marriage at age eighteen – is necessary . This makes for a good example of the usefulness of comparative law – comparative private international law, to be more precise –  even for domestic constitutional law. If demonstrating that a measure is necessary requires showing a lack of alternatives, then comparative law can furnish both the alternatives as well as empirical evidence of their effectiveness. That comparative law can be put to such practical use is good news.

V.

The German legislator must now reform its law. What should it do? The Court has hinted at a minimal solution: consider these marriages void without exception, but extend post-divorce maintenance to them, and enable the couple to affirm their marriage, either openly or tacitly, once they are of age. In formulating such rules, comparative analysis of various legal reforms in other countries would certainly be of great help.

But the legislator may also take this admonition from the Constitutional Court as an impetus for a bigger step. Not everything that is constitutionally permissible is also politically and legally sound. The German reform was rushed through in 2017 in the anxiousness of the so-called refugee crisis. The same was true, with some modifications, of other countries’ reforms. What the German legislator can learn from them is not only alternative modes of regulation but also that these reforms’ limited success is not confined to Germany. This insight could spark legislation that focuses more on the actual situation and needs of minors than on the desire to ostracize child marriage on their backs. Such legislation may well reintroduce case-by-case analysis, something private international lawyers know not to be afraid of. This holds true especially in view of the fact that the provision does not regulate a mass problem but rather a relatively small number of cases which is unlikely to create excessive burdens on agencies and the judiciary. The legislator could also substitute the place of celebration for the spouses’ nationality as the relevant connecting factor for substantive marriage requirements, as the German Council for Private International Law, an advisor to the legislator, has already proposed (Coester-Waltjen, IPRax 2021, 29). This would make it possible to distinguish more clearly between two very different situations: couples wanting to get married in Germany (where the age restriction makes eminent sense) on the one hand, and couples who already got married, validly, in their home countries and find their actually existing marriage to be put in question. Indeed, this might be a good opportunity to move from a system that designates the applicable law to a system that recognizes foreign acts, as is the case already in some other legal systems.

In any case, the Court decision provides Germany with an opportunity to move the fight against child marriage back to where it belongs and where it has a better chance of succeeding – away from private international law, and towards economic and other forms of aid to countries in which child marriage would be less rampant if they were less afflicted with war and poverty.

For litigants embroiled in cross-border litigation, the anti-suit injunction has become a staple in the conflict of laws arsenal of common law courts. Its purpose being to restrain a party from instituting or prosecuting proceedings in a foreign country, it is regularly granted to uphold arbitration or choice of court agreements, to stop vexatious or oppressive proceedings, or to protect the jurisdiction of the forum court. However, what is a party to do if the foreign proceeding has already run its course and resulted in an unfavourable judgment? Enter the anti-enforcement injunction, which, as the name suggests, seeks to restrain a party from enforcing a foreign judgment, including, potentially, in the country of judgment.

Decisions granting an anti-enforcement injunction are “few and far between” (Ecobank Transnational Inc v Tanoh [2015] EWCA Civ 1309, [2016] 1 WLR 2231, [118]). Lawrence Collins LJ (as he then was) described it as “a very serious matter for the English court to grant an injunction to restrain enforcement in a foreign country of a judgment of a court of that country” (Masri v Consolidated Contractors International (UK) Ltd (No. 3) [2008] EWCA Civ 625, [2009] QB 503 at [93]). There must be a good reason why the applicant did not take action earlier, to prevent the plaintiff from obtaining the judgment in the first place. The typical scenario is where an applicant seeks to restrain enforcement of a foreign judgment that has been obtained by fraud.

This was the scenario facing the New Zealand High Court in the recent case of Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley Family Trustee Limited [2022] NZHC 2881. The Court granted an (interim) anti-enforcement injunction in relation to a default judgment worth USD136,290,994 obtained in Kentucky (note that the order was made last year but the judgment has only now been released). The decision is noteworthy not only because anti-enforcement injunctions are rarely granted, but also because the injunction was granted in circumstances where the foreign proceeding was not also brought in breach of a jurisdiction agreement. Previously, the only example of a court having granted an injunction in the absence of a breach of a jurisdiction agreement was the case of SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 599 (see Tiong Min Yeo “Foreign Judgments and Contracts: The Anti-Enforcement Injunction” in Andrew Dickinson and Edwin Peel A Conflict of Laws Companion – Essays in Honour of Adrian Briggs (OUP, 2021) 254).

Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley Family Trustee Limited involves allegations of “a massive global fraud” perpetrated by the defendants – a New Zealand company (Wikeley Family Trustee Ltd), an Australian resident with a long business history in New Zealand (Mr Kenneth Wikeley), and a New Zealand citizen (Mr Eric Watson) – against the plaintiff, Kea Investments Ltd (Kea), a British Virgin Islands company. Kea alleges that the US default judgment is based on fabricated claims intended to defraud Kea. Its substantive proceeding claims tortious conspiracy and a declaration that the Kentucky judgment is not recognised or enforceable in New Zealand. Applying for an interim injunction, the plaintiff argued that “the New Zealand Court should exercise its equitable jurisdiction now to prevent a New Zealand company … from continuing to perpetrate a serious and massive fraud on Kea” (at [27]) by restraining the defendants from enforcing the US judgment.

The judgment is illustrative of the kind of cross-border fraud that private international law struggles to deal with effectively: here, alleged fraudsters using the Kentucky court to obtain an illegitimate judgment and, apparently, frustrate the plaintiff’s own enforcement of an earlier (English) judgment, in circumstances where the Kentucky court is unwilling (or unable?) to intervene because Kea was properly served with the proceeding in BVI.

Gault J considered that the case was “very unusual” (at [68]). Kea had no connection to Kentucky, except for the defendants’ allegedly fabricated claim involving an agreement with a US choice of court agreement and a selection of the law of Kentucky. Kea also did not receive actual notice of the Kentucky proceedings until after the default judgement was obtained (at [73]). In these circumstances, the defendants were arguably “abusing the process of the Kentucky Court to perpetuate a fraud”, with the result that “the New Zealand Court’s intervention to restrain that New Zealand company may even be seen as consistent with the requirement of comity” (at [68]).

One may wonder whether the Kentucky Court agrees with this assessment – that a foreign court’s injunction restraining enforcement of its judgment effectively amounts to an act of comity. In fact, Kea had originally advanced a cause of action for abuse of process, claiming that the alleged fraud was an abuse of process of the Kentucky Court. It later dropped the claim, presumably due to a recent English High Court decision (W Nagel (a firm) v Chaim Pluczenik [2022] EWHC 1714) concluding that the tort of abuse of process does not extend to foreign proceedings (at [96]). The English Court said that extending the tort to foreign proceedings “would be out of step with [its] ethos”, which is “the Court’s control of its own powers and resources” (at [97]). It was not for the English court “to police or to second guess the use of courts of or law in foreign jurisdictions” (at [97]).

Since Gault J’s decision granting interim relief, the defendants have protested the Court’s jurisdiction, arguing that Kea is bound by a US jurisdiction clause and that New Zealand is not the appropriate forum to determine Kea’s claims. The Court has set aside the protest to jurisdiction (Kea Investments Ltd v Wikeley Family Trustee Limited [2023] NZHC 466). The Court also ordered that the interim orders continue, although the Court was not prepared to make a further order that the defendants consent to the discharge of the default judgment and withdraw their Kentucky proceedings. This, Gault J thought, was “a bridge too far” at this interim stage (at [98]).

As the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting approaches, the ASIL Private International Law Interest Group (PILIG) warmly invites you to a career talk featuring professional development in Private International Law.

• 2:00 PM-3:00 PM ET, Thursday 30 March
Venue: Embassy, Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009

Neale Bergman, Attorney-Adviser, Office of the Legal Adviser (L/EB), U.S. Department of State
Milana Karayanidi, Counsel, Orrick
James Nafziger, Professor of Law, Vice-Chair, International Law Association (ILA)
Rekha Rangachari, Secretary-General, New York International Arbitration Center
David Stewart, Professor from Practice, Georgetown Law

This panel of seasoned experts will share their experiences and offer advice concerning career paths in international and particularly private international law fields, in areas such as research, government related work, dispute resolution, international development, and legal information. A short networking session will be offered to participants to further engage with speakers after the panel discussion.

In addition, we invite PILIG members, PILIG newsletter editors, and PILIG friends to join us for a casual happy hour gathering at the McClellan’s Sports Bar located at the Washington Hilton. Please find event details below:

• Happy Hour

4:00 PM- 5:00 PM ET, Thursday 30 March
Social & Networking Event
McClellan’s Sports Bar

No Host Bar
We hope to celebrate with you the conclusion of “pandemic years” while you enjoy ASIL’s excellent conference programs. We look forward to learning any PIL (and non-PIL) inspirations from you for the more exciting years to come. Everyone is welcome to stop by.

• PILIG newsletter editors recruiting 

We also invite scholars, practitioners, and students to contact us to become a PILIG newsletter editor.

ASIL Private International Law Interest Group Co-Chairs

Shu Shang <sshang@cpp.edu>

Jeanne Huang <jeanne.huang@sydney.edu.au>

By Dr Benjamin Hayward

Those who enjoy playing video games as a pastime (though certainly not in the competitive esports environment) might take advantage of different forms of assistance when they find themselves stuck.  Once upon a time, they might have read up on tips and tricks printed in a physical video game magazine.  These days, they are more likely to head online for help.  They might seek out hints – tidbits of information that help point the gamer in the right direction, but that still allow them to otherwise work out a solution on their own.  They might use cheats – which allow the gamer ‘to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay’.  Otherwise, they might use a walkthrough – which, as the name suggests, might walk a player through the requirements of perhaps even ‘an entire video game’.

Despite initial appearances, these definitions do more than just tell us about recreation in general, and gaming culture in particular.  They also help us understand the state of play in relation to the Australian Consumer Law’s application to the digital economy, and, in turn, the ACL’s implications for international digital economy trade.

This video game analogy is actually very apt: gaming set the scene for recent litigation confirming the ACL’s application to off-shore video game vendors.  In the Valve case concerning the Steam computer gaming platform, decisions of the Federal Court of Australia and (on appeal) its Full Court confirmed that reach, via interpretation of the ACL’s s 67 conflict of laws provision.  The High Court of Australia denied special leave for any further appeal.  In the subsequent Sony Europe case, concerning the PlayStation Network, liability was not contested.  On the other hand, there was a live issue in Valve – at least at first instance – as to whether or not video games constitute ‘goods’ for the purposes of the ACL’s consumer guarantees.  The ACL’s statutory definition of goods includes ‘computer software’.  Expert evidence, not contested and accepted by the Federal Court, treated computer software as equivalent to executable files; which may work with reference to non-executable data, which is not computer software in and of itself.

Understanding the ACL’s definition of ‘goods’ has significant implications.  The ‘goods’ concept is a gateway criterion: it determines whether or not the ACL’s consumer guarantees apply, and in turn, whether it is possible to mislead consumers about the existence of associated rights.  So far as digital economy trade is concerned, case law addressing Australia’s regular Sale of Goods Acts confirms that purely-digital equivalents to traditional physical goods are not ‘goods’ at common law.  Any change to this position, according to the New South Wales Supreme Court, requires statutory intervention.  Such intervention did occur when the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) transitioned into the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).  Now, ‘computer software’ constitutes a statutory extension to the common law definition of ‘goods’ that would otherwise apply.

It is against all this context that a very recent decision of the Federal Court of Australia – ACCC v Booktopia Pty Ltd [2023] FCA 194 – is of quite some interest.  Whilst most of the decision is uncontroversial, one aspect stands out: the Court held, consistently with Booktopia’s admission, that eBooks fall within the scope of the ACL’s consumer guarantee protections.  This finding contributed to an AUD $6 million civil pecuniary penalty being imposed upon Booktopia for a range of breaches of the ACL.  But is it actually correct?  Whether or not that is so depends upon whether the statutory phrase ‘computer software’ extends to digital artefacts other than traditional desktop computer programs.  There is actually good reason, based upon the expert evidence tendered and accepted in the Valve litigation, to think not.

So what does the Booktopia case represent?  It could be a hint – an indication that will eventually lead us to a fully-explained understanding of the ACL’s wide reach across the digital economy.  In this sense, it might be a pointer that helps us to eventually solve this interpretative problem on our own.  Or it could be a cheat – a conclusion possibly justified in the context of this individual case given Booktopia’s admissions, but not generalisable to the ACL’s normal operation.  Either way, given the ACCC’s expressed view (not necessarily supported by the ACL’s actual text) that ‘[c]onsumers who buy digital products … have the same rights as those who shop in physical stores’, what we really need now is a walkthrough: a clear and reasoned explanation of exactly what ‘computer software’ actually means for the purposes of the ACL.  This will ensure that traders have the capacity to know their legal obligations, and will also allow Parliament to extend the ACL’s digital economy protections if its reach is actually limited in the way that my own scholarship suggests.

All of this has significant implications for international trade, as ‘many transfers’ of digital assets ‘are made between participants internationally’.  The increasing internationalisation and digitalisation of trade makes it imperative that this ambiguity be resolved at the earliest possible opportunity.  Since, in the words of the Booktopia judgment, ACL penalties ‘must be of an appropriate amount to ensure that [their] payment is not simply seen as a cost of doing business’, traders – including international traders – do need to know with certainty whether or not they are subject to its consumer protection regime.

Dr Benjamin Hayward
Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash Business School
Twitter: @LawGuyPI
International Trade and International Commercial Law research group: @MonashITICL

The latest edition of Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws, jointly edited by The Rt Hon. the Lord Collins of Mapesbury and Professor Jonathan Harris KC (Hon.), was published by Sweet & Maxwell in September 2022. First published in 1896, Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws is in its 16th edition. The publisher provides the following description for this pre-eminent treatise on private international law.

Further information is available here.

The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on Thursday 30 March 2023 at 14:30 (Mexico City time – CST), 22:30 (CEST time). The topic of the webinar is Family law in England and Wales and cross-border problems and will be presented by Carolina Marín Pedreño, specialist in Family law and former president of the Westminster & Holborn Law Society (in Spanish).

The details of the webinar are:

Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82391552268?pwd=dSt5K2V1elNvSURyVE1nOTB6M2p3dz09

Meeting ID: 823 9155 2268

Password: AMEDIP

Participation is free of charge.

This event will also be streamed live: https://www.facebook.com/AmedipMX

This summary was provided by the author, Naivi Chikoc Barreda, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa.

The book Succession internationale et dispositions spéciales de la lex rei sitae. Contribution à l’étude de l’impérativité internationale en matière successorale  by Naivi Chikoc Barreda (L’Harmattan, Paris, December 2022) offers an in-depth reflection on the subject of overriding mandatory provisions in matters of succession, through an analysis of the clause allowing the application of the special provisions of the lex rei sitae which derogate from the unitary law of succession.

In Part I, the author traces the historical origins of the “territorial exception” to the unitary system in German legal literature and studies its subsequent development in the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code and in the convention drafts drawn up by the Hague Convention between 1900 and 1928. Theorized by Savigny under the concept of “Gesetze von zwingender, strengthe positiver Natur“, these special rules were associated with the public policy clause by the Hague drafts, under the influence of the Mancinian doctrine. To explain this convergence, the author analyzes the relationship between public policy and territoriality in the period in which these projects were conceived. The clause concerning the special regimes of the situs was finally detached from the public policy exception in the 1989 Convention. However, the methodological transformations in the field of Private international law during the second half of the XXth century left the phenomenon in a shadowy area. Unable to fit into the “new” approaches to public policy and overriding mandatory provisions, the derogatory application of the lex rei sitae took the form of a substantially oriented conflict rule. When the European legislator decided to insert the clause in Article 30 of Regulation 650/2012, it discarded the conflictual model and adopted the method of “lois de police”, thus restoring the Savignian understanding of this exception. The author discusses the reasons for this methodological choice, by exploring the family, economic and social purposes of these rules in accordance with the principles underlying the autonomous interpretation of the regulation.

Part II addresses the complex issues arising out of the interaction between succession and other choice-of-law categories involved in the transfer of certain assets upon death. Most of the special provisions examined are at the intersection of several categories, their goal being precisely to ensure the stability of the function that the assets have been serving before the opening of the succession. Thus, it appeared important to distinguish between the ways in which property can be transferred otherwise than by succession, the rules for the distribution of particular assets of the estate, and the rules “affecting” the succession on such property. In the light of the CJEU case law, the author examined the treatment of the constitution of rights in rem by way of succession, the restriction on the acquisition of property by foreigners or non-residents, the transmission of the tenant’s rights after his death, the transfer of company shares, and the succession of the author’s droit de suite. An analytical framework is then proposed to delineate the respective scopes of the lex successionis, the lex rei sitae, the law governing matrimonial property regimes, the law applicable to maintenance obligations, the lex contractus, the lex societatis and the lex loci protectionis.

An extensive analysis is devoted to the compatibility between the clause on the special rules of the lex rei sitae and the concept of overriding mandatory provisions, as formulated in various regulations and interpreted by the CJEU. Two fundamental obstacles seem to prevent such integration: the absence of any reference to the protection of public interests and to the mandatory nature of the rules. Indeed, many of the special rules dealing with the transfer of particular assets for socio-economic purposes are either limited to enabling the owner to allocate the property according to some criteria or are default rules that apply absent a contrary disposition by the deceased. Despite the wording of the clause, the author argues for a shared intertextual interpretation of lois de police that brings the succession regulation in line with the position of other regulations on this issue. The traditional distinction between lois de police and the rules which are only mandatory at a domestic level is subject to a critical analysis from a new angle. The comparative study of the special rules of the lex rei sitae that intervene in succession matters leads the author to deconstruct the concentric circles theory that explain the convergence of both concepts on a core of super-imperative rules. Based on the interaction between the nature of the rule and its purpose in the law of succession, she explains the differences in the relationship of these special rules with party autonomy on a substantive and a PIL level. From this perspective, some permissive and default rules of the situs are consistent with a functional conception of lois de police, freed from a concrete regulatory technique that is supposedly the only one suited to the pursuit of a public interest policy, and therefore deserve to be recognized as potentially having an overriding effect on the lex causae.

The journal, Current Legal Problems yesterday, inter alia, published an open access article on private international law:

Alex Mills, “The Privatisation of Private (and) International Law”

Privatisation is much studied and debated as a general phenomenon, including in relation to its legal effects and the challenges it presents to the boundaries of public and private law. Outside the criminal context there has however been relatively limited focus on privatisation of the governmental functions which are perhaps of most interest to lawyers—law making, law enforcement and dispute resolution—or on the international legal implications of privatisation. This article argues that modern legal developments in the context of private law and cross-border private legal relations—generally known as party autonomy in private international law—can be usefully analysed as two distinct forms of privatisation. First, privatisation of certain allocative functions of public and private international law, in respect of both institutional and substantive aspects of private law regulation, through the legal effect given to choice of court and choice of law agreements. Second, privatisation of the institutional and substantive regulation of private legal relationships themselves, through arbitration and the recognition of non-state law. Together, these developments have established a global marketplace of state and non-state dispute resolution institutions and private laws, which detaches private law authority from its traditional jurisdictional anchors. Analysing these developments through the lens of privatisation highlights a number of important critical questions which deserve greater consideration—this article further examines in particular whether this form of privatisation in fact increases efficiency in either private international law decision-making or private law dispute resolution, as well as its distributive and regulatory effects.

The Chinese lawmakers published the draft Foreign Relations Law and the draft Foreign States Immunities Law in December 2022. The English version of the two drafts published in this post is translated by Jingru Wang at the Wuhan Unviersity Institute of International Law.

Foreign Relations Law of China

Law on Foreign State Immunity of China

Written by Alessa Karlinski and Maren Vogel (both Free University Berlin).

On February 23^rd and 24^th, 2023, young scholars came together at the Siegmund Freud University, Vienna, to discuss different views on private international law under the theme of “Deference to the foreign – empty phrase or guiding principle of private international law?”. Continuing the success of the previous three German-Speaking Conferences of Young Scholars in PIL from previous years in Bonn, Würzburg and Hamburg, this year’s conference was hosted in Austria by Martina Melcher and Florian Heindler who organized the event together with Andreas Engel, Katharina Kaesling, Ben Köhler, Bettina Rentsch, Susanna Roßbach and Johannes Ungerer.

As keynote speaker, Professor Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po Paris) borrowed from the often-used metaphor of the “dismal swamp” to present an “ecosophical” approach to private international law. For this purpose, she engaged anthropological and philosophical insights of Western and indigenous origin on the meaning of law and the regulatory functions of private international law in particular.

Vanessa Grifo (University of Heidelberg) presented possible insights from the theory of the post-migrant society for international family law. Based on sociological accounts of “post-migrant” identities, Grifo discussed that a person’s cultural identity can form “hybrid” solidarity to different legal systems and oppose the collective national identity of the country of immigration. While previously, according to Kegel, connecting factors were understood to build upon certain generally neutral conflict-of-laws interests, cultural identity is becoming a relevant aspect of party interests, which she demonstrated with the help of different recent judgement of the German Federal Court of Justice. This paradigm, Grifo argued, shows a shift from the system of the traditional German understanding of connecting factors following Kegel.

Victoria Garin (European University Institute, Florence) examined the connection between private international law and the concept of Relativism. The basis of her analysis is the contemporary private international law attempting to coordinate conflicting regulatory claims of several legal systems. Garin identified extraterritoriality, difference and equivalence as assumptions used in private international law to solve this conflict. These assumptions, Garin argued, are premised on Relativism in its forms as descriptive and normative theory. Through the lens of Relativism a critical examination of private international law, especially regarding current developments in literature, was made. Garin explained to what extent the criticism of Relativism can be applied to private international law theory.

Dr Shahar Avraham-Giller (Hebrew University Jerusalem) presented two seemingly contradictory developments in private international law. First Avraham-Giller pointed out, that legal questions are increasingly restrictively categorised as procedural questions in the EU and in common law states which leads to a broader application of foreign law as the lex causae. The application of the lex fori to procedural questions can itself be understood as an overriding mandatory provision of the forum. On the other hand, as Avraham-Giller projected, an increased recourse of courts to the means of other overriding mandatory provisions to safeguard national public interests can be observed. In her opinion, these seemingly contradictory developments can be explained as an answer to the development of a more “private” understanding of civil proceedings, seeking primarily peaceful settlement of private disputes, while enforcing other values and public goals through mandatory overriding provisions at the same time.

Raphael Dummermuth (University of Fribourg) then shed light on deference to the foreign in the context of the interpretation of the Lugano Convention. First, he addressed the question of the implementation of the objective of taking into account the case law of the ECJ by non-EU courts, as stated in Art. 1(1) Protocol 2 Lugano Convention. The application of the Lugano Convention, he pointed out, requires a double consideration of the foreign: the court must consider standards or judgments that are outside the Lugano Convention and in doing so apply a foreign methodology. Nonetheless, the one-sided duty of consideration is limited where the results of interpretation are decisively based on principles of EU law. He came to the conclusion, that precedent effect should therefore only be given to results that are justifiable within the scope of the classical methodology.

The first day of the conference closed with a panel discussion between Professor Dietmar Czernich, Professor Georg Kodek and Dr Judith Schacherreiter on deference to the foreign in private international legal practice and international civil procedure. The discussants shared numerous insights: from the appointment of expert opinions on foreign law, to deference to the foreign in international commercial arbitration and the practice of legal advice.

Selina Mack (LMU Munich) opened the second day of the conference examining the ordre public in the field of succession law using the example of the right to a compulsory portion in Austria and Germany. Mack began by comparing similar regulations in Germany and Austria with the so-called family provision in England. She then contrasted a decision of the Supreme Court of Austria (OGH) with a decision of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH), both of which deal with the ordre public according to Art. 35 of the European Inheritance Regulation when applying English law. The ordre public clause under Art. 35 is to be applied restrictively. While the OGH did not consider the ordre public to be infringed, the BGH, on the other hand, assumed an infringement. Mack concluded that this is a fundamental disrespect of the foreign by the BGH.

Tess Bens (MPI Luxembourg) examined methods of enforcing foreign judgments under the Brussels Ia Regulation. Said Regulation does not, in principle, harmonise enforcement law. She presented the enforcement mechanism as applying the enforcement law of the enforcing state by means of substitution or, insofar as the order or measure was unknown to the enforcement law, by means of transposition. Due to structural differences in the enforcement law of the Member States, as Bens outlines, practical problems can nevertheless arise. Especially since the abolition of the exequatur procedure in the case of insufficient concretisation of the enforcement order, the Brussels Ia Regulation does not provide a procedure. Finally, she discussed that these frictions might be mitigated by anticipating differences and requirements of the enforcing by the courts, nonetheless limited due to the difficulty of predictability.

Afterwards, the participants were able to discuss various topics in a small group for one hour in three parallel groups, each introduced by two impulse speeches.

The first group looked at the factor of nationality in private international law. Stefano Dominelli (Università di Genova) introduced into the current debate on the connecting factor of nationality in matters concerning the personal status. In his opinion, it is debateable whether a shift towards the application of local law really strengthens deference to the foreign. Micheal Cremer (MPI Hamburg) looked at the handling of so-called golden passports in the EU. He pointed out, that European conflict of laws regularly does not take the purchased nationality into account, being in line with most of the theoretical approaches to the nationality principle.

The second group focused on the influence of political decisions on the application of foreign law. Dr Adrian Hemler (University of Konstanz) presented the concept of distributive justice as a reason for applying foreign law. He emphasised, that the difference between purely national and foreign constellations makes the application of foreign law necessary. In his presentation, Felix Aiwanger (LMU Munich) looked at different standards of control with regard to foreign law. He argued that legal systems that can be considered as reliable are subject to a simplified content review.

The third group discussed the treatment of foreign institutions in international family law. Dr Lukas Klever (JKU Linz) presented the recognition of decisions on personal status in cases of surrogacy carried out abroad. He discussed differences and possible weaknesses in the recognition under the Austrian conflict of laws and procedural law. Aron Johanson (LMU Munich) then provided a further perspective with a look at the institute of polygamy. He explained, that while in Germany a partial recognition can be possible, Sweden had switched to a regular refusal of recognition. Subsequently the question of a duty of recognition arising from the free movement of persons as soon as one member state recognises polygamy was asked.

Dr Tabea Bauermeister (University of Hamburg) devoted her presentation to the conflict of laws dimension of the claim for damages in Art. 22 of the European Commission’s proposal for a directive on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD), paragraph 5 of which compels the member states to design it as an overriding mandatory provision. She outlined, that regulatory goals can also be achieved through mutual conflict-of-laws provisions. An example of this is the codification of international cartel offence law. Bauermeister concluded, that the use of mandatory overriding provisions instead of special conflict-of-laws provisions expresses a distrust of the foreign legislature’s competence or willingness to regulate and therefore represents a disregard of the foreign.

Dr Sophia Schwemmer (Heidelberg University) then examined private enforcement under the CSDDD vis-à-vis third-state companies. She stated, that while third-state companies were included in the scope of application insofar as they are active in the EU internal market, the applicability of the CSDDD could normally not be achieved using the classic conflict-of-laws rules. The CSDDD resorts to an overriding mandatory provision for this purpose. However, Schwemmer concluded that a different approach, e.g. an extended right of choice of law for the injured party, was also imaginable and preferable.

As last speaker, Dr Lena Hornkohl (University of Vienna/Heidelberg University) addressed the effects of EU blocking regulations on private law. She stated that the application of EU blocking statutes as a reaction to extraterritorial third-country regulations can lead to almost irresolvable conflicts in private law relationships. Hornkohl then critically examined the ECJ case law that postulates the direct applicability of the Blocking Regulation in private law relationships. Binding private parties to the Blocking Regulation, she concluded, leads to the instrumentalisation of private law at the expense of private parties with the aim of enforcing foreign policy objectives.

A conference volume will be published by Mohr Siebeck Verlag later this year. The next PIL Young Researchers Conference will take place in Heidelberg in 2025.

Ever since the infamous West Tankers saga, if not before, the interplay between the international jurisdiction of national courts and arbitral tribunals has been subject to a constant stream of publications. Writing a monograph on this topic that is both fundamental and innovative in this field is therefore no small feat – making this book by Faidon Varesis, which has come out at the beginning of the year and is based on his Cambridge dissertation, all the more impressive.

The book is organized in three parts (which are not evident from the Table of Contents). Varesis first discusses the importance of commercial disputes in a globalized world, focusing on the private and regulatory interests involved. He then looks more closely at the issue of jurisdiction and the interplay between litigation and arbitration at what he identifies as “jurisdictional intersections” (referring to a range of different situations in which state courts or arbitral tribunals need to resolve questions of adjudicative jurisdiction), before discussing the concept of party autonomy and its expression in an arbitration agreement. In the second part, Varesis then develops a theoretical model for the distribution of jurisdiction between arbitration and litigation that puts the arbitration agreement at its centre. In the third and final part, the author then tests this model against the current legal framework in England and Wales and demonstrates how it would enable courts and arbitral tribunals alike to solve questions arising at the aforementioned jurisdictional intersections in a global-law spirit.

Arguably the most significant contribution of this book to existing scholarship and debates is its attempt to construct a system around a “horizontal” (rather than hierarchical) relationship between arbitration and litigation as two equivalent yet interdependent modes of dispute resolution. How much appetite there is for such an approach in the wake of Katharina Pistor’s Code of Capital and other critical accounts of corporations seemingly using the law to create and (re-)distribute capital and wealth behind closed doors is obviously open to debate; but this does not make Varesis’ attempt to reconstruct a horizontal system of jurisdiction, arbitral or adjudicatory, that reconciles the distribution of regulatory competence with the need for substantial fairness any less of an intellectually stimulating exercise.

On 13 March 2023, the Journal of International Dispute Settlement  published a private international law article:

G Antonopoulou, “The ‘Arbitralization’ of Courts: The Role of International Commercial Arbitration in the Establishment and the Procedural Design of International Commercial Courts” 

International commercial arbitration is the most preferred dispute resolution method in cross-border commercial disputes. It has been, however, claimed that arbitration has lost its flexibility by becoming increasingly formal and by incorporating litigation practices. In academic literature, this trend has been termed the ‘judicialization’ of international commercial arbitration. This article argues that while arbitration is becoming progressively judicialized, international commercial courts evidence an opposite, less studied trend; namely, the ‘arbitralization’ of courts. Through a comparative analysis of different international commercial courts, the article explores how the competition with arbitration has prompted the establishment of these courts, and how arbitration has served as the inspiration for some of their most innovative features. The article concludes that while the incorporation of arbitration features could improve court proceedings, some of international commercial courts’ arbitration features undermine procedural justice and the role of courts as public institutions and therefore hit the limits of arbitralization.

A new private international law article was just published in the Arab Law Quarterly.:

A Dawwas, “Tacit Choice of Law Applicable to International Commercial Contracts: The Hague Principles and Arab Laws Compared”

This article deals with the law tacitly chosen by the parties to govern their international commercial contracts. It shows the method by which The 2015 Hague Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts and Arab laws refer to tacit choice, whether directly or indirectly. In addition, it tackles the level of strictness in tests for tacit choice and its criteria under both The Hague Principles and Arab laws. It concludes that, in order to achieve more predictability and legal certainty, the Legislatures in Arab states should reform the legal provisions on choice of law applicable to the contract with foreign element(s) according to the best practice followed by The Hague Principles in this regard.

The lectures of Mario J. A. Oyarzábal entitled “The influence of public international law upon private international law in history and theory and in the formation and application of the law”, which were delivered at The Hague Academy of International Law in 2020, will be published on 22 March 2023 in the Collected Courses of the Academy (Recueil des cours de l’Académie de droit international de La Haye, Vol. 428, 2023, pp. 129 et seq.).

Mario Oyarzábal is an Argentine diplomat and scholar, currently the Ambassador of the Argentine Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The summary below has been provided by the author.

As its title suggests, this course explores the influence of public international law upon private international law, in the history and the theory as well as in the formation and the application of the law.

The course focuses on the biggest transformations that have taken place on the international plane over the course of the last century and assesses how that has affected the legal landscape, raising questions as to the scope and the potential of private international law and the suitability of the traditional sources of international law to address the role of private actors and the incursion of public law in the private arena.

In Chapter I, the author analyses how the concepts of public and private international law have evolved over time, from the Jus Gentium and the origins of the conflict of laws to the rise of sovereignty and positivism which led to the exclusion of private disputes connected with more than one State from the domain of international law. Much attention is given to the developments in international relations and international law that took place since the second half of the 20^th century – institutionalization, decolonization, human rights, globalization – which have produced a profound transformation in the sources, the method and ultimately the scope of private international law. The significance for private international law of the human rights movement and the regime for the protection of foreign investors are assessed from both backward and forward-looking perspectives.

Chapter II addresses the public international law sources of private international law in an ever-changing world. Starting with the sources stated in the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the author digs into the relevance of other international sources of private international law such as community law, human rights standards and non-legally binding norms (or soft law), party autonomy and reciprocity. The law of treaties – their interpretation and the conflict of treaties – as applied to private international law is dealt with in certain detail, as well as the role – and potential – of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in the determination of the rules of private international law in certain areas.

The last Chapter addresses the interaction of public and private international law in selected areas: jurisdictional immunities – of foreign States, diplomats and international organizations – and the right of access to justice; mutual legal assistance – in relation with the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention, and the so-called “MLA initiative” on a convention for the investigation and prosecution of international crimes; sovereign debt restructuring processes in light of Argentina’s experience; the international law principle of the best interests of the child as applied to abducted, migrant and refugee children; international sports law with special focus on FIFA and football; international arts law under the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention and general international law; cybercrime as well as cryptocurrencies. The private international law issues relating to nationality, deep seabed mining, and sea level rise – which are the subjects of public international law – are also introduced.

Having analyzed the prevailing trends, the lectures survey three areas in which the interconnectivity of actors, activities and norms are present requiring public/private law solutions: international economic law – in relation to climate litigation and the human rights preoccupations present in the investment protection regime, as well as the issue of economic and financial sanctions which have exacerbated with the war in Ukraine; international data flows and the threat they pose to personal data protection in particular; and the protection of vulnerable persons and groups including older adults, tourists and migrants.

This course takes a pragmatic problem-solving approach, which nonetheless is systemic and based on principles, and argues that while public and private international law are and should be kept as separate legal fields, both are needed to address an increasing number of issues.    

Below is the table of contents:

The Influence of Public International Law upon Private International Law: In History and Theory and in the Formation and Application of the Law by Mario J. A. Oyarzábal:

Table of Contents
Foreword 141
Preliminary remarks 143

Chapter I. The influence of public international law upon the history and the theory of private international law 146
1. The evolving concepts of public and private international law 146
2. A historical and theoretical overview 151
(a) Jus gentium and the origins of the conflict of laws 151
(b) International comity 152
(c) Sovereignty and the dearth of the internationalist approach . 154
(d) The legal conscience of the civilised world 155
(e) The early normative and institutionalisation efforts 158
(f) The Russian and the American revolutions 163
(g) The growing international legal community 170
(h) International law and development 176
(i) Public law in the international arena 186
(j) The privatisation of the State 196
(k) Expansion and diversification of international law 198
(l) Significance for private international law of the human rights movement 209
(m) From international law to transnational law 223
3. Should private international law be international law? 230

Chapter II. The influence of public international law upon the formation of private international law 240
A. Sources of the law 240
1. Customary international law 240
2. Treaties 244
(a) Private international lawmaking treaties  244
(b) Validity and application of treaties 248
(c) Reservations  255
(d) Interpretation of treaties

(e) Application of successive treaties regarding the same subject matter

(f) Treaties as part of the domestic systems of private international law

(g) Incidences of non-recognition of States, breach of diplomatic relations and State succession 259
3. General principles of law 286
4. Judicial decisions  290
(a) Decisions of the ICJ and its predecessor 290
(b) Arbitral awards  298
(c) Decisions of national courts  302
5. The writings of publicists  307
B. Other sources 309
1. “Community” law 309
2. Human rights standards  317
3. Non-legally binding norms 324
4. Party autonomy 332
5. Reciprocity 333
Note on comity 339
Note on international conferences and organisations concerned with private international law 340

Chapter III. The influence of public international law upon the application of private international law: selected problems 342
1. Jurisdictional immunities and the right of access to justice 342
2. From mutual recognition to international legal cooperation  365
3. Sovereign debt restructuring: Public and private law litigation 379
4. International law on the rights of the child 411
(a) International human rights of children in private international law 411
(b) Best interests of abducted children 416
(c) The protection of the best interests of migrant children 421
(d) Best interests of the child in intercountry adoption 428
5. International sports law 431
(a) International sports organisations: Personality and lawmaking and law enforcement 431
(b) The case of FIFA 439
6. International art law 449
(a) Cultural internationalism and cultural nationalism 449
(b) The public and the private international law approaches 452
(c) Free market and exports control 455
(d) Human rights considerations 456
(e) Anti-seizure statutes 458
(f) Conflicts law in illegally exported works of art 461
(g) Cultural heritage, peace and security 462
7. International norms and standards in cyberspace 464
(a) Cybercrime, rights and global politics 466
(b) The rise of cryptocurrency 468
Note on nationality 473
Note on deep seabed mining and the protection of the marine environment 476
Note on sea level rise 477
Critical recap and outlook 480
Epilogue 503
Selected bibliography 505

The HCCH this month published some recent developments on private international law in Issue 1 of Uniform Law Review for 2023 as “News from the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH)”

Over the past year, the HCCH, supported by its Permanent Bureau, has continued its work for the progressive unification of the rules of private international law (PIL). This annual contribution to the Uniform Law Review provides an overview of the activities of the HCCH from 1 November 2021 to 30 November 2022 and anticipates some upcoming events, encompassing the HCCH’s three main areas of work: international family and child protection law, transnational litigation and apostille, and international commercial, digital, and financial law.

Originally posted in News and events – Nigeria Group on Private International Law (ngpil.org)

On 4 March 2023, the Nigerian Group on Private International Law (“NGPIL”) colleagues were pleased to meet the winners of the 2023 NGPIL Conflict of Law’s Essay Prize. This year, we awarded two candidates, winner and first runner up, for excellent and engaging pieces on PIL and Nigeria.

Our winner, Oluwabusola Fagbemi, an LLM student from the University of Ibadan, Oyo State emerged as the winner of this year’s competition. She wrote on “A Comparative Analysis of Product Liability in the Conflict of Laws”, a piece that the deciding panel found to engage robust research, comprising of Nigeria common law, EU approach, English approach and US approach. Our winner was awarded 185,000NGN. In her words “It is an honour to be selected for The NGPIL Prize for the year 2022/2023. Thank you very much…It was also great to get to know them [NGPIL] and hear of their exciting work, and the impact that they are making in the PIL space globally… believe that The NGPIL is the right place for me to grow, learn, advance my career, and develop my interests in PIL. I will definitely keep in touch and remain connected, and I am looking forward to future collaboration.”

Adeyinka Adeoye from the Nigerian School of Law, Kano Campus received the 1^st runner prize on her paper entitled “Product Liability in Private International Law” from a Nigerian perspective. She was awarded 65,000NGN. In her words “I am super excited that my essay emerged first runner-up. This news came at the best possible time“.

Huge congratulations to Busola and Adeyinka!

The Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP) of the HCCH met from 7 to 10 March 2023. The meeting was attended by over 450 participants, representing 80 HCCH Members, 8 non-Member States, 7 intergovernmental organizations, 9 international non-governmental organizations, and members of the Permanent Bureau. The Conclusions & Decisions adopted by CGAP are now available in English and French.

In terms of work relating to possible new legislative instruments, CGAP mandated the establishment of a Working Group on private international law (PIL) matters related to legal parentage generally, including legal parentage resulting from an international surrogacy arrangement. Noting progress made by the Working Group on matters related to jurisdiction in transnational civil or commercial litigation in the development of provisions for a draft Convention, CGAP invited the convening of two further Working Group meetings. It also supported further exploratory work on the PIL implications of the digital economy, including, among other, by mandating the conduct of a study on the PIL implications of CBDCs and by endorsing the launch of the HCCH-UNIDROIT Project on Law Applicable to Cross-Border Holdings and Transfers of Digital Assets and Tokens. Across several projects, CGAP welcomed the cooperation with UNCITRAL, UNIDROIT, and WIPO, including with respect to work in the areas of digital economy, insolvency proceedings and intellectual property.

In relation to post-Convention work, CGAP approved the Toolkit to Prevent and Address Illicit Practices on Intercountry Adoption and the Model Forms for use under the 1993 Adoption Convention, mandated the development of a Template for Country Fact Sheets on available post-adoption services relating to search for origins, and mandated the establishment of a Working Group on financial aspects of intercountry adoption. CGAP also agreed upon the extension of the scope of the International Hague Network of Judges (IHNJ) to matters relating to the 2000 Protection of Adults Convention. CGAP endorsed the Conclusions & Recommendations of the recent meetings of the Special Commissions (SCs) on the practical operation of the 1993 Adoption, 2000 Protection of Adults, and 2007 Child Support Conventions, and welcomed the preparations for the upcoming meetings of the SCs on the practical operation of the 1980 Child Abduction and 1996 Child Protection Conventions, to be held in the second half of 2023, and on the practical operation of the 1965 Service, 1970 Evidence and 1980 Access to Justice Conventions. Finally, CGAP mandated the PB to continue work, in partnership with relevant subject-matter experts, and subject to available resources, to study the 2006 Securities Convention and digital developments in respect of securities markets; the interpretation of analogous institutions for the purpose of Article 2 of the 1985 Trusts Convention; and, in relation to the 2015 Choice of Law Principles, the feasibility, desirability and necessity of developing guidance on applicable law in international contracts providing protection to weaker parties.

From a good governance perspective, CGAP approved the HCCH Strategic Plan for 2023-2028. It also decided to adopt Spanish as an official language of the HCCH as of 1 July 2024. Finally, CGAP decided to recommend Dr Christophe Bernasconi to the Netherlands Standing Government Committee on Private International Law for the position of Secretary General of the HCCH for another five-year mandate.

This book, by Adeline Chong and Man Yip, faculty members at the Yong Pung How School of Law at the Singapore Management University, is part of the Oxford Private International Law Series. There is a 30% discount for purchases made through the OUP website using the promotion code AUTHFLY30. The publisher’s blurb is as follows:

“There has been significant reform in Singapore private international law in recent years. Developments such as the establishment of the Singapore International Commercial Court, the incorporation of the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements into Singapore law, and the enactment of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, have all thrown the country into a period of rapid growth.

Singapore Private International Law: Commercial Issues and Practice provides a roadmap to assist readers in navigating this changing landscape. In it, Chong and Yip offer an overview of Singapore’s legal system, exploring how governmental and judicial efforts have capitalised on Singapore’s location at the heart of Asia, its status as a leading financial centre globally, and its modern infrastructure, to make it the hub of choice for cross-border disputes and insolvency and restructuring efforts. Practical guidance is given to matters such as changes to jurisdiction, protective measures, the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, general choice of law issues, and issues specific to contract, tort, unjust enrichment, equitable obligations, trusts, property, corporations, and international insolvency and corporate restructuring. The book also looks at how the English common law principles have been implemented and developed in Singapore, with relevant cases, legislation, and foreign sources used to offer a comparative perspective.”

Further information can be found at this link: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/singapore-private-international-law-9780198837596?cc=sg&lang=en&#