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By Vincent Richard, Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European, and Regulatory Procedural Law

In view of the upcoming election, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the French Minister of Justice released an “open letter” (57 pages) to his successor published by Dalloz. It details what has been done and what should be done in the field of justice in France over the next years.

The letter covers topics such as access to justice, technology in the judiciary and focuses on criminal justice and independence of the judiciary. Conditions of detention and prison policy are the most discussed issues in the current French political campaign in the field of justice.

The readers of this blog will be mostly interested in Chapter IX of the letter which deals with Justice in Europe. In this part, the Minister pleads in favour of enhanced cooperation notably regarding the future European Public Prosecutor’s office. He also advocates for the creation of international chambers within French courts and proposes to establish a European Centre for Judicial Translation (“centre européen de traduction judiciaire”) designed to alleviate the burden of translation (and its cost) on national courts.

We also wanted to underline the following quote which summarises the Minister’s views on judicial cooperation and mutual trust:

“Dans les faits, cette coopération s’est édifiée depuis vingt ans sur le principe de la reconnaissance mutuelle des décisions de justice, qui lui-même suppose la confiance réciproque entre les autorités des États membres. Or cette confiance ne se décrète pas, elle se construit. Et c’est objectivement devenu une gageure à 27 ou à 28. Il faut donc trouver le bon équilibre, ne pas céder à l’illusion de l’harmonisation des procédures judiciaires ou à une uniformisation, séduisante sur le papier, mais irréalisable en pratique. Il s’agit du penchant naturel de la Commission européenne, même si elle déploie de puis quelques années des efforts louables pour moins et mieux légiférer.”

You can find the full text (in French) here: http://www-nog.dalloz-actualite.fr/sites/dalloz-actualite.fr/files/resources/2017/04/gds_ambition_justice-global000.pdf

Tribunal correctionnel de Coutances, 22 mars 2017

In Coast and Country Association of Queensland Inc v Smith & Ors [2016] QCA 242, the Queensland Court of Appeal held among others that the Land Court was correct not to include emissions from the burning of coal ex Australia, in the environmental impact assessment part of permitting decisions relating to Queensland coal mines: ‘It is outside the Land Court’s jurisdiction under s 269(4)(j) Mineral Resources Act 1989 (Qld) to consider the impact of activities beyond those carried on under the authority of the proposed mining lease, such as the impact of what the Land Court described as “scope 3 emissions.” These include environmentally harmful global greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the transportation and burning of coal after its removal from the proposed mines.’

As BakerMcKenzie note (a good summary of the issues which I happily refer to),  this does not mean that such impact may not be taken into account at all:  It can be considered when weighing up whether “the public right and interest is prejudiced”, and as to whether “any other good reason has been shown for a refusal”. However the Land Court tends not to have much sympathy for that view: contrary to eg the Dutch approach in the Urgenda case, the Land Court views the coal market as essentially demand driven: if no Australian coal is used, other coal will be – so one might as well make it Australian.

The High Court of Australia, Baker report, have now confirmed (without formally endorsing the approach), that Land Courts decisions wil not be subject to further appeal on these grounds. (So far I have only found the reference to the case on the Court’s ledger).

Not much prospect for well to wheel considerations in Queensland /Australia therefore. Interesting material for a comparative environmental law class.

Geert.

Les activités de forces armées en période de conflit armé, au sens du droit international humanitaire, peuvent constituer des « actes de terrorisme », au sens du droit de l’Union européenne.

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Un communiqué du garde des Sceaux du 28 mars 2017 indique que la France et douze autres États membres ont signé une lettre de notification traduisant leur volonté de mettre en place le parquet européen selon la procédure de coopération renforcée.

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Benjamin Hayward, Conflict of Laws and Arbitral Discretion – The Closest Connection Test, Oxford University Press, 2017, ISBN 9780198787440, pp. 408, GBP 125

Arbitration is the dispute resolution method of choice in international commerce, but it rests on a complex legal foundation. In many international commercial contracts, the parties will choose the law governing any future disputes. However, where the parties do not choose a governing law, the prevailing approach in arbitration is to afford arbitrators broad and largely unfettered discretion to choose the law considered most appropriate or most applicable. The uncertainty resulting from this discretion potentially affects the parties’ rights and obligations, the performance of their contract, the presentation of their cases, and negotiations undertaken to settle their disputes. In this text, Dr Benjamin Hayward critically reviews the prevailing approach to the conflict of laws in international commercial arbitration. The text adopts a focused and detail-oriented analysis – being based on a study of more than 130 sets of arbitral laws and rules from around the world, and drawing heavily on arbitral case law. Nevertheless, it remains both practical and accessible, taking as its focus the needs and expectations of commercial parties, who are the ultimate users of international commercial arbitration. This text identifies the difficulties that result from resolving conflicts of laws through broad and unconstrained arbitral discretions. It establishes that a bright-line test would be a preferable way to resolve arbitral conflicts of laws. Specifically, it recommends a modified Art. 4 Rome Convention rule as the ideal basis for law reform in this area of arbitral procedure.

by Zoltán Fabók LL.M. (Heidelberg), visiting lecturer at ELTE University, PhD Candidate at Nottingham Trent University

The Hungarian Parliament has recently adopted a new act on private international law (see the previous post by Tamás Szabados). The legislator set ambitious goals: the new law extends, somewhat surprisingly, to the PIL aspects – jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition of foreign proceedings – of the international insolvency law.

Indeed, the previous Hungarian PIL framework was unfit to adequately address the relevant questions of the international insolvency law outside the context of the Insolvency Regulation. In cross-border situations, the existing regime did not function properly and this resulted in legal uncertainty, improper protection of the foreign debtor’s assets located in Hungary and the neglect of the principle of collective proceedings.

Admittedly, the new law appears to make some (limited) progress regarding the provisions on jurisdiction of Hungarian courts and the law applicable for insolvency proceedings. However, concerning recognition of foreign insolvency proceedings opened in non-EU states the legislator has opted for a flawed model: the extension of the effects of the foreign lex concursus to Hungary. Extending the legal effects of insolvency proceedings opened in third states to Hungary without any substantive filter (save for the public policy exception) does not appear to be realistic. The counterbalance introduced by the new law – namely that the recognition would be conditional upon reciprocity – does not really help: it will simply make the system inoperative vis-à-vis most foreign states. In effect, in most cases no foreign insolvency proceedings would be recognised in Hungary. This may cause that the foreign debtor’s assets located in Hungary would be exposed to individual enforcement actions meaning the violation of the principle of the collective proceedings.

My paper argues that the enactment of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency by Hungary would adequately fill the regulatory gap left open by the new PIL Act. Rather than extending the legal effects of foreign insolvency proceedings to Hungary, the Model Law attaches limited sui generis legal consequences to foreign insolvency proceedings. The Model Law would allow Hungary to keep under control the infiltration of the effects of foreign insolvency proceedings from third states in relation to which it has no full confidence while maintaining the idea of collective insolvency proceedings by protecting the assets of the foreign debtor located in Hungary and preventing individual actions. In other words, the Model Law represents a flexible approach looking for a balance between recognising the universal effects of the insolvency as provided for by the lex concursus on the one hand and the rigid territorial principle disregarding the foreign insolvency proceedings on the other.

One could question whether the PIL Act is the proper legal framework for addressing international insolvency law. Arguably, the rules on international insolvency should fall outside the scope of the PIL Act: international insolvency law is a rather complex field of law consisting of elements of conflict of laws, international procedural law and insolvency-specific norms. It would be reasonable to deal with this area of law in the Insolvency Act or in a separate piece of legislation.

The paper has been accepted by UNCITRAL for publication in the compilation to be issued after the 50th Anniversary Congress. An earlier preprint version, reflecting to the preliminary drafts of the new PIL Act, can be downloaded from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2919047.

Jean-Jacques Urvoas publie, aux Éditions Dalloz, une lettre destinée au futur garde des Sceaux. Il y présente dix chantiers pour les années à venir.

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La Commission européenne annonce, dans un communiqué du 22 mars 2017, avoir décidé d’enregistrer deux initiatives citoyennes européennes (ICE) consacrées aux droits des citoyens à la suite du Brexit tout en s’opposant à une troisième proposition visant à bloquer celui-ci.

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La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme (CEDH), dans son arrêt de chambre du 6 avril 2017, condamne la France parce qu’elle imposait le plus souvent une opération stérilisante obligatoire comme préalable au changement d’identité sexuelle à l’état civil.

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