Droit international général

The Faculty of Law of the University of Bremen is recruiting a doctoral researcher in Private International Law, Civil Law and Legal Theory (‘wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter’ m/w/d; salary group 13 TV-L), part time 50 per cent, starting in 2025, for a duration of 36 months.

The researcher will provide scientific services in teaching to the extent of 2 SWS, and will be expected to work towards a PhD-thesis (doctor iuris) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gralf-Peter Calliess, in the research focus of the professorship, namely, private international law, civil procedure, arbitration, antitrust law and legal theory.

Candidates shall hold a first state examination in law (Staatsprüfung) or comparable academic university degree (graduation among the top 20 per cent of the year). A very good command of the German language is required, while a good command of English and/or other foreign language skills is an additional asset.

Deadline for applications with a letter of motivation, CV and certificates: 25th of March of 2025. For further information, please the legally binding call for applications (in German) to be found here or contact Margrit Knipper: knipper@uni-bremen.de.

On 27 February 2025, the research services of the European Parliament published on line a briefing authored by David de Groot, entitled Surrogacy: The legal situation in the EU, setting out the legal situation in the EU regarding surrogacy. The document provides a good, well-researched and easy-to-follow introduction to the topic. In 17 pages, it […]

A new paper by Michael Green, A Plea for Private International Law (Conflict of Laws), was recently published as an Essay in the Notre Dame Law Review Reflection. Michael argues that although private international law is increasingly important in our interconnected world, it has fallen out of favor at top U.S. law schools. To quote from the Essay:

Private international law has not lost its jurisprudential import. And ease of travel, communication, and trade have only increased in the last century. But in American law schools (although not abroad), private international law has started dropping out of the curriculum, with the trend accelerating in the last five years or so. We have gone through US News and World Report’s fifty top-ranked law schools and, after careful review, it appears that twelve have not offered a course on private international law (or its equivalent) in the last four academic years: Arizona State University, Boston University, Brigham Young University, Fordham University, University of Georgia, University of Minnesota, The Ohio State University, Pepperdine University, Stanford University, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University, and University of Washington. And even where the course is taught, in some law schools—such as Duke, New York University, and Yale—it is by visitors, adjuncts, or emerita. It is no longer a valued subject in faculty hiring.

I could not agree more. Nor am I alone. Although Michael did the bulk of the research and writing for the Essay, he shared credit with a number of scholars who endorse the arguments set forth therein. This list of credited co-authors includes:

Lea Brilmayer (Yale Law School)
John Coyle (University of North Carolina School of Law)
William S. Dodge (George Washington University Law School)
Scott Dodson (UC Law San Francisco)
Peter Hay (Emory School of Law)
Luke Meier (Baylor Law School)
Jeffrey Pojanowski (Notre Dame Law School)
Kermit Roosevelt III (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School)
Joseph William Singer (Harvard Law School)
Symeon C. Symeonides (Willamette University College of Law)
Carlos M. Vázquez (Georgetown University Law Center)
Christopher A. Whytock (UC Irvine School of Law)
Patrick Woolley (University of Texas School of Law).

In addition to his empirical findings about the declining role of Conflict of Laws in the U.S. law school curricula, Michael seeks to explain precisely why the class matters so much and why it has fallen out of favor. He argues convincingly that part of the decline may be attributed to poor branding:

We suspect that part of the problem is that many American law professors and law school administrators are unaware that conflict of laws is private international law. One of us is an editor of a volume on the philosophical foundations of private international law, and in conversation several law professor friends (we won’t name names) told him that they weren’t aware that he worked on private international law, even though they knew that he worked on conflicts. Reintroducing conflicts to the law school curriculum might be as simple a matter as rebranding the course to make its connection with international law clear, as Georgetown has done.

He also considers—and rightly rejects—the notion that this is an area about which practicing attorneys can easily educate themselves. To quote again from the Essay:

Another argument that the disappearance of conflicts from the law school curriculum is not a problem is that a practitioner can identify a choice-of-law issue and get up to speed on the relevant law in short order. The truth, however, is that one is unlikely to recognize a choice-of-law issue without having taken conflicts. We have often been shocked at how law professors without a conflicts background (again, we are not naming names) will make questionable choice-of-law inferences in the course of an argument, based on nothing more than their a priori intuitions. They appear to be unaware that there is law—and law that differs markedly as one moves from one state or nation to another—on the matter. One can recognize a choice-of-law issue only by knowing what is possible, and someone who has not taken conflicts will not know the universe of possibilities.

The Essay contains a host of additional insights that will (fingers crossed) help to reinvigorate the field of private international law in the United States. Anyone with an interest in conflicts (or private international law) should read it. It can be downloaded here.

A version of this post also appears at Transnational Litigation Blog.

The author of this post is Lydia Lundstedt, who is an Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at Stockholm University and Linköping University. In the interest of transparency, the author makes known that she previously wrote an expert legal opinion on behalf of BSH Hausgeräte. On 25 February 2025, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice […]

Building on the success of the two previous editions (here and here), a new edition of the EAPIL Winter School is currently being organized by the European Association of Private International Law and the Department of Law, Economics and Cultures of the University of Insubria in Como, in cooperation with the Law Faculty of the […]

On behalf of Aleksandrs Fillers (Riga Graduate School of Law), we are happy to share the following conference announcement; more information can also be found here.

The European Union (EU) has become a central player in private international law (PIL) on the European continent. The scope of EU PIL is extensive and constantly poses challenges to scholars and courts. The objective of the Riga Private International Law Conference is to discuss the current weaknesses of EU PIL and share suggestions for improvements. The conference topics cover all areas of EU Private International Law, including private international law for divorces, maintenance, commercial contracts, torts, and more.

The conference will be held in Riga, Latvia, at the Riga Graduate School of Law on 7–8 June 2025.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to Associate Professor Dr Aleksandrs Fillers (aleksandrs.fillers@rgsl.edu.lv) by 15 April 2025.

We will notify you about the acceptance of papers by 1 May 2025. To cover the costs of lunches and administrative expenses, we foresee a moderate fee of EUR 30.

Directly after the conference, we intend to prepare a book proposal under the working title “Improving European Private International Law.” The proposal will be based on selected papers, and we aim to publish it with an international publishing house with broad distribution.

The European Commission has published on 26 February 2026 a proposal for a directive amending Directives 2006/43, 2013/34, 2022/2464 and 2024/1760 concerning certain corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements, as part of its Omnibus Simplification Package. The explanatory memorandum highlights that business associations have raised concerns about the regulatory burden resulting, inter alia, from […]

The Unipar project partners are organising a stakeholders’ meeting on the EU’s proposal on filiation/parenthood, domestic private international law, human and children’s rights, and EU law. The meeting will be held in Brussels on 13 and 14 March, and will be livestreamed for persons who wish to follow.

The programme is available on the Unipar website. There you will also find the registration link for online participation.

Unipar is co-funded by the European Union. It is a two-year project that comments on the EU’s proposal on private international law on filiation, but also investigates the larger context of filiation/parenthood across borders. The first outcome is a report on the impact on parentage of the EU acquis.

This month starts with the publication, on Thursday 6, of the decision in case C-395/23, Anikovi, reported here, on the interpretation of Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 (Brussels II ter Regulation) and its relation to an international treaty between a Member State and a third one. The Sofiyski rayonen sad (Sofia District Court, Bulgaria) referred to the […]

OGEL Special Issue on ‘Space Mining: National and International Regulation for and against Commercial Mining of Outer Space Resources’ will include dispute resolution over space mining plans as well as dispute resolution among participants in space mining operations – state vs state and space versus corporations and corporations versus corporations.

Outer Space clearly involves interesting private international law issues.

Proposals should be submitted to the editors by 31st March 2025, with final papers to be submitted before 31st May 2025.

For more information, please refer to here.

 

ConflictofLaws.net will be hosting an ad-hoc virtual roundtable on the Commission’s Rome II Report

on 11 March 2025, 12pm–1.30pm.

The conversation will focus on the long-awaited report published by the Commission on 31 January 2025 and its implications for a possible future reform of the Regulation.

The event will feature the following panellists:

Rui Dias
University of Coimbra

Thomas Kadner Graziano
University of Geneva

Xandra Kramer
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Eva Lein
University of Lausanne &
British Institute of International and Comparative Law

Tobias Lutzi
University of Augsburg

Everyone interested is warmly invited to join via this Zoom link.

Background to Case C-537/23 Società Italiana Lastre SpA (SIL) v Agora SARL, in which the CJEU held yesterday, is here.

The choice of court clause that is the subject of the proceedings reads

the court of Brescia [(Italy)] will have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from or related to this contract. [SIL] reserves the right to bring proceedings against the purchaser before another competent court in Italy or elsewhere.

When I understood late in 2024 that there had been no hearing and that neither would there be an AG Opinion, I suspected this most likely indicated that nothing earthshattering would be held, rather that the CJEU would give the kind of straightforward replies as I flagged in my post on the referral.

I was wrong! : surprisingly in my view the Court has held asymmetry IS covered by BIa and that it is in principle perfectly kosher.

The case deals with asymmetric aka hybrid aka unilateral choice of court, on which readers will find plenty of posts when entering these search strings on the blog.

Article 25’s lex causae rule (which law determines whether unilateral choice of vcourt is valid) reads in relevant part

‘1.      If the parties, regardless of their domicile, have agreed that a court or the courts of a Member State are to have jurisdiction to settle any disputes which have arisen or which may arise in connection with a particular legal relationship, that court or those courts shall have jurisdiction, unless the agreement is null and void as to its substantive validity under the law of that Member State. …. “(emphasis added)

Recital 20 adds

20)      Where a question arises as to whether a choice-of-court agreement in favour of a court or the courts of a Member State is null and void as to its substantive validity, that question should be decided in accordance with the law of the Member State of the court or courts designated in the agreement, including the conflict-of-laws rules of that Member State.’

As I noted in the Handbook and elsewhere, the insertion into the Regulation of the lex fori prorogati rule often does not assist. In particular, where parties expressly make choice of court non-exclusive or where they designate a plurality of specifically identified courts, the lex fori prorogati is not immediately ascertainable. Neither is it in the event of so-called ‘unilateral’ or ‘one-sided’ choice of court. At the very least for these cases which are not solved with the new lex fori prorogati rule, parties are best advised to continue to (or start to) make separate and express choice of law for unilateral and non-exclusive choice of law.

Recital 20, whose status is uncertain anyway on account of it being a mere recital, is in my view extraordinarily unhelpful in conjuring up renvoi to the lex causae mix.

The CJEU first of all and as is standard for BIa, reminds us [30] that the concept of ‘null and void as to its substantive validity’ must be given an autonomous, EU law meaning, “which must be established by reference to the usual meaning of those terms in everyday language, while also taking into account the context in which they are used and the objectives pursued by the legislation of which they form part.”

[31] ‘Substantive’ ordinarily would refer to ‘questions of fact or law which the [national, GAVC] court must decide’ at the merits stage. However [32] here the reference to substantive validity clearly means something else ,namely “that provision indicates which national law applies as regards whether, notwithstanding the fact that all of the conditions of validity laid down in that article are satisfied, such an agreement is null and void on other grounds under that national law.”: in other words ‘that provision is merely a conflict-of-laws rule’.

[33] the Court observes that recital 20 “has wording analogous” to A25. When it cites recital 20 however it quotes incompletely, namely “‘where a question arises as to whether a choice-of-court agreement in favour of a court or the courts of a Member State is null and void as to its substantive validity, that question should be decided in accordance with the law of the Member State of the court or courts designated in the agreement’.”

Leaving out the reference to renvoi is disingenuous imo, and it is not the first time the CJEU completely ignores recital 20’s inclusion of renvoi: see C-519/19 Ryanair v DelayFix where it did exactly the same.

[36] continuing with statements which reveal nothing new to the seasoned conflicts eye, the CJEU recalls that A25 itself only discusses the existence and expression of consent, hence that ‘substantive validity’

“covers the general causes of nullity of a contract, namely, in particular, those which vitiate consent, such as error, deceit, violence or fraud, and incapacity to contract, causes which, unlike the conditions of validity pertaining to the agreement conferring jurisdiction themselves, are not governed by the Brussels Ia Regulation but by the law of the Member State whose courts are designated.

[40] the Court refers to the travaux to point out that A25 was meant to mirror the 2005 Choice of Court Convention on this point: see A5 of that Convention (“The court or courts of a Contracting State designated in an exclusive choice of court agreement shall have jurisdiction to decide a dispute to which the agreement applies, unless the agreement is null and void under the law of that State.”) and A6(a) (“A court of a Contracting State other than that of the chosen court shall suspend or dismiss proceedings to which an exclusive choice of court agreement applies unless – a) the agreement is null and void under the law of the State of the chosen court;…”

Like professor Cuniberti, I am a bit puzzled by the reference to the 2005 Convention seeing as it only applies to exclusive choice of court.

[39] is then the reminder of BIa’s core DNA: reasonable foreseeability of forum for defendant and ease of identification of forum for the claimant (reference here to C-774/22 FTI Touristik which itself had referred to Inkreal.

Now, [42]

the terms ‘have agreed’, …cannot be interpreted as meaning that it is necessary for such a clause to be formulated in such a way that the competent court can be determined on its wording alone. It is sufficient that the clause state the objective factors on the basis of which the parties have agreed to choose a court or the courts to which they wish to submit disputes which have arisen or which may arise between them. Those factors, which must be sufficiently precise to enable the court seised to ascertain whether it has jurisdiction, may, where appropriate, be determined by the particular circumstances of the case being examined by the court…” (reference ia to Hőszig).

Put another way, [44]

the condition that the parties ‘have agreed’ on a court or courts of a contracting State or a Member State includes a requirement of precision in order to be valid.

or [45]

an agreement conferring jurisdiction must, in order to be valid, identify with sufficient precision the objective factors on the basis of which the parties have agreed to choose a court or the courts to which they wish to submit disputes which have arisen or which may arise between them.

This [46] also assists in the attainment of the objectives of foreseeability, transparency and legal certainty, set out in recitals 15 and 16 BIa.

[48] the Court recalls asymmetry of choice of court being specifically dealt with viz the weaker party to an insurance contract, a consumer contract or an employment contract.

[50]

“as regards those contracts, Article 25(4) of the Brussels Ia Regulation, read in conjunction with Articles 15, 19 and 23 thereof, expressly governs the situations in which an asymmetric agreement conferring jurisdiction is valid and those in which it is not.”

[51]

“Therefore, it must be held that the validity of an agreement conferring jurisdiction in view of its alleged asymmetry must be examined having regard not to criteria relating to the causes of an agreement being ‘null and void as to its substantive validity’, within the meaning of the first sentence of Article 25(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation, but to autonomous criteria which are derived from that Article 25 as interpreted by the Court.”

I do not understand the leap (“therefore”): the Court seems to reason that seeing as BIa for protected categories imposes conditions curtailing asymmetry, such asymmetry is a BIa-covered condition of validity, not one which A25 refers to an applicable national law. The CJEU in my view could just as well have reasoned with reference to the protected categories being an exception to the rules otherwise applicable, that the asymmetry discussed there is an outlier in what is otherwise an area covered by the lex fori prorogati.

Having thus held that the validity of asymmetric choice of court is to be determined using BIa and not using an applicable law causae, the CJEU then goes on to hold whether BIa does or does not allow them.

[55] Party autonomy, protected by BIa, means the parties must not necessarily designate the courts of a single and the same Member State (or [58] Lugano Convention States). [57] The existence of forum shopping possibilities in the application of the special jurisdictional rules of A7, too, supports the room which BIa leaves for proceedings being brought in various Member States.

[60] The wording of the clause at issue: ‘another competent court …elsewhere’ however leads to the possibility of a third State court, neither an EU or Lugano State court, having jurisdiction. This [61] leads an “an increased risk of conflicts of jurisdiction arising which would be detrimental to legal certainty, since the application of those national rules would be likely to lead to divergent answers..”

The Court’s conclusion therefore is

In the light of the forgoing considerations, the answer to the second question is that Article 25(1) and (4) of the Brussels Ia Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that an agreement conferring jurisdiction pursuant to which one of the parties thereto may only bring proceedings before the sole court that it designates whereas it permits the other party to bring proceedings before, in addition to that court, any other competent court, is valid, in so far as, first, it designates courts of one or several States which are either Members of the European Union or parties to the Lugano II Convention, secondly, it identifies objective factors which are sufficiently precise to enable the court seised to ascertain whether it has jurisdiction, and, thirdly, it is not contrary to the provisions of Articles 15, 19 or 23 of that regulation and does not derogate from an exclusive jurisdiction pursuant to Article 24 thereof.

A surprising outcome as far as I am concerned, and one which as I noted, oddly was taken without the benefit of an AG Opinion.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 4th ed. 2024, para 2.349.

 

by Guillaume Croisant, Claudia Cavicchioli, Nicole Rölike, Alexia Kaztaridou, and Julie Esquenazi (all Linklaters)

In a nutshell: reinforced legal certainty but questions remain

In its decision of yesterday (27 February 2025) in the Lastre case (Case C-537/23), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its long-awaited first judgment on the conformity of asymmetric jurisdiction clauses with the Brussels I recast regulation and the 2007 Lugano Convention.

The Court ruled that the validity of asymmetric jurisdiction clauses is assessed in the light of the autonomous rules of Article 25 of the regulation (rather than Member States’ national laws) and confirmed their validity where the clause can be interpreted as designating courts of EU or Lugano States.

This decision dispels some of the previous uncertainties, particularly arising from the shifting case law of the French Supreme Court. The details of the decision and any possible impact, in particular the requirement for the clause to be interpreted as designating courts of EU or Lugano States, will need to be analysed more closely, but on the whole the CJEU strengthened foreseeability and consistency regarding unilateral jurisdiction clauses under the Brussels I regulation and the Lugano convention.

Besides other sectors, this decision is of particular relevance in international financing transactions, including syndicated loans and capital markets, where asymmetric jurisdiction clauses in favour of the finance parties have been a long-standing practice.

Background

A so-called asymmetric or unilateral jurisdiction clause allows one party to choose any competent court to bring proceedings, while the other party is restricted to a specific jurisdiction. Such clauses are common in financial agreements, like international syndicated loan transactions, where lenders, bearing most of the financial risk, reserve the right to enforce claims wherever the borrower may have assets.

Article 25 of the Brussels I recast regulation provides autonomous conditions for the formal validity of jurisdiction clauses designating EU courts. By contrast, for the jurisdiction clause’s substantive validity, Article 25 refers to the law of the Member State designated by the jurisdiction clause. While one of the Brussels I recast regulation’s predecessors, the 1968 Brussels Convention, referred to jurisdiction clauses “concluded for the benefit of only one of the parties”, the regulation is silent on the validity of asymmetrical jurisdiction clauses. Their precise working under Article 25, particularly in relation to the substantive validity rule, awaited authoritative consideration by the CJEU.

In the absence of relevant national case law in many Member States and diverging approaches in jurisdictions where decisions had been rendered, today’s judgment brings welcomed clarity and legal certainty. For instance, in Commerzbank AG v Liquimar Tankers Management Inc, the English Commercial Court considered (pre-Brexit, when EU jurisdiction law still applied in the UK) that asymmetric jurisdiction clauses are valid under Article 25, whereas the evolving jurisprudence of the French Supreme Court (discussed below) has led to many debates.

Arbitration is excluded from the scope of application of the Brussels I recast regulation, meaning that the validity of asymmetric arbitration clauses generally depends on the law applicable to the arbitration clause (lex arbitri). Under some laws, they are accepted if no consent issues, such as duress, arise (see e.g. under English law the NB Three Shipping case).

Discussions in France spur crucial CJEU review

In the case at hand, an Italian and a French company entered into a supply agreement including an asymmetric jurisdiction clause, similar to clauses often seen in financial documentation favouring the lenders:

“The jurisdiction of the court of Brescia (Italy) shall apply to any dispute arising from this contract or related to it, [the Italian supplier] reserving the right to proceed against the buyer before another competent court in Italy or abroad.”

When a dispute arose, the French company brought proceedings before the French courts. The supplier challenged the competence of French courts on the basis of the unilateral jurisdiction clause. The French courts dismissed this objection, declaring the clause unlawful due to its lack of foreseeability and one-sided nature.

The case was brought before the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation). In the past, its First Civil Chamber had ruled, in its 2012 Rothschild decision, that jurisdiction clauses giving one party the right to sue the other before “any other competent court” are invalid both under the French civil code and the Brussels I regulation, on the ground that this would be “potestative” (i.e. that the execution of the clause would depend on an event that solely one contracting party has the power to control or to prevent).

Although the First Chamber later abandoned any reference to the “potestativité” criteria, there now appear to be diverging positions among the chambers of the French Supreme Court regarding the validity of asymmetric jurisdiction clauses. On the one hand, further to several decisions, the latest being in 2018, the First Civil Chamber of the Cour de Cassation appears to hold that asymmetric jurisdiction clauses are invalid if the competent courts are not identifiable through objective criteria or jurisdiction rules within a Member State. On the other hand, the Commercial Chamber of the French Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that such clauses are valid if the parties have agreed to them, regardless of  predictability.

In this case, the Cour de cassation sought guidance from the CJEU through a preliminary ruling reference. The Cour de cassation requested the CJEU’s position on:

• whether the lawfulness of asymmetric jurisdiction clauses should be evaluated under (i) the autonomous principles of the Brussels I recast regulation or (ii) the applicable national law;
• if the Brussels I recast regulation applies, whether this regulation permits such asymmetric clauses;
• if national law is applicable, how to determine which Member State’s law should take precedence.

After the hearing, the Court deemed a prior opinion from the Advocate General not necessary.

CJEU upholds asymmetric clauses… under conditions

On the first question, the CJEU ruled that, in the context of the assessment of the validity of a jurisdiction clause, complaints alleging the imprecision or asymmetry of that agreement must be examined in the light of autonomous criteria which are derived from Article 25 of the Brussels I recast regulation. Matters of substantive validity, for which the law of the relevant Member States shall apply, only concern causes which vitiate consent, such as error, deceit, fraud or violence, and incapacity to contract.

Turning to the interpretation of these autonomous criteria under Article 25, the Court confirmed the validity of asymmetric jurisdiction clauses designating courts of EU Member States or States that are parties to the Lugano Convention.

The Court first confirmed that parties are free to designate several courts in their jurisdiction clauses, and that a clause referring to “any other competent court” meets the requirements of foreseeability, transparency and legal certainty of the Brussels I recast regulation and the Lugano Convention since it refers to the general rules of jurisdiction provided for by these instruments.

However, the Court importantly held that these requirements are met only insofar as the jurisdiction clause can be interpreted as conferring jurisdiction to the court designated in the clause (in the case at hand, Brescia) and the competent courts of the EU/Lugano States to hear disputes between the parties. EU law alone would not make it possible to confer jurisdiction to a court of third countries, as this designation would depend on the application of their own private international law rules. The exact implications of this requirement will require careful assessment, in particular where non-EU/Lugano parties are involved.

With respect to the alleged “unbalanced” nature of such clause, the Court stressed that the Brussels I recast regulation and the Lugano Convention are based on the principle of contractual autonomy and thus allow asymmetric clauses, as long as they respect the exceptions foreseen by these instruments, in particular with respect to exclusive jurisdiction (Art. 24 Brussels I recast regulation) as well as the protective rules in insurance, consumer and employment contracts (Arts. 15, 19 and 23 Brussels I recast regulation).

Registration is now open for the inaugural conference of the Australasian Association of Private International Law, to be held at the Ship Inn conference centre at Southbank, Brisbane from 16-17 April 2025.

The program features panels on

• Private International Law and Technology;
• Anti-suit and Anti-enforcement Injunctions;
• Private International Law and Climate Change; and
• Prenuptial Agreements.

Attendance at conference sessions can be used for CPD; check local requirements.

Conference fees

Reduced fees apply to members of AAPrIL. You can join the Association at https://aapril.org/membership/

Member (2 days) $110
Member (1 day) $60

Non-member (2 days) $150
Non-member (1 day) $80

Student: Free to attend the conference only.

Conference dinner: $110 for a three course meal and a selection of drinks

Register here

 

Aboute AAPrIL

The Australasian Association of Private International Law (AAPrIL) is a group of people committed to furthering the understanding of private international law in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region.

AAPrIL was founded in 2024 by private international lawyers from Australia and New Zealand who have known one another for years through engaging with the discipline of private international law, including through conferences of the Journal of Private International Law, meetings of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and numerous other academic activities. The inuagural AAPrIL President is Professor Mary Keyes. The Hon Andrew Bell, Chief Justice of New South Wales.

A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available. It comes with contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, unification of law, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here. The following contributions might be of particular interest […]

On 27 February 2025, the CJEU delivered its ruling in Case C‑537/23, Società Italiana Lastre SpA (SIL) v. Agora SARL. The case was referred by the French Cour de cassation which, at last, asked the CJEU whether asymmetric jurisdiction clauses are valid under the Brussels I bis Regulation. As is well known, the Cour de […]

The legislative work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) currently revolves around eight projects. The Jurisdiction Project occupies a prominent position in this context. With the conclusion of the Judgments Convention, in 2019, the focus of the normative work of the HCCH in the area of civil and commercial law turned to […]

The German Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung für internationales Verfahrensrecht, an association of German-speaking academics working on questions of international civil procedure law, will be holding its bi-annual conference at the University of Münster on 27–29 March 2025. The event is only open to members of the association.

The full programme can be found here; registration is possible here.

 

The German Notarial Institute (Deutsches Notarinstitut; DNotI), located in Würzburg, is currently looking for lawyers interested in contributing to the Institute’s mission of providing expert advice to German notaries, including in cross-border settings.

The full job advertisement can be found here.

Written by Hadrien Pauchard (assistant researcher and doctoral student at Sciences Po Law School)

The fourth issue of the Revue Critique de droit international privé of 2024 will very shortly be released. It contains four articles, eight case notes and many book reviews. In line with the Revue Critique’s recent policy, the doctrinal part will shortly be made available in English on the editor’s website (for registered users and institutions).

In the first article, Prof. Myriam Hunter-Henin (University College London) delves into La rencontre du droit international privé et du climat : réflexions de méthode au sujet des KlimaSeniorinnen (Private international law encountering climate: methodological reflections on KlimaSeniorinnen). Its abstract reads as follows:

The article draws on the European Court of Human Rights decision Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland [GC], no. 53600/20, to reflect on the interaction between human rights reasoning and private international law methods.  It argues that an expansionist interpretation of human rights need not amount to their imperialist enforcement or to an undemocratic encroachment upon the domain of the executive or legislature. Far from threatening to take over the discipline of private international law, human rights reasoning, as displayed in the present case, might usefully inspire private international law jurists to a renewed openness towards the other.

In the second article, Prof. David Sindres (Université d’Angers) asks Faut-il admettre la radiation d’un pourvoi en cassation en cas d’inexécution d’une décision d’exequatur ? (Should a cassation appeal be struck out in the event of non-enforcement of an exequatur decision?). This procedural question gives the author an opportunity to deploy thought-provoking considerations of legal theory, which are presented as follows:

Under article 1009-1 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, an appeal in cassation lodged by a party who fails to justify having complied with the challenged decision shall, with limited exceptions, be struck off the roll. Yet, the Cour de cassation tends to reject applications to strike out, for non-execution, cassation appeals lodged against exequatur decisions, on the ground that article 1009-1 of the French Code of Civil Procedure requires, for its application, that a cassation appeal is filed against an enforceable judgment, which is not the case when the judgment whose non- execution is invoked is an exequatur decision. Seemingly flawless, the current solution nonetheless yields curious consequences in practice: in particular, it implies that the party lodging a cassation appeal against an exequatur decision does not, beforehand, have to enforce anything, even though the exequatur is supposed to confer enforceability in France on the foreign decision. The purpose of this article is therefore to reexamine the relevance of the current solution adopted by the Cour de cassation, by considering the idea that it is not the foreign decision or the arbitral award that needs to be enforced in France, but rather the exequatur decision itself.

In the third article, Prof. Dominique Bureau (Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) reviews L’article 14 du Code civil entre continuité(s) et changement (Article 14 of the French Civil code between continuity and change). The contribution clarifies the current “destiny” of this famous provision, while shedding light on a major jurisprudential shift. Its abstract reads as follows:

Handed down by four different chambers of the Court of Cassation, four recent judgments illustrate an important sequence of case law in matters of international jurisdiction, regarding Article 14 of the French Civil Code, which establishes the jurisdiction of French courts when the plaintiff is of French nationality. Specifically, the Court of Cassation decided in a judgment of June 12, 2024 that Article 14 of the French Civil Code was not applicable in insolvency matters. Thus, a French creditor can no longer initiate collective proceedings in France against a debtor who has virtually no connection with France. This solution will have a significant impact on French litigation in this area.

Finally, in the last article, Prof. Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po) navigates the maze of La restitution internationale d’œuvres d’art spoliées (The international restitution of looted art). The piece discusses the Cassirer v. Thyssen – Bornemisza Collection Foundation saga, illustrating the limitation of any conflict of laws methodology when confronted with objects that blur the boundaries between traditional legal categories. Its abstract reads as follows:

What is the legal regime for the international restitution of a work of art, the object of plunder (in this case by the Nazi regime) and discovered more than half a century later by the original owner’s successor in title, displayed in the collection of a major museum? It is the fate of a magnificent painting by Camille Pissaro, Rue St. Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie (1897), which provides here, if not a satisfactory answer, at least an opportunity to reflect on various moral and political enigmas that lie beneath the legal technique of private international law, in one of its most complex instantiations. If these lead to the question of the responsibility of intermediaries, and hence the banality of the evil that can be at work in the workings of the art market, the path also serves here to sketch out other controversies on the fate of cultural property looted in diverse contexts, whether colonial, post-colonial or war-related, and hence on the notion of art, culture and our understandings of the tortuous course of history.

The full table of contents will be available here.

Previous issues of the Revue Critique (from 2010 to 2022) are available on Cairn.