Flux des sites DIP

The third edition of IPRG/LugÜ – Bundesgesetz über das Internationale Privatrecht, Lugano-Übereinkommen und weitere Erlasse, by Jolanta Kren Kostkiewicz, has just been published. It is a commentary on the Swiss Act on Private International Law (PILA) and the Lugano Convention. It is described (in German) as follows: The entirety of Swiss private international and procedural […]

by Marta Liduma, LLB candidate in International and European Law, University of Groningen

A Dutch actor dies in March. By April, his likeness starts to appear widely. Generated videos show him promoting a supplement, and one clip ends with a link to a shop selling shirts printed with his face. A single man in Germany creates all of this, in large quantities, using a dozen deceased performers.

Who can sue, and in which court?

Dutch law answers the first question readily. Article 21 of the Auteurswet allows publication to be resisted when a reasonable interest of the portrayed person, or after his death of one of his surviving relatives, opposes it. Article 25a, in the same paragraph of the Act, identifies those relatives as the parents, the spouse or registered partner and the children, each of whom may act independently of the others. Article 21 addresses whoever holds the copyright for the portrait, which poses a problem for a generated video that may have no author at all. However, Article 35 makes the publication of a portrait without entitlement an offence for anybody, and Dutch practice has long read the two provisions together. German law follows a similar design. Section 22 of the Kunsturhebergesetz (KUG) requires the consent of the family of the deceased (Angehörige) for ten years after death, and defines them as the surviving spouse or registered partner and the children, failing whom the parents.

The second question leads to the Court of Justice and its judgment on 18 June 2026 in Idziski (C-232/25). The concentrating head of Article 7(2) Brussels Ia puts two questions to a single individual. Does the content identify you, and where are your interests centred? Death creates separation between these questions, and current case law keeps them apart.

The custodial pattern

Both provisions grant the post-mortem entitlement to a closed class of relatives, a group defined by their relationship to the deceased and not by any interest in the estate they left. A disinherited son may object, while the residuary legatee under the will stands outside the class entirely. Such relatives are best described as custodians, since the entitlement is all they hold of the deceased.

The German decade deserves a moment’s attention. Since section 22 of the KUG requires consent for ten years after death, the Federal Court of Justice has extended this same period by analogy to the pecuniary side of the post-mortem personality right in kinski-klaus.de (BGH, 5 October 2006, I ZR 277/03, BGHZ 169, 193), while the dignitary side endures beyond the ten-year mark. German law thus surrenders its transmissible part ten years after death. What survives is the dignitary part, which rests on constitutional grounds and is exercised by whoever is entitled to act for the deceased.

Whose interest the custodian asserts is settled in Germany and open in the Netherlands. German law divides the post-mortem personality right in two. The dignitary components rest upon Article 1(1) of the Basic Law, the right to free development of personality under Article 2(1) belonging to the living alone, and after death they are exercised by a person entitled to act on the deceased’s behalf (Wahrnehmungsberechtigter), in the case of images the Angehörige of section 22. That person holds defensive claims alone, and no claim for damages (BGH, 6 December 2005, VI ZR 265/04, BGHZ 165, 203, restated in kinski-klaus.de). The pecuniary components are separate. They are inheritable and pass instead to the heirs (Erben), who may bring damages claims in respect of them (Marlene Dietrich, BGHZ 143, 214), an allocation the Federal Constitutional Court held in 2006 (BVerfG, 22 August 2006, 1 BvR 1168/04) to be consistent with section 22, that provision governing consent rather than commercial value. Article 21 of the Auteurswet is drafted the other way about, speaking of a reasonable interest of the surviving relative herself.

The Dutch question may be left open, since the two readings fail for different reasons. Upon the first, the claimant asserts her own interest, and everything the video discloses belongs to her husband. Upon the second, the content identifies the person whose interest is asserted, and the difficulty moves to the place. Either reading leaves the concentrating head requiring one person to satisfy both of its conditions, a burden that under a custodial statute falls to two.

The existing commentary has been occupied with a different question. Giacomo Marola reads Idziski as a judgment of continuity in his contribution to the EAPIL Blog. Tobias Lutzi, at ConflictofLaws.net, entitled his note Nothing to See Here. Both readings are sound. The difficulty is that a rule which the Court has reaffirmed without qualifying it is now settled law for situations nobody has yet brought before it. A parallel debate has been running in Denmark and the Netherlands, where legislators have considered giving a person a statutory right in their own likeness, and it turns on who ought to hold such a right once its subject has died, and for how long. Neither literature has yet asked what follows once that question receives the answer the existing statutes already give it, which is to place the entitlement in the hands of somebody whom the content passes over.

Two bounds before going further. Neither reform is in force. The Danish bill, which would add new sections 65a and 73a to the Copyright Act and protect a person’s appearance and voice for fifty years after death, went out to consultation in July 2025 and was notified to the Commission under the TRIS procedure that October. The standstill ran into February 2026, when the Commission issued comments, and the entry date of 31 March 2026 written into the draft passed with the bill still not introduced. By February the Ministry of Culture had already moved its expectation to 1 July 2026, and a general election in March then removed the introduction slot as well. The Dutch initiative bill prepared by the member Dral, which would create a neighbouring right covering deepfakes of living and deceased persons, was consulted on between October and December 2025, and in May 2026 the Commissie Auteursrecht advised abandoning the proposed neighbouring right as an unsuitable instrument. Its author has since left the House of Representatives, and the government has said that it is for her successor to decide whether the project continues (Aanhangsel Handelingen II 2025/26, no 1351). The custodial provisions therefore govern. If either of the reforms arrives and if its related-right characterisation were to be recognised as an autonomous matter of Union law, the claim would move out of personality law and fall outside the scope of what follows. Secondly, if the defendant is domiciled outside the Union, then Article 6(1) applies together with the residual national rules of the forum.

What Idziski allocates

The judgment was given under Regulation 44/2001, the Polish proceedings having begun in 2013, and at paragraphs 26 and 27 the Court confirmed that its reading applies equally to Article 7(2) of Brussels Ia.

Upon the concentrating head the Court restated Mittelbayerischer Verlag (C-800/19). The courts of a claimant’s centre of interests may hear a claim for the entirety of the damage only where the content carries verifiable and objectively ascertainable material identifying that person, directly or indirectly, as an individual (paragraph 50). Indirect identification requires certainty, by reason of “attributes which are specific to them and which distinguish them from all other individuals” (paragraph 55). Membership of a defined group falls short of that standard, even where the group itself is unmistakable (paragraphs 53 and 54).

Consider the widow suing upon her own interest. Everything the video displays belongs to her husband, and the very feature that makes her claim worth bringing defeats her under the test.

The representative reading raises a different problem. If she exercises the deceased’s right, identification is satisfied since the content identifies the actor with precision. The centre of interests must then be located, and it belongs to a man who has died. eDate and Bolagsupplysningen both proceed upon a claimant with a life to be centred somewhere, and substituting the claimant’s own would detach the connecting factor from the person the content concerns.

Paragraph 56 confirms the difficulty rather than resolving it. The requirement exists so that the issuer of content may ascertain the centre of interests of those who are its subject, and predict where proceedings against him will lie. An uploader who generates a video of a well known actor may discover within a minute where that actor lived. The daughter’s residence remains obscure to him, and under Article 25a there may be four custodians acting independently, with four centres of interests between them. Predictability is served by asking after the person depicted, while the rule asks after the person suing.

The mosaic head remains available, and the point should be acknowledged. Paragraph 64 confirms, following Gtflix Tv, that compensation can be divided and recovered in each Member State for the damage caused there. Paragraph 67 applies as much to Z.R., who failed the identification test and could still recover in Poland. Both custodial provisions describe a territorial wrong. Section 22 covers distribution and public display, while Article 21 deals with openbaarmaking. This means the injury is spread across the states where the video was viewed. Nevertheless, the concession does nothing for the German dignitary custodian. Because his claim is defensive, a damages jurisdiction is of no use to him, and the removal he seeks lies with a court that paragraph 67 places elsewhere.

Ruling 2 limits what survives. A court with territorially limited authority hears divisible claims and does not have jurisdiction over a non-pecuniary remedy that seeks to correct information placed online (paragraph 67). This is based on the indivisibility principle from Bolagsupplysningen (paragraph 48). Removal is the remedy that answers content that can be regenerated faster than damages can be assessed. Lutzi adds that such non-pecuniary remedies as do survive face poor chances of being enforced in the defendant’s own Member State.

What remains

Paragraph 47 reassures that a claimant may always bring an action for damages covering all the harm caused, at the defendant’s domicile or at the place of the causal event. For a corporate co-producer, the two are distinct and useful. For a single uploader, they have the same address. Article 8(1) offers a joinder that these facts fail to satisfy. Uploaders who share a subject and a model are too loosely connected to risk irreconcilable judgments. Therefore, custodians must file a separate action for each uploader in that uploader’s own courts, based on whatever conflict rules the forum has in place. Personality claims are not covered by Rome II according to Article 1(2)(g). For this type of claim, the concentrating head of Article 7(2) leads to dispersal.

The merchandise version follows the same pattern. Shirts with a dead actor’s face are the paradigm the provisions were drafted for, unambiguously commercial and readily quantified. Dutch law has long recognised that a reasonable interest under Article 21 may be commercial, as the Hoge Raad addressed in Cruijff v Tirion (14 June 2013, ECLI:NL:HR:2013:CA2788). The shirt, however, depicts the actor alone.

One reply claims that the difficulty is merely academic, since notice and action can resolve such disputes, and questions of jurisdiction rarely come up. The argument holds so long as the platform agrees. Under Article 16(3) of the Digital Services Act, a notice is considered to give rise to actual knowledge when it permits a diligent provider to recognise the illegality without needing detailed legal examination. A notice sent by a Dutch widow, using a Dutch provision against a German uploader, in a field where applicable law is determined by residual national rules, is precisely the case that requires such an examination, and so falls outside the provision. Consequently, the notice keeps the provider where Article 6 of that Regulation found it, whatever other circumstances may later establish knowledge. Notice and action have concealed the defect instead of curing it.

Each part of the argument is old. Indivisibility dates back to 2017, and the identification requirement comes from 2021. Their combined effect on a claimant outside the contemplation of both is the novelty.

Anchoring the forum to the decedent

The solution proposed here aims to anchor the connecting factor to the deceased rather than to the person suing. This way, the concentrating forum shifts to the last centre of interests of the person the content concerns. Such a rule provides the predictability that paragraph 56 needs, locates the proceedings where evidence of the deceased’s reputation can be found, and restores the pairing that the head presupposes.

The concept allows for this development. In paragraph 39, the Court notes that the centre-of-interests option exists in the interests of the sound administration of justice rather than for the specific protection of the applicant. This clarifies why, in Bolagsupplysningen, the natural or legal character of the claimant was not important. A head of jurisdiction serving the administration of justice may perfectly well locate its connecting factor elsewhere than in the claimant. It should be found where the dispute belongs. For content concerning one identified deceased person, that location is where that person’s life was centred.

The proposal needs a development in doctrine rather than just application of it. The custodial provisions work by designation instead of transmission, and Article 25a allows four possible custodians to exercise independently, which resists simplification to a single inherited position. Lutzi and Marola both suggest that this kind of recalibration belongs to the recast of Brussels Ia rather than to the Court, and they are probably correct on this general point. The challenge is timing. Custodial claims will come with the next well known death, whereas the recast will take some more years to arrive.

The alternative solution is a private one and stems from a situation before Idziski. In the case of Stichting Right to Consumer Justice and Stichting App Stores Claims (C-34/24, 2 December 2025), the Court allowed representative foundations, asserting their own right to defend the collective interests of a group of unidentified but identifiable persons, to rely upon Article 7(2), a development which Burkhard Hess referred to as the creation of a new forum actoris through judicial lawmaking. Idziski continues this approach at paragraphs 57 to 59. A family could thus set up a foundation in order to defend the actor’s dignity, reputation and memory and to litigate through that foundation.

The course is inferior to the proposal made above even where it succeeds, since the availability of a forum would then depend upon whether a family possessed the means and the foresight to incorporate. It very likely fails in any event. The operative ruling speaks of a group whose members form a closed category, and a single deceased individual falls outside that description. Paragraph 59 grounds the exception in predictability, and the exception was predictable in Idziski because the series addressed the unit directly, whereas an uploader generating at volume remains ignorant of a foundation’s existence and of where it operates. The exception arose, moreover, in a Polish case concerning the collective dignity of a wartime unit, and may generalise less readily than its wording invites.

The question for the Court, when a national court eventually puts it, is whether the identification requirement in Article 7(2) attaches to the claimant or to the person whose interest is asserted. Idziski assumed the two to be one person, as the earlier case law had done, because on the facts of all those cases they were. Under a custodial statute they are always two.

AI was used in the creation of this post for feedback and research. All writing and analysis is the author’s own.

 

On Tuesday, September 8, 2026, the Hamburg Max Planck Institute will host its monthly virtual workshop Current Research in Private International Law at 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (CEST).

Xandra Kramer (Erasmus University Rotterdam & Utrecht University) will speak, in English, about the topic

“Cross-Border Collective Litigation in Tech Cases: Is the European Framework up to the Challenge?”

Collective actions have gained traction in Europe, boosted by the Representative Actions Directive and enabled by third-party litigation funding in several jurisdictions. These increasingly involve cases against multinational big tech companies operating in Europe. The current private international law framework, however, is not designed to address the challenges of these complex cases.  The presentation will discuss how the European Court of Justice and Dutch courts have primarily handled questions of international jurisdiction and to what extent the existing legislative framework needs amendment.

The presentation will be followed by open discussion. All are welcome. More information and sign-up here.

If you want to be invited to these events in the future, please write to veranstaltungen@mpipriv.de.

In its decision of 17 June in HR-2026-1358-A, the Norwegian Supreme Court dismissed an appeal contesting the jurisdiction of the Norwegian courts under the forum delicti rule in the 2007 Lugano Convention. The underlying proceedings concerned a damages claim brought by the Norwegian tax authorities against a person domiciled in Cyprus following the non-payment of VAT […]

This review concentrates principally on the private international law dimensions of Andrew Dickinson and Alexander Thompson’s The State Immunity Act 1978. Although state immunity is fundamentally a subject of public international law, the legislation operates at the point where public and private international law intersect. It determines whether the English courts may adjudicate disputes involving foreign states, how proceedings may be served, and whether judgments or arbitral awards may be recognised and enforced against state property. These questions are of direct importance to private international lawyers, particularly in transnational commercial, employment, property and arbitration disputes.

The authors bring considerable practical expertise to the subject. As the preface indicates, their analysis is informed not only by academic study but also by professional experience of state-immunity litigation. The result is a specialist and authoritative treatment of a technically demanding statute. The chapters generally combine legislative history, an overview of the relevant statutory provisions, and a detailed examination of their judicial application.

Chapter 1 explains the historical development of the State Immunity Act 1978 and the United Kingdom’s movement from absolute to restrictive immunity. Under restrictive immunity, a foreign state remains immune in respect of sovereign acts but may be subject to jurisdiction in relation to commercial and other non-sovereign activities. This distinction provides the organising principle for much of the Act and gives the subject its particular importance for private international law.

Chapter 2 is especially significant because it situates the 1978 Act within the wider legal framework. The Act is mandatory and generally supersedes the pre-existing common-law rules governing state immunity. Although it was influenced by the European Convention on State Immunity 1972, the United Kingdom courts are not required to interpret it as if it faithfully reproduced every aspect of that Convention. At the same time, the Act should, so far as its language permits, be interpreted consistently with customary international law, on the presumption that Parliament did not intend to place the United Kingdom in breach of its international obligations.

The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property  2004 may also inform the interpretation of the Act. It is not, however, binding for this purpose, nor can all its provisions automatically be treated as definitive statements of customary international law. The authors therefore demonstrate that statutory interpretation in this field requires careful engagement with legislation, treaties, customary international law and judicial authority.

The chapter also distinguishes state immunity from related regimes. The State Immunity Act primarily concerns the immunity of foreign states and incorporates exceptions associated with restrictive immunity. The Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964 and Consular Relations Act 1968, by contrast, protects particular persons in the performance of their official functions and is governed by separate legislations. Special missions and international organisations are similarly subject to distinct statutory regimes.

The discussion of human rights identifies a persistent tension between access to justice and respect for sovereign immunity. The United Kingdom courts have generally placed substantial weight on the latter. Provisions of the Act have nevertheless been challenged under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1998. Declarations of incompatibility have been made in the employment context, most notably in Benkharbouche v Embassy of Sudan and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Benkharbouche, while in Kingdom of Spain v Lydia Lorenzo [2024] EWCA Civ 1602, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that a foreign state cannot claim state immunity in an employment discrimination and unfair dismissal case brought by an administrative embassy worker. These cases show that state immunity is not merely a procedural technicality: it may determine whether an individual has any effective opportunity to vindicate substantive rights.

The book also explains the post-Brexit relationship between state immunity and European Union law. EU law no longer has the supremacy it previously enjoyed within the United Kingdom, although retained or assimilated EU law and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 remain relevant to the historical development and present operation of some rules.

Equally important is the distinction between state immunity and the foreign act-of-state doctrine. Both rest, in part, on ideas of sovereign equality and the independence of states, but foreign act of state is a common-law doctrine rather than a product of the 1978 Act. The doctrines should therefore not be treated as interchangeable.

For private international lawyers, the book’s most important conceptual point is that the 1978 Act limits the adjudicatory jurisdiction that a United Kingdom court would otherwise possess. It does not itself confer jurisdiction. A claimant must first establish jurisdiction under the ordinary rules of civil procedure and private international law. Only then does the separate question arise whether the foreign state is immune from the exercise of that jurisdiction. This distinction between the existence of jurisdiction and immunity from its exercise is fundamental.

Chapter 4 examines the general immunity from adjudicatory jurisdiction. The statutory scheme leans strongly towards protecting foreign states: the claimant bears the burden of establishing an applicable exception to immunity, even where the foreign state declines to appear. This may present a considerable practical obstacle because the facts necessary to establish an exception may be difficult for a private claimant to obtain without the state’s participation.

Chapter 5 considers submission to jurisdiction. A choice-of-court agreement in favour of the courts of any part of the United Kingdom may constitute a waiver of immunity, whereas a choice-of-law clause does not. This distinction is particularly important in drafting international contracts. Selecting English law does not, without more, amount to consent by a foreign state to the jurisdiction of the English courts.

Submission may also occur through a treaty, convention or other international agreement, but it must be express. A state may submit after the dispute has arisen, and although such submission must be express, it need not necessarily be in writing. Submission may additionally result from instituting proceedings, advancing a counterclaim or participating in proceedings beyond what is necessary to assert immunity. The act of submission must be duly authorised by the state. Once valid submission occurs, the state is generally placed in the position of an ordinary litigant for the relevant proceedings. Importantly, however, submission to adjudication does not necessarily amount to consent to enforcement against state property.

Chapter 6 addresses commercial transactions and associated obligations, including contracts to be performed in the United Kingdom. The commercial-transactions exception lies at the heart of restrictive immunity and is shaped by both the earlier common law and the European Convention. It is particularly relevant to private international law because disputes concerning the character of a transaction, contractual performance and the territorial connection with the United Kingdom may determine whether immunity is available.

Chapter 7 concerns employment contracts. As the authors observe, section 4 may justifiably claim to be among the most controversial provisions of the Act. The central authority is Benkharbouche, in which statutory restrictions on claims by state employees were held incompatible with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, at the relevant time, Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The resulting changes strengthened employees’ access to justice. The chapter is particularly valuable because cross-border employment disputes frequently bring together jurisdiction, applicable law, mandatory employment protection, human rights and the public international law of immunity.

Chapters 8 to 14 examine the statutory exceptions relating to personal injury and damage to property; ownership, possession and use of property; intellectual and industrial property; companies and other collective bodies; arbitration; admiralty proceedings; and taxation. The property provisions remove immunity in defined proceedings concerning property, subject to protections for premises used for diplomatic purposes. The intellectual-property exception reflects restrictive immunity but has generated comparatively little reported litigation.

The arbitration chapter is of special interest to commercial lawyers. Where a state has agreed in writing to submit a dispute to arbitration, immunity from the supervisory or supporting jurisdiction of the courts is generally removed in relation to the arbitration. This provision has been frequently litigated. Nevertheless, the existence of an arbitration agreement and the removal of adjudicatory immunity do not automatically permit execution against state assets. Parties dealing with states must therefore distinguish carefully between consent to arbitration, consent to court proceedings connected with arbitration and waiver of immunity from enforcement.

Chapter 15 examines service of process and default judgments. These procedural matters have substantial private international law significance because the validity of service and the protection afforded to an absent foreign state may determine whether proceedings can advance and whether a judgment will ultimately be effective.

Chapter 16 addresses enforcement jurisdiction, perhaps the area in which the special position of a sovereign state is most pronounced. Coercive measures—including injunctions, contempt proceedings, orders compelling employee reinstatement and execution against state property—are generally considered inappropriate without a sufficient statutory basis. Even where a claimant has successfully established jurisdiction and obtained judgment, enforcement may therefore remain impossible.

The principal exceptions arise where the state has expressly and unequivocally waived immunity from enforcement or where the relevant property is in use, or intended for use, for commercial purposes. A waiver of immunity from adjudication should not lightly be treated as a waiver of immunity from execution. This separation has major practical consequences: a claimant may win the legal dispute yet be unable to obtain the benefit of the judgment. The chapter reinforces the need for contracts involving states to contain carefully drafted and distinct waivers addressing jurisdiction, interim relief and enforcement.

Chapter 17 discusses the meaning of “the State” and the treatment of separate entities, central banks and constituent territories. Whether a body forms part of the state or is a separate entity may determine both the applicable test for immunity and the availability of assets for enforcement. Central-bank property receives particularly strong protection. These classification questions are often decisive in cross-border litigation, especially where commercial activity is conducted through state-owned corporations or other legally distinct bodies.

The remaining chapters address the power to amend Part I, savings and excluded matters, statutory interpretation, foreign judgments, heads of state and related persons, and certificates concerning facts of state. Chapter 21’s treatment of foreign judgments is particularly relevant to private international law, although the statutory mechanism considered there appears never to have been used against the United Kingdom. More generally, the relationship between foreign judgments and state immunity raises difficult questions: recognition of a judgment, adjudicatory jurisdiction over the state and execution against state property are separate stages and may be governed by different requirements.

Overall, this is a highly specialised work. A sound knowledge of public international law—and, to a lesser extent, private international law—is helpful if the reader is to appreciate its analysis fully. Yet the book is also valuable precisely because it demonstrates that the boundary between the two disciplines is permeable. State immunity is founded in public international law, but it operates through the machinery of private litigation. It affects jurisdiction, choice-of-court agreements, employment disputes, arbitration, service, foreign judgments and enforcement.

Before reading the book, I was sceptical about the practical force of public international law, particularly because powerful states sometimes appear able to disregard its principles without meaningful consequences. This book has caused me to reconsider that view. Public international law is not confined to prominent disputes about war or territorial sovereignty. In the field of jurisdictional immunities, it performs an important stabilising function by mediating between access to national courts and the sovereign equality of states. It thereby contributes to international comity and the orderly conduct of relations among states.

For a private international lawyer, the book’s lasting lesson is that ordinary rules of transnational litigation cannot be applied to foreign states without accounting for their sovereign character. Conversely, public international law principles of immunity acquire practical effect through domestic rules governing civil proceedings. Dickinson and Thompson’s work illuminates that relationship with considerable depth. It merits close attention from practitioners and scholars working on cross-border litigation, international commercial arbitration, employment disputes involving states, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments and awards. It is also a book to which I expect to return as my understanding of the relationship between public and private international law continues to develop.

The Annual Conference of the American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP) will take place from 20 to 23 October 2026 in San Salvador (El Salvador). It is entitled the transformative spirit of Private International Law (“La vocación transformadora del Derecho Internacional Privado”).

The deadline to submit posters has been extended to 13 September 2026.

The second issue of 2026 of the Rivista di diritto internazionale privato e processuale (RDIPP) is out. In addition to recent case law and other materials, it features three contributions. Cristina Campiglio, Il volto «umano» del diritto internazionale privato: la disciplina dell’autodeterminazione di genere (The “Human” Face of Private International Law: The Regulation of Gender […]

The fourth book in the European Association of Private International Law series is out. Published by Edward Elgar, this book is the outcome of the second edition of the EAPIL Winter School in Private International Law. The contributions are based on the lectures given during the course, which took place at the Department of Law, […]

The European Commission has just opened a public consultation on the Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast). A call for evidence is available here (which includes the three policy options being considered).

As indicated in the call for evidence, “[t]he aim of the consultation is to collect evidence, experiences and opinions from relevant stakeholders. These contributions will inform the analysis and assessment of the performance of the Regulation in its current form, the shortcomings identified, possible policy options to address them and their expected impacts.”

The public consultation will run from 1 September 2026 until 24 November 2026 (midnight Brussels time).

The fifth issue of IPRax (Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts) for 2026 was published on 1 September. The following advance abstracts have been kindly provided by the editor of the journal. B. Steinrötter, The UNIDROIT Conflict-of-Laws Rule on the Law of Crypto-Assets. A contribution to the classification of Principle 5 of the UNIDROIT Principles […]

September 2026 promises to be a busy month for the Court of Justice of the European Union. A series of significant judgments, Advocate General opinions, and a noteworthy arbitration-related hearing will address questions ranging from the scope of the Rome II Regulation and cross-border succession disputes to the interpretation of the European Small Claims Procedure, […]

In a decision of 14 July, the Swedish Supreme Court clarified whether standing to bring maintenance proceedings is governed by the law applicable to the maintenance obligation appointed by the 2007 Hague Protocol on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations or by the law of the forum under the principle of lex for regit processum. […]

The Ravenna Summer School on Cross-Border Litigation (Università di Bologna) is organizing its III Reunion on 19-20 November 2026 in Bologna (Italy).  The program of the reunion will include two sessions dedicated to the presentations of young researchers:  Session I: Rules of cross-border jurisdiction in times of conflicts and growing unilateralism   Session II: Recognition and enforcement […]

Susanne Gössl (Bonn), Frederick Rieländer (Bremen), and Benedikt Schmitz (Groningen) are happy to announce the creation of the European Group on the Digitalisation of Justice (EGDJ), a Chapter-based collaborative research network dedicated to analysing, evaluating, and shaping the ongoing digital transformation of judicial systems across Europe. It focuses on end-users, the judiciary as well as public administrations, and broader systematic changes.

EGDJ is intra-disciplinary, reflecting all areas of procedural law, including private international law. It is also comparative, as it delineates and compares existing approaches to the digitalisation of justice in Europe. Furthermore, it aims to provide EU-wide solutions that streamline digitalisation across the entire bloc.

Inspired by the insights of a comparative symposium held in Groningen in May 2026, EGDJ is launching with the Netherlands and Germany as its inaugural chapters. A chapter represents either a country or a region and is headed by one or more “leads”. Chapters must participate in group-wide projects but may also conduct their own national initiatives. Leads are responsible for convening a group of scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from all procedural fields of law (PIL, civil procedure, administrative procedure, criminal procedure). The number of members for each chapter is not limited. A Chapter can also be a pre-existing group on national level.

Given EGDJ’s clear aspiration to be truly European, we are now looking for interested persons to take on the position as lead for their country/region. For a list of already existing Chapters, see: https://egdj.org/who-we-are/. This list will be updated on a rolling basis.

After passing of the (soft!) deadline, we will convene an online meeting to discuss the ins and outs of this new European Group on the Digitalisation of Justice, inviting you to directly influence its future direction.

Express your interest before 1 October 2026

Please send an email to the EGDJ coordinators at info@egdj.org, containing the following:

• Your name, position, and professional affiliation
• The country/region you would like to represent
• Your motivation for doing so
• And, if applicable, prior experience in the area of digitalisation of justice

The soft deadline to express your interest is before 1 October 2026. You may send an email at a later stage, too, but this might not be in time for the inaugural online meeting.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact Benedikt Schmitz at b.schmitz@rug.nl.

The third issue of the Journal du droit international for 2026 has been released. It contains one article and several case notes relating to private international law issues. In their contribution, Gustavo Cerqueira (University of Nice) and Nicolas Nord (University of Strasbourg / CIEC) analyse the Brazilian draft general act on private international law (Commentaire […]

In the context of the annual meeting of the European Group of Private International Law (GEDIP), hosted this year by the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University, a half-day hybrid workshop titled The “Brussels Effect”: A Brussels I Regulation for the World?  will be held on 17 September 2026. Following the European Commission’s report on […]

This announcement has kindly been provided by Matthias Lehmann and Lukas Petschning (University of Vienna).

On 30 November and 1 December 2026, the University of Vienna (Section for Comparative, Uniform and Private International Law) will host a conference entitled „Conflict of Laws in International Arbitration“.

Four thematic sessions will consider current issues revolving around the law governing (1) arbitrability and the arbitration agreement, (2) the conduct of proceedings, (3) privilege and document production, as well as (4) the merits of the dispute. The panels include academics and practitioners from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, with plenty of time reserved for discussion and networking.

Early winter is an optimal time to visit Vienna, and Christmas markets will already be in full swing. A Mulled Wine Reception in the evening of the first conference day will hopefully spread a festive mood among participants, and will be followed by the optional Conference Dinner at Vienna City Hall.

The preliminary agenda for the conference is now available here.

Registration is possible here and free of charge for full-time academics, students, and public servants; early-bird prices of EUR 80 are still available for other participants.

A charge of EUR 60 applies for the optional conference dinner.

We are looking forward to welcoming many of you to Vienna!

The author of this post is Johan Tufte-Kristensen who is an Associate Professor of Private and Procedural Law at the University of Copenhagen. In a decision of 12 June 2026, the Danish Supreme Court ordered a Cypriot-registered company to provide security for costs in appeal proceedings in Denmark. The decision concerned a question of interest […]

This announcement has kindly been shared with us by Roger Michalski (University of Oklahoma).

We are excited to announce that the Third Conflict of Laws Annual Workshop (CLAW3) will be hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School on Friday, November 13, 2026 with a welcome dinner the night before. The CLAW aims to provide a forum to discuss new work in conflict of laws. The CLAW welcomes work on all aspects of conflict of laws, including civil, criminal, domestic and transnational conflict of laws. We welcome all those writing and working in the field of conflict of laws to attend.

Call for Papers

Those wishing to present a paper for discussion should submit a one-page abstract by September 18. Please email abstracts in Word or PDF format to roger.michalski@ou.edu, asimowitz@willamette.edu, and krooseve@law.upenn.edu.

Logistics

The CLAW will provide meals for registrants. Participants must cover travel and lodging costs. We will provide information about reasonably priced hotels as the date approaches.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

All the best,

Kim, Roger, & Aaron

Augustin Gridel (University of Nancy, France) has posted Registered Shares in Private International Law -A French and European Perspective on SSRN. The abstract reads: The private international law rules governing the ownership of shares have long rested on the modalities of their transfer, which afforded considerable significance to the form they take (registered or bearer). […]