Designing Transnational Litigation: The Case Against Forum Non Conveniens

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 321-324
Author(s):  
Maggie Gardner

The papers presented on this panel so far explore how countries and courts have worked around jurisdictional lacunae in international law. This last paper considers the question of jurisdiction from the other side: How should judges handle jurisdictional excess? While jurisdictional gaps can create governance problems, exorbitant claims of jurisdiction can make the cooperation and reciprocity needed to solve those governance problems harder to achieve. And if finding the right balance between ensuring adequate jurisdiction and avoiding exorbitant jurisdiction were not hard enough, much of that balancing is left up to individual judges deciding individual cases in domestic courts. Private international law is, in this sense, a decentralized system that depends on ad hoc calibration by dispersed judges.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-376
Author(s):  
Marcel Brus

This article focuses on the possibilities for victims of international crimes to obtain reparation in a foreign domestic court. The chances of success for such claims are small under traditional international law. The article questions whether the development of human rights and humanitarian ethics as a core element of international law (referred to as ius humanitatis) is having an impact on traditional obstacles to making such claims. Two elements are considered: the relevance of changing societal attitudes to the ‘rights’ of victims of such crimes and their possible effect on the interpretation and application of existing law, and whether in present-day international law humanitarian concerns have led to limiting obstacles that are still based on sovereignty, notably regarding the universality principle, prescription, and state immunity. The general conclusion is that on all these points much remains to be done.


Grotiana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-353
Author(s):  
Dire Tladi

Abstract The concept of a Grotian moment remains rather obscure in international law. On the one hand, it can refer simply to an empirical fact which galvanises the ordinary law-making processes, whether treaty-making or State practice, resulting in major shifts in international law. On the other hand, a Grotian moment might be seen as an event so significant that it results in an extraordinary shift in international law without full adherence to the processes for law-making. The former understanding has little legal significance, while the latter, which would be legally significant, would be controversial and without legal basis. Against this background the article discusses the intersections between peremptory norms and Grotian Moments. It does this by looking at the intersection between the two concepts as well as the intersection between Grotian Moments, on the one hand and, on the other hand, particular jus cogens norms. With respect to the former, for example, the article will consider whether the high threshold of peremptory status facilitates and hinders Grotian moments. With respect to the latter, the article will consider particular norms that have been said to have shifted on account of the Grotian moments, namely the right to use of force in self-defence as well humanitarian intervention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (90) ◽  
pp. 189-205
Author(s):  
Radmila Dragišić

In this paper, the author explores the sources of European Union Law that regulate one segment of parental responsibility - the right of access to a child. The focal point of research is the transition from the conventional (interstate) regulation of judicial cooperation in marital disputes and parental responsibility issues to the regulation enacted by the European Union institutions, with specific reference to the Brussels II bis Regulation. First, the author briefly points out to its relationship with other relevant international law sources regulating this subject matter: the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction; the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in the Field of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children; and other international sources of law. Then, the author examines in more detail its relationship with the Brussels II bis recast Regulation, which will be applicable as of 1 August 2022. In addition, the paper includes an analysis of the first case in which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided on the application of the Brussels II bis Regulation, at the request of granparents to exercise the right of access to the child. On the issue of determining the competent court which has jurisdiction to decide on how this right shall be exercised, the CJEU had to decide whether the competent court is determined on the basis of the Brussels II bis Regulation or on the basis of national Private International Law rules. This paper is useful for the professional and scientific community because it deals (inter alia) with the issue of justification of adopting a special source of law at the EU level, which would regulate the issue of mutual enforcement of court decisions on the right of access to the child. This legal solution was proposed by the Republic of France, primarily guided by the fundamental right of the child to have contact with both parents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (08) ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Hiba Thamer MAHMOOD

Acquiring the mother's nationality is a human right in general and the rights of the mother and child in particular stipulated in international conventions and the Iraqi constitution in force for the year 2005, in addition, the Iraqi Nationality Law stipulates the mother’s right to transmit nationality to her children, but according to conditions previously set by the Iraqi legislature, because it helps to reduce the issue of statelessness, is considered one of the important and contemporary jurisprudence topics, which stirred controversy among legal jurists between supporters and opponents, especially Islamic law jurists because the child is attributed to his father, and the state legislations differed in it, as well as in the legal implications of acquiring the mother’s nationality, including dual nationality, applicable law, inheritance issues and other Private international law matters. Therefore, the research dealt with the topic according to the comparative approach in two topics, the first study on the child's right to the nationality of his mother and was divided into two demands, the first requirement is what is the mother’s nationality, and the second requirement is about equality in the right to acquire a nationality, while the second topic examined the foundations of acquiring the mother’s nationality In the Iraqi Nationality Law, it was divided into two topics: The first requirement is the cases of acquiring the mother’s nationality in the Iraqi Nationality Law. The second requirement relates to how to acquire the mother’s nationality and its implications. Through the foregoing, where a number of results and proposals have been reached, we found that the transmit of nationality from the mother to the child born in the territory of a state would be beneficial in the event that the father's nationality had been rejected for political reasons, the issue of granting nationality by the mother to her children helped in the transfer of inheritance from the mother to the children and the acquisition of ownership, especially real estate, which states require the foreigner to have multiple conditions for approval of ownership, where countries have to unify their legislation regarding the mother's right to grant citizenship to her children based on the right of blood to limit the problems of international law, such as the issue of determining the applicable law, Actual nationality and other matters‎‎. Keywords: Mother's Nationality, Human Rights, Gender Equality, Acquisition of Nationality, Discrimination Against Women, International Conventions


1947 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-377
Author(s):  
E. Wilder Spaulding

An expert on foreign affairs has summarized the limitation upon the right of a government to make public the diplomatic papers which it has received from another government as follows: “ … one party to a negotiation cannot, in honor and in courtesy, publish the negotiation without the consent of the other party, on pain of forfeiting that good-will upon which … ‘the peace of the world ultimately depends.’ ” This principle of consent to publication is accepted, with some reservations and exceptions, by American practice. But American practice in this matter is not generally accepted by all foreign offices and it is not precisely and definitely written into international law. It has been generally observed in normal times by the Great Powers, which have had most to gain by its application, and it has frequently been disregarded by small powers and by Great Powers in times of stress. It rests upon comity and reciprocity, not upon international legislation.


2022 ◽  
pp. 016224392110691
Author(s):  
Sonja van Wichelen

As genetic knowledge continues to strengthen notions of identity in Euro-American societies and beyond, epigenetic knowledge is intervening in these legitimation frameworks. I explore these interventions in the realm of assisted reproduction—including adoption, donor conception, and gestational surrogacy. The right to identity is protected legally in many states and receives due attention in public and private international law. Originating from the context of adoption, donor-conceived and surrogacy-born persons have recently demanded the same protections and focused on the right to genetic knowledge. This article explores possible implications of epigenetic knowledge on identity. I start by articulating the deep influence of genetics on the notion of identity, and how this unfolds in legal contexts. Next, I examine how epigenetic findings that stress the importance of seeing biological life as situated and embedded in environments can challenge how adoption, donor conception, and gestational surrogacy are experienced and understood. While I argue that epigenetic knowledge can reify identity with the same determinism underpinning genetics, it can also allow for more biosocial understandings of identity that consider history and experience as entangled with biology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-427
Author(s):  
Myron Phua ◽  
Matthew Chan

Abstract This Case Note critically discusses the Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Enka v Chubb [2020] EWCA Civ 574, where it held that (i) the doctrine of forum non conveniens (FNC) can never apply where an English court is asked to determine if a London arbitration agreement should be enforced by injunction, and that (ii) the ‘separability’ of an arbitration clause from the contract containing it entailed that, absent an express choice of law for it, there was a ‘strong presumption’ that the parties implicitly chose the seat law as its proper law. In doing so, the Court abandoned its previous approach in Sulamérica v Enesa, and indirectly cast doubt on its recent suggestion in Kabab-ji v KFG that ‘implied choices’ of law arguably involved the implication of a term into the arbitration agreement on ‘business efficacy’ grounds. Further, the Court appeared not to acknowledge that, outwith the arbitration context, (i) ‘FNC waiver’ clauses and exclusive jurisdiction agreements do not categorically foreclose FNC, and that (ii) ‘implied choices’ of law should not be casually inferred nowadays. The Court’s analysis in Enka was distinctly arbitration-centric: it was minded to emphasize the non-derogability of the seat courts’ supervisory role, and the ‘separability’ of an arbitration agreement from the contractual document containing it. Enka is an intriguing example of how international arbitration doctrine, particularly as regards arbitration agreements, can materially diverge from cognate principles of private international law. Nevertheless, we question whether international arbitration agreements are truly distinctive enough to justify such differences in treatment. Our assessment is that the answer is probably ‘no’.


2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-255
Author(s):  
Andrea Bonomi

The subject of this contribution is the influence of Swiss Private International Law (PIL) on the Italian codification. This topic could be regarded as rather old-fashioned. One of the terms of the comparison, the Italian statute of private international law, goes back to May 1995 and the other, the Swiss PIL Act, is even older, almost “prehistoric” since it was adopted in 1987 and entered into force on the 1st January 1989, that means in an era which preceded the advent of the Internet and the “Information Society.” Not even the idea of comparing these two pieces of legislation is an entirely new one, since a very accurate comparative analysis of the two codifications has already been done by Mr. Dutoit, professor of PIL and comparative law at the University of Lausanne, in an article of 1997.


Author(s):  
Aoláin Fionnuala Ní

Principle 29 deals with restrictions on the jurisdiction of military courts. Under this Principle, the adjudication of human rights violations by military courts is explicitly excluded, and ordinary domestic courts are mandated as the only appropriate venue of judicial oversight. Nevertheless, military courts remain functionally important for the routine and uncontroversial deployment of military law consistent with international law. The chapter first provides a contextual and historical background on Principle 29 before discussing its theoretical framework and how military courts are used in various countries such as Ireland and Turkey. Issues arising when civilians find themselves within the jurisdiction of military courts are also examined, along with the difficulties of ensuring fair trials in military courts. This chapter shows that military courts, while certainly serving important functions within the military forces of states, remain subject to human rights and humanitarian law compliance.


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