Category Archives: Conflict of Laws
Joanna Langille, ‘The Subjects of Tort Law’
ABSTRACT To the extent they consider the matter, tort theorists sometimes assume that the subjects of authority in tort law are the citizens of the state whose tort law applies. This assumption underlies democratic and social contractarian accounts of how to justify the authority of tort law. But as the doctrine of private international law […]
Dominika Moravcová, ‘Cross-Border Dispute as a sine qua non in the Regulation Establishing the European Small Claims Procedure’
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the European Small Claims Procedure, with a particular emphasis on its application in cross-border cases. It specifically examines the fulfilment of the sine qua non condition under ratione materiae, namely the crossborder element, analysed through the lens of the Court of Justice’s case law concerning this Regulation, as well as […]
‘Adapting private international law in an era of uncertainty’: Asser Institute, The Hague, 24 October 2025
Private international law deals with cross-border legal disputes. It answers questions like: which country’s court should hear a case? And which country’s laws should apply? These questions are becoming harder to answer as people, businesses, and conflicts move across borders more easily – and unpredictably. The event will bring together leading legal scholars, practitioners, and […]
Nathan Willems, ‘A Comparative Analysis of the Homeward Trend’
ABSTRACT To ensure legal certainty, predictability, comity among nations and party autonomy, judges are faced with the application of foreign law. This poses specific problems such as a (perceived) reduced quality of justice due to the judge’s unfamiliarity with the foreign law. There are, however, certain techniques that allow the judge and parties to resort […]
Antonia Sommerfeld, ‘Claiming the EU Right to Repair from Manufacturers in Cross-Border Contexts’
ABSTRACT Starting in August 2026, consumers purchasing goods within the EU will gain new rights of repair for a number of electronic household products specified in the EU Repair Directive (RD). This development will help support a sustainability transition towards a Circular Economy. The Directive’s two-pronged approach vests the consumer with a right to repair […]
Symeon Symeonides, ‘Party Autonomy Then and Now’
ABSTRACT Virtually all private international law systems now accept the principle of party autonomy, namely the notion that parties to a multistate contract may agree in advance, and within certain parameters and limitations, on which state’s law will govern the contract. The first part of this Article, corresponding to the word ‘then’ in the title, […]
‘Foreign illegality and English courts: Do the Ralli brothers now have a sister?’
In the recent and interesting case of LLC Eurochem v Société Generale SA et al [2025] EWHC 1938 (Comm), the English High Court (Commercial Court) considered the extent to which economic sanctions enacted by a foreign jurisdiction (EU law in this instance) can impact the enforcement of contractual payment claims (governed by English law) in […]
Kermit Roosevelt, ‘The State Whose Law is Selected’
ABSTRACT The ability of parties to a multistate contract to choose the law that governs their relationship, once controversial, is now almost universally accepted. So too are the conventional limits on that ability. Most jurisdictions restrict party autonomy in the name of the same set of concerns: Power disparities between the parties that might lead […]
‘Torts and Tourists in the Supreme Court of Canada’
In Sinclair v Venezia Turismo, 2025 SCC 27 (available here) the Supreme Court of Canada has, by 5-4 decision, held that the Ontario court does not have jurisdiction to hear claims by Ontario residents against three Italian defendants in respect of a tort in Italy. The Sinclair family members were injured in a gondola collision […]
‘Enforcement of asymmetric jurisdiction agreements: uncertainty resolved by the entry into force of the 2019 Hague Convention?’
In this blog post, Kristina Lukacova considers to what extent the entry into force in the UK of the Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (the ‘2019 Hague Convention’) on 1 July 2025 has resolved uncertainty as to the enforcement of asymmetric jurisdiction […]