Droit international général

The following call was kindly shared with us by Michiel Poesen (University of Aberdeen).

This is a call for papers and panels for the Private International Law subject section at the SLS Annual Conference 2026. This year, the annual conference will take place at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The conference dates are: 2-4 September 2026.

The Private International Law section will meet in the first half of the conference on 2-3 September, and we can run up to four sessions, each lasting 90 minutes.?Doctoral students are very welcome and are encouraged to submit papers for consideration in the Subject Sections Programme. The conference theme is Doing Law Differently, but the Private International Law Subject Section welcomes paper and panel proposals on any topics connected to our discipline.

Conference Information

The 2026 conference at UEA will be fully in-person. This decision reflects a move globally to resume in person conferences, as well as the significant costs surrounding the delivery of a fully virtual attendance. However, it will be possible for members of the SLS to register to view the plenary sessions at the conference online. Furthermore, Council members who are not attending the 2026 Conference will still be able to attend the Council meeting and AGM virtually?and, consistent with our EDI priorities, speakers who cannot attend may, on sufficient notice, be able to present virtually. We will also endeavour to allow speakers unable to attend at the last minute due to ill-health or travel restrictions to present virtually. We continue to offer support for attendance via our Annual Conference Additional Support Fund (ASF) to support those with special circumstances warranting additional support. Priority for support will be given to applicants who have no other source of funding.

Submitting through Oxford Abstracts

If you are interested in delivering a paper or organising a panel, please submit your paper abstract or panel details by 11:59pm UK time on Friday 27 March 2026. All abstracts and panel details must be submitted through the Oxford Abstracts conference system which can be accessed here – and following the instructions (select ‘Track’ for the relevant subject section). If you registered for Oxford Abstracts for last year’s conference, please ensure that you use the same email address this year (if that address remains current). For those whose papers are accepted, the original submission offers the facility to upload a full paper nearer the time. If you experience any issues in using Oxford Abstracts, please contact slsconference@mosaicevents.co.uk.

This is the fourth year we will be running first blind peer review, with a subsequent non-blind review once initial decisions have been made to consider profile diversity before final decisions are made and communicated. The feedback from convenors on this process has been very positive. We intend to communicate decisions on acceptance by Friday 8 May 2026.

Submission Format

We welcome proposals representing a full range of intellectual perspectives and methodological approaches in the Private International Law subject section, and from those at all stages of their careers.

Those wishing to present a paper should submit a title and abstract of around 300 words. Those wishing to propose a panel should submit a document outlining the theme and rationale for the panel and the names of the proposed speakers (who must have agreed to participate) and their abstracts.?Sessions are 90 minutes in length. Those proposing panels should include up to three speakers per panel (though the conference organisers reserve the right to add speakers to panels in the interests of balance and diversity).

As the SLS is keen to ensure that as many members with good quality papers as possible can present, speakers should not present twice at the conference at the expense of another credible paper.?The general expectation is that authors will submit no more than one single and/or one co-authored paper. There should be a maximum of 3 speakers per paper. For papers with more than 3 authors, the authors should consider submitting a panel. Submissions with multiple authors should clearly identify non-speaking and speaking authors. When you submit an abstract via Oxford Abstracts you will be asked to note if you are also responding to calls for papers or panels from other sections.

The Best Paper Prize

Please also note that the SLS offers two prizes. First, The Best Paper Prize, which can be awarded to academics at any stage of their career, and which is open to those presenting papers individually or within a panel.? The Prize carries a £300 monetary award, and the winning paper will, subject to the usual process of review and publisher’s conditions, appear in Legal Studies.

To be eligible for the Best Paper Prize :

• Speakers must be fully paid-up members of the SLS (where a paper has more than one author, all authors eligible for membership of the Society under its rule 3 must be members and must be fully paid up. The decision as to eligibility of any co-authors will be taken by the Membership Secretary, whose decision will be final).
• Papers should be submitted as a word document and must not exceed 12,000 words including footnotes (as counted in Word; figures and tables are not included in the word count).
• Papers must be uploaded to the paper bank by 11:59pm UK time on?Friday 28 August 2026.
• Papers must not have been published previously or have been accepted or be under consideration for publication.
• Papers must have been accepted by a Convenor in a Subject Section and an oral version of the paper must be presented at the annual conference by at least one of the authors.
• Where a paper is delivered as part of a panel, the paper will only be eligible for consideration where: (a) the abstract for the panel indicates that this specific paper will be delivered at the annual conference, and that abstract has been accepted by a Convenor in a Subject Section; and (b) an oral version of the specific paper has been presented at the annual conference by at least one of the authors.
• Where a Convenor or Final Panellist is unable to judge, for example, where there is a conflict of interest, they will nominate another member of the Section or Executive Committee member to act as an alternate (a conflict of interest includes, but is not limited to, where a Convenor, Chair or Judge is a colleague or PhD supervisor of an author).
• The SLS adopts the same policy as Legal Studies as regards AI. The policy is available via this?link.

In 2020, the Society launched the Best Paper by a Doctoral Student Prize, which is open to currently registered doctoral students who are members of the Society. The Prize is £300. There is no link to publication in Legal Studies arising from this award, but any winner would be welcome to submit their paper for consideration by the Society’s journal.

To be eligible for the Best Paper by a Doctoral Student Prize:

• Speakers must be fully paid-up members of the SLS who are doctoral students (where a paper has more than one author, all authors eligible for membership of the Society under its rule 3 must be fully paid up members and all authors must be doctoral students, whatever their discipline. The decision as to eligibility of any co-authors will be taken by the Membership Secretary, whose decision will be final).
• Papers must be submitted in word document format and should not exceed 12,000 words including footnotes (as counted in Word; figures and tables are not included in the word count).
• Papers must be uploaded to the paper bank by 11:59pm UK time on?Friday 28 August 2026.
• Papers must not have been published previously or have been accepted or be under consideration for publication.
• Papers must have been accepted by a Convenor in a subject section and an oral version of the paper must be presented by at least one of the authors at the annual conference.
• Where a paper eligible for this prize wins the Best Paper Prize, the judges may at their discretion award the prize for Best Paper by a Doctoral Student to a different nominated paper.
• The judges may announce a shortlist at their discretion with the winner to be announced by the first week in November.
• Where a paper is delivered as part of a panel, the paper will only be eligible for consideration where: (a) the abstract for the panel indicates that this specific paper will be delivered at the annual conference, and that abstract has been accepted by a Convenor in a Subject Section; and (b) an oral version of the specific paper has been presented at the annual conference by at least one of the authors.
• Where a Convenor or Final Panellist is unable to judge, for example, where there is a conflict of interest, he or she will nominate another member of the Section or Executive Committee member to act as an alternate (a conflict of interest includes, but is not limited to, where a Convenor, Chair or Judge is a colleague or PhD supervisor of an author).
• The SLS adopts the same policy as Legal Studies as regards AI. The policy is available via this?link.

Registration and paying for the conference

We have also been asked to remind you that all speakers will need to book and pay to attend the conference and that they will need to register for the conference by Friday 19 June 2026 to secure their place within the programme, though please do let us know if this deadline is likely to pose any problems for you.?Booking information will be circulated in due course and will open after the decisions on the response to the calls are made. Understanding the challenges faced by higher education, the SLS will keep ticket prices at 2025 rates for the 2026 conference.

With best wishes,

Dr Michiel Poesen
Dr Patricia Živkovi?

Co-convenors of the Private International Law section

Philippine Blajan, who is a professor at the University of Versailles Saint Quentin, has published La combinaison des autonomies en droit international privé des contrats. Étude des interactions entre le choix de juridiction et le choix de loi (The Combination of Party Autonomies in the Private International Law of Contracts. A study of the interactions between […]

On 18 February 2026, a Corrigendum to Regulation (EU) 2020/1784 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters (service of documents) has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The Corrigendum […]

Written by Dr Priskila Pratita Penasthika, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia

INTRODUCTION

The Indonesian Personal Data Protection Law, Law Number 27 of 2022 (Indonesian PDP Law), came into effect on 17 October 2022. Before its enactment, data protection rules in Indonesia were fragmented across different sector-specific laws and regulations. The Indonesian PDP Law aims to unify these laws and regulations, providing greater clarity and ensuring consistent personal data protection across all sectors in the country. The Indonesian PDP Law sets out normative provisions on personal data protection; however, detailed, practical rules have yet to be specified in the implementing regulations. As of now, the drafting of these implementing regulations is still underway.

Many of the fundamental elements of the Indonesian PDP Law, including definitions of covered data and entities, lawful grounds, processing obligations, accountability measures, and relationships between data controllers and processors, are modelled after the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Nonetheless, several key provisions are tailored specifically to the Indonesian context. For instance, the Indonesian PDP Law has broad extraterritorial reach, which shall apply to entities insofar as their personal data processing activities have legal implications within Indonesia or pertain to an Indonesian national data subject outside Indonesian jurisdiction.

To date, there have been five decisions by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia (Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia) concerning the Indonesian Personal Data Protection Law. Briefly, the Indonesian Constitutional Court functions as one of Indonesia’s apex judicial authorities, alongside the Supreme Court. Its primary jurisdiction involves the constitutional review of enacted laws (undang-undang) in Indonesia to assess their conformity with the 1945 Indonesian Constitution (as lastly amended in 2002), thereby safeguarding the constitutional rights therein. Its decisions are final, legally binding, and possess immediate legal effect upon issuance, with no provisions for appeal or annulment by any other institutional body.

This piece will focus on the most recent ruling by the Constitutional Court issued on 19 January 2026 regarding the Indonesian PDP Law, namely Case Number 137/PUU-XXIII/2025, as it pertains to matters within private international law.

FACTS

The Petitioner mainly requests a constitutional review of Article 56 of the Indonesian PDP Law, which specifies the requirements for cross-border personal data transfers. Article 56 delineates a tiered set of prerequisites for such transfers. A personal data controller responsible for transmitting personal data abroad (data exporter) must verify that the recipient country offers an adequate or higher level of personal data protection than that provided by the Indonesian PDP Law. If this requirement is not met, the data exporter must ensure that sufficient and binding data protections are in place in the recipient country. If neither condition is satisfied, the data exporter is obliged to obtain consent from the data subject prior to transferring personal data abroad. Furthermore, the forthcoming implementing regulations are expected to provide further details on the specific requirements for cross-border data transfers.

The petition was initiated with the briefing announcement issued by the White House on 22 July 2025 concerning the Framework for Negotiating a Reciprocal Trade Agreement between Indonesia and the United States of America (Indonesia-USA Reciprocal Trade Agreement Negotiation Framework). As part of this framework, Indonesia has committed to establishing legal certainty regarding the ability to transfer personal data outside its borders to the United States.

The Petitioner argued that the Indonesia-USA Reciprocal Trade Agreement Negotiation Framework has led to a key interpretation of Article 56 of the Indonesian PDP Law concerning the transfer of citizens’ personal data beyond Indonesian borders. The Petitioner maintained that, under a strict interpretive approach, the PDP Law allows data controllers to assess the adequacy requirement independently, without parliamentary oversight. This could potentially weaken democratic accountability and expose personal data vulnerable to misuse. Additionally, the Petitioner emphasised that such commitments should require approval from the House of Representatives, as they directly impact national sovereignty and the protection of citizens.

The foundation of the Petitioner’s petition is based on Article 28G, paragraph (1) of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution, which protects citizens’ rights to their dignity, family, honour, and property, as well as the right to be free from threats to their fundamental rights. Additionally, the Petitioner referred to Article 11 of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution, which confers authority on the House of Representatives and the President to conclude international agreements.

Therefore, the Petitioner requests that the Constitutional Court interpret the provisions of Article 56 of the Indonesian PDP Law to mean that transferring personal data to jurisdictions such as the United States should occur only if there is an international agreement approved by the Indonesian House of Representatives. Moreover, transfers to countries considered to lack adequate personal data protection standards should take place only with the consent of the data subjects, after informing them of the risks involved in the cross-border transfers of their personal data.

CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECISION

The Constitutional Court rejected all of the Petitioner’s petition and arguments. According to the Court, the cross-border transfer of personal data constitutes part of the administrative and technical measures carried out by the executive branch, rather than an agreement between nations that creates rights and obligations in the domains of politics, defence, or sovereignty. Based on this reasoning, the Court affirmed that there is no constitutional obligation to involve the Indonesian House of Representatives in any cross-border data transfer process, including in determining the adequacy decision regarding such a personal data transfer.

Regarding the adequacy decision, the Court held that the personal data controller (data exporter) shall undertake technical verification procedures to ascertain whether the recipient country of the personal data transfer maintains data protection standards that are adequate or even higher than those provided in the Indonesian PDP Law. Furthermore, the Court pointed out that cross-border personal data transfers do not rely solely on the personal data controller to ensure adequacy or higher protection standards in the recipient country. Instead, it also necessitates the existence and active involvement of the Personal Data Protection Authority (PDPA), as prescribed in Articles 58-61 of the Indonesian PDP Law. The PDPA is tasked with overseeing, evaluating, and implementing technical policy measures to ensure compliance with requirements for cross-border personal data transfers. Nevertheless, it is important to note that such authority has yet to be established.

 REMARKS

Despite the Constitutional Court’s rejection of the petition, Case Number 137/PUU-XXIII/2025 brings to light persistent concerns regarding the Indonesian PDP Law, particularly its provisions on cross-border personal data transfers. These issues call for further discussion and highlight the pressing need to pass the implementing regulations and establish the PDPA.

First, clarification is required regarding the party responsible for conducting cross-border transfers of personal data. Article 56 of the Indonesian PDP Law exclusively employs the term ‘personal data controller’ (pengendali data pribadi) in the context of cross-border data transfers, which seems to imply that only personal data controllers are authorised to carry out such transfers.

Second, it is necessary to delineate which countries are recognised as having adequate or higher levels of personal data protection. In this context, Article 60(f) of the Indonesian PDP Law provides that the PDPA is empowered to assess whether the requirements for cross-border personal data transfers are satisfied. The significant role of the PDPA in cross-border personal data transfer is also emphasised by the Constitutional Court Judges in Case Number 137/PUU-XXIII/2025. Since the PDPA has not yet been established or designated to date, this situation underscores the urgent need to set up or appoint such an authority.

Third, the forthcoming implementing regulations of the Indonesian PDP Law are expected to clarify issues surrounding cross-border personal data transfers, including the incorporation of whitelists and blacklists of specific jurisdictions, standardised contractual language, and specific data processing activities such as pseudonymisation and encryption. It is also presumed that the personal data controller and the forthcoming PDPA will be required to report to the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital regarding cross-border transfers of personal data.

Fourth, as set out at the outset of this piece, the Indonesian PDP Law has an extensive extraterritorial scope. In the event of a personal data breach involving cross-border transfer of personal data, any individuals, corporations, public entities, and international organisations—irrespective of their origin or residence—whether functioning as personal data controllers or processors, may be considered potential defendants for violations that affect the rights of an Indonesian data subject. Referring to Article 2 of the Indonesian PDP Law, this applicability is contingent upon the occurrence of their misconduct (1) within the jurisdiction of Indonesia or (2) outside of Indonesia, provided that such misconduct results in legal consequences (a) within the Indonesian jurisdiction or (b) impacting an Indonesian personal data subject outside of Indonesian territory.

The subsequent issue concerns the court’s jurisdiction. As no cross-border data protection litigation has occurred in Indonesia to date, the court’s position in this matter remains indeterminate. Nevertheless, Indonesian courts are notorious for their indifference and insularity when addressing foreign-related issues. Furthermore, Indonesian civil procedural law does not specify provisions regarding parallel litigation. Consequently, in case of parallel proceedings concerning a cross-border data transfer dispute, it is likely that the Indonesian court would exercise jurisdiction and proceed with the legal proceeding in Indonesia, notwithstanding the existence of an ongoing legal proceeding involving the same dispute and parties in a foreign court.

If proceedings are conducted in a foreign court, the complexities of the issues may increase. Indonesia maintains a stringent stance that a foreign judgment is not enforceable unless it pertains to damages arising from marine salvage. Any foreign, other than those on damages resulting from marine salvage, must undergo re-examination by an Indonesian court. In light of this stance, it is apparent that Indonesian courts would not recognise or enforce foreign judgments concerning cross-border personal data transfer disputes and would require such disputes to be relitigated before an Indonesian court.

Practical challenges also include the complexities of seizing assets or digital evidence located in foreign jurisdictions, given that Indonesia has not yet acceded to the HCCH 1970 Evidence Convention.

Further details concerning the Indonesian PDP Law and its private international law aspects are available in Priskila Pratita Penasthika, “Chapter 12 – Indonesia” in Adrian Mak, Ching Him Ho, and Anselmo Reyes (eds.), Privacy and Personal Data Protection Law in Asia (Hart Publishing, 12 December 2024).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 24 February 2026, the Council of the European Union approved the position of the European Parliament at first reading (reported on this blog) on the proposal for a directive amending, among other legislative measures, Directive (EU) 2024/1760 on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD). The directive has thereby been formally adopted (the final text can […]

The author of this post is Katja Karjalainen, who is a professor at University of Lapland, Finland. In its decision of 4 December 2025 (KKO:2025:102), the Finnish Supreme Court clarified that a parental agreement on intended habitual residence is irrelevant under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention (the 1980 Hague Convention) and that a child […]

Advocate General Spielmann’s opinion in case C-876/24, Vueling Airlines (Juridiction compétente en cas de contrat en ligne de transport aérien national) will be published on Thursday 26th. The Court of First Instance No 1, Fuenlabrada, Spain, has referred the following questions to the Court of Justice: First. Must Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 2027/97 [of […]

On Friday 29 May 2026 in Groningen, the Netherlands, Dr. Benedikt Schmitz from the University of Groningen is hosting a larger symposium on the topic of “Digitalisation of Justice: Perspectives from Germany and the Netherlands”

Theme

This event brings together leading and upcoming scholars to explore how digital transformation – from AI in adjudication to fully online proceedings – is reshaping our legal systems, while raising important questions about access to justice, procedural fairness, and the rule of law.

Programme

• A keynote by Dr. Benjamin Grimm, Minister of Justice and for Digitalisation (Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany)
• Expert panels on:
  • Private International Law (Prof. Dr. Susanne Lilian Gössl, LL.M. (Tulane); Prof. Dr. Frederick Rieländer, LL.M. (Cambridge); Asst.-Prof. Dr. Kirsten Henckel; Asst.-Prof. Dr. Benedikt Schmitz)
  • Civil Procedure (Prof. Dr. Gralf-Peter Calliess; Prof. Dr. Pauline Ernste; Patrick Koerts)
  • Criminal Procedure (Prof. Dr. Hannah Ofterdinger; Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Dorris de Vocht; Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Laura Peters; Asst.-Prof. Dr. Glenn Thodé)
  • Administrative Law (Prof. Dr. Sarah Rachut; Prof. Dr. Sofia Ranchordas; Asst.-Prof. Dr. Ida Varošanec)
• Elevator pitches by emerging scholars presenting cutting-edge research (Serap Bilgin, Noelle Funk, Sabrina Pölle, Constanze Rothermel, Anne Spijkstra)
• Plenty of time for discussion and networking, including coffee breaks, lunch, poster sessions, and an optional conference dinner

The full programme can be found on the conference website: https://weakerparties.eu/events/digitalisation-of-justice/

Time and Venue

• 29 May 2026, 8.30-17.10 CET
• Venue: House of Connections, Grote Markt 21, Groningen, the Netherlands

Registration

• This event is strictly in-person only.
• Attendance is free of charge.
• Register here: https://weakerparties.eu/events/digitalisation-of-justice/

On 25 February 2026, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan will host a seminar in English titled Recognition of U.S. Securities Class Actions in Europe: Compatibility of Opt-Out Claims with the Right to a Fair Trial. The main speaker will be Meltem Ece Oba (Koç University, Istanbul), while Marco Lamandini (University of […]

The latest issue of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly (Volume 74, Issue 4) features one article on private international law. Adeline Chong, ‘Salami-Slicing’ and Issue Estoppel: Foreign Decisions on the Governing Law, 875-903 Whether an issue estoppel arises over foreign decisions on the governing law of the claim has not been directly considered by an English […]

The team of editors behind the EAPIL blog has just become larger. Konrad Duden, a professor of civil law, private international law and comparative law at the University of Hamburg, and Caterina Benini, a post-doctoral researcher and adjunct professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, have joined the blog as permanent […]

A new issue of ZEuP – Zeitschrift für Europäisches Privatrecht is now available and includes contributions on EU private law, comparative law and legal history, legal unification, private international law, and individual European private law regimes. The full table of content can be accessed here: https://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/zeup.

The following contributions might be of particular interest for the readers of this blog:

Ignacio Tirado: UNIDROIT on the Occasion of Its (first) 100 Years

In the editorial, UNIDROIT on the Occasion of Its (First) 100 Years, Ignacio Tirado, Secretary General of UNIDROIT, traces the organisation’s origins and evolution, reflects on how it has navigated a turbulent century, and offers thoughts on how its centenary should be celebrated and what lies ahead for the Institute.

Wolfgang Wurmnest und Marie-Sophie Pillin: Der Data Act: Ein punktuelles europäisches Vertragsrecht für den Zugang und die Nutzung von Daten

Wolfgang Wurmnest and Marie-Sophie Pillin on Der Data Act: Ein punktuelles europäisches Vertragsrecht für den Zugang und die Nutzung von Daten highlights key private law provisions of the European Data Act. It analyzes the relationship between data controllers, users, and recipients, which in future will primarily be governed by contracts. In addition, the paper examines the new European rules on unfair contract terms.

Christian Kohler, Marlene Brosch, Jean-Christophe Puffer-Mariette: Unionsrecht und Privatrecht: Zur Rechtsprechung des EuGH im Jahre 2024

In Unionsrecht und Privatrecht: Zur Rechtsprechung des EuGH im Jahre 2024, Christian Kohler, Marlene Brosch and Jean-Christophe Puffer-Mariette offer an overview of numerous judgments of the ECJ in 2024 that are relevant to private law. Particularly noteworthy are decisions on the effects of Union citizenship and the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation as well as numerous judgments on consumer protection directives. A number of issues relating to the prohibition of discrimination and market freedoms have also been decided; judgments on copyright are equally worth mentioning.

Susanne Gössl: Das „Anerkennungsprinzip“ und das Internationale Recht der Geschlechtszugehörigkeit nach „Mirin“

Susanne Gössl on Das „Anerkennungsprinzip“ und das Internationale Recht der Geschlechtszugehörigkeit nach „Mirin“ comments on the recent ECJ decision of 4 October 2024, C-4/23 – Mirin regarding gender identity. The note explores how the Court strengthens the portability of a lawfully acquired gender identity within the EU, the limits of public policy objection, the treatment of non-binary gender entries, and the broader consequences of Mirin for the acceptance of a personal status in EU private international law. Finally, it assesses the repercussions of the judgment for German law.

For those interested in the EU’s sustainability framework, the article by Moritz Böbel, Ronjini Ray, and Marc-Philippe Weller on Die EU-Entwaldungsverordnung und ihre Auswirkungen auf den Globalen Süden am Beispiel von Indien provides an analysis of the EU’s deforestation regulation and its impacts on the Global South, focusing on India.

This post was written by Jerca Kramberger Škerl, Professor of Private International Law and Civil Procedure at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Law, and Working Group member for Slovenia in the EAPIL Working Group on Anti-SLAPP Directive Transpositions. On 28 January, the Slovenian Parliament adopted the Act on Protective Measures concerning Strategic Lawsuits against […]

The thirty-ninth annual survey on choice of law in the American courts is now available on SSRN. The survey covers significant cases decided in 2025 on choice of law, party autonomy, extraterritoriality, international human rights, foreign sovereign immunity, adjudicative jurisdiction, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.

The cases discussed in this year’s survey address (among other things) the situs of cryptocurrency, exploding batteries in e-cigarettes, the sale of an antique military tank, the validity of an Urfi marriage ceremony, whether the Hague Service Convention prohibits email service on defendants in China, the enforcement of a Philippine forfeiture judgment, and claims of expropriation by German authorities during the Soviet occupation after World War II.

This annual survey was admirably maintained by Symeon Symeonides for three decades. The present authors are pleased to have extended this tradition.

Yesterday, the Project Report of the ELI Project “Enhancing Child Protection: Private International Law on Filiation and the European Commission’s Proposal COM/2022/695 final”

It contains constructive amendments to the original Commission’s Parenthood Proposal and intends to bring it more in line with the acquis and general considerations of EU PIL. Furthermore, it puts the best interest of the child in the focus of the analysis.

For a short background: In December 2022, the EU Commission published the Proposal for a Regulation on Private International Law Rules Relating to Parenthood (COM (2022) 695 fin). An analysis of the original proposal can be found, e.g., here.

Shortly afterwards, at the European Law Institute (ELI), a project group was established (led by Dr. Ilaria Pretelli and me). The following report, which proposes amendments to the initial Commission’s Proposal, was approved by the ELI Council in September 2025 and the ELI Membership in January 2026. The report was published yesterday and is available online here.

The Report examines the Commission Proposal and its critical role in advancing fundamental rights within the EU. While preserving the Commission’s Proposal’s core vision and framework, this analysis recommends strategic refinements that strengthen alignment with the existing EU acquis, foster deeper European integration, and enhance the protection of children’s fundamental rights. In addition, it expands upon the Proposal’s initial emphasis on the EU Strategies for children’s rights and LGBTIQA+ equality by incorporating a comprehensive women’s rights perspective.

If you are interested in the Report or the Proposal and like academic discussions about the subject, there will be a webinar on March 12, 2026, from 12:30-14:00 CET.

The author of this post is Caterina Benini, post-doctoral researcher and adjunct professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. The recognition and enforcement of foreign punitive damages judgments in Italy is no longer considered anathema. In 2017, overturning its previous opposition, the Joint Sections of the Italian Supreme Court held that […]

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By Ross Pey, Western University, Canada

1. Introduction

In Case C-86/23 E.N.I. and Y.K.I. v HUK-COBURG-Allgemeine Versicherung AG II (‘HUK-COBURG II’), the principal issue that arose was whether a Bulgarian compensation provision may be interpreted as having mandatory effect. In suggesting that it does not, the Court required the facts to have sufficiently close links with the forum. (Hereinafter the ‘sufficient connexion test’) Ostensibly, a freestanding sufficient connexion test could be viewed as a disguised jurisdictional control of the forum rather than part of a mandatory law analysis. In doing so, parallels to renvoi and forum non conveniens are drawn.

2. Facts

The daughter of the Bulgarian claimants died in a road traffic accident in Germany. The person responsible was insured by the defendant. The claimants commenced a claim in Bulgaria against the defendant for non-material damages suffered for the loss of their daughter. (HUK-COBURG II at [16]–[17])

The case was dismissed on appeal. As German law governed the claim under the Rome II Regulation, the claimants ‘had not established that the mental pain and suffering sustained had caused pathological harm’ required under German law. (HUK-COBURG II at [20], [24], [51])

Crucially, the Court also said that Bulgarian law, in particular Article 52 Zakon za zadalzheniyata i dogovorite (‘ZZD’), did not apply to the case as a mandatory overriding rule under Article 16 Rome II Regulation. This issue as to whether the ZZD applied as a mandatory overriding rule was appealed to the Varhoven kasatsionen sad (Supreme Court of Cassation), which then referred the question to the ECJ.

3. The CJEU’s Reasoning

In essence, the ECJ said that although it is for the member state court to assess whether Article 52 ZZD was a mandatory overriding rule, it strongly suggested that it did not. (HUK-COBURG II at [47]-[54]). In the operative part, the Court said that that the Rome II Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that a forum law ‘cannot be regarded as an ‘overriding mandatory provision’, within the meaning of that article, unless, where the legal situation in question has sufficiently close links with the Member State of the forum, the court before which the case has been brought finds, on the basis of a detailed analysis of the wording, general scheme, objectives and the context in which that national provision was adopted [.]’ (Emphasis mine)

4. Issues with Linking Sufficient Connexion and Mandatory Law

When faced with an allegedly mandatory provision, HUK-COBURG II requires a three-step analysis: (1) identify whether the law has a mandatory effect, (2) identify whether the facts have a sufficiently close connexion with the forum, and (3) determine whether the facts fall under the statute. One reading of the sufficient connexion test in this context is that it is intrinsic to the concept of mandatory law and is read in by the ECJ into the requirements of Article 16 Rome II Regulation. [1] However, there are two issues with this view.

Firstly, it may be that a sufficient territorial connexion forms part of the reason why a forum statute is a mandatory statute and is relevant to determining whether a mandatory rule applies to the facts.[2] But linking territorial connexion and mandatory effect is problematic as they are analytically distinct. In Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association v Allgemeines Krankenhaus Viersen GmbH [2022] UKSC 29, Lord Llyod-Jones warned that there is a risk of ‘confusion’ if both territoriality and mandatory effect are conflated. The former relates to the intrusion into the territorial affairs of another state, while the latter relates to ‘whether the public policy of the forum displaces the more modest presumption that statutes only apply if they form part of the applicable law.’[3]

Secondly, one might argue that sufficient territorial connexion is required for a forum rule to be deemed a mandatory rule. But the difficulty here is why a territorial connexion with the forum matters at all. The point of mandatory overriding rules is that such rules are so important to the forum that they justify the departure from the law chosen by default choice of law rules. Viewed this way, it is difficult to see why the facts must be sufficiently connected with the forum for a mandatory law to apply. Forum mandatory overriding rules operate precisely because they are reflections of fundamental values of the forum. Requiring a territorial connexion could dilute this.

This is not to say that the Bulgarian law ought to be viewed as mandatory law. Rather, from an interpretative standpoint, grounding a rejection simply because the Bulgarian law fails to satisfy a sufficient connexion test is at least open to question.

5. A Disguised Jurisdiction Analysis?

From the above discussion, there exist questions regarding the role of a freestanding connexion test with the concept of overriding mandatory law. It is, however, plausible to read the judgment differently, where the sufficient connexion test is a jurisdictional analysis of forum choice disguised as a choice of law analysis.

Firstly, this interpretation is not precluded by the judgment itself. In the operative part, the ECJ stated that the ‘legal situation in question has sufficiently close links with the Member State of the forum’ before the forum court seised conducts a mandatory law analysis. Further, in the Court’s own analysis of what constitutes mandatory law from paragraphs 37 to 54, the Court did not place reliance on the lack of a sufficient territorial connexion. It was a factor in its own right (paragraphs 32 to 36) but does not seem necessary to the mandatory law analysis and the suggestion that Art 52 ZZD does not have a mandatory effect.

Secondly, both the ECJ judgment and the Advocate General’s opinion suggest this. The Court observed at paragraph 36 that although the claim was brought by the parents, who are domiciled in Bulgaria, the accident took place in Germany and was insured by a German insurer. The daughter who died and the person who caused the accident were Bulgarians, but are now residents in Germany. To a common lawyer, this discussion bears a striking resemblance to Step 1 of the forum non conveniens analysis in Spiliada Maritime Corpn v Cansulex Ltd (The Spiliada) [1987] AC 460, where the court asks which jurisdiction has the most real and substantial connexion with the dispute (ie. the ‘natural forum’). The jurisdictional impetus is fortified by the Advocate General’s opinion, which at paragraph 53 explicitly states that ‘the requirement of a close link helps to prevent forum shopping.’

This jurisprudential instinct to discuss the sufficiency of connexion is not unwarranted. Under the Brussels I bis Regulation, jurisdiction is allocated by a series of brightline rules, normally based on the domicile of the defendant (Article 4), and at times the claimant (for instance, under Article 11). Crucially, in Case C-281/02 Andrew Owusu v N. B. Jackson, the ECJ erred on the side of certainty in rejecting the doctrine of forum non conveniens. But in doing so, it deprived the courts of a flexible tool to control jurisdiction, making an indirect control via choice of law rules understandable.[4]

In fact, controlling jurisdiction via choice of law is not new. Briggs observes in 1998 that the doctrine of renvoi has, in part, served such a function in English law historically.[5] In this vein, the doctrine of forum non conveniens was part of the ‘tailor-made rules against forum shopping which went straight to the heart of the problem, and did not seek to operate by remote control.’[6]

If so, HUK-COBURG II is another example of the interrelatedness of the conflict of laws. When jurisdictional rules are understood rigidly, the pressure points move to other areas, including the choice of law.

[1] Eg. Dominika Moravcová, ‘Navigating the nexus: The Doctrinal Significance of close connection in the Enforcement of (not only) overriding mandatory norms’ (2025)

[2] Eg. Hague-Visby Rules scheduled to the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971.

[3] Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association v Allgemeines Krankenhaus Viersen GmbH [2022] UKSC 29 [36].

[4] The irony here is that the ECJ has now read in a sufficient connexion test into both Rome I and II Regulations, a move which it declined to do in the Brussels I bis Regulation.

[5] Adrian Briggs, ‘In Praise and Defence of Renvoi’ (1998) 47(4) The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 877.

[6] Adrian Briggs, ‘In Praise and Defence of Renvoi’ (1998) 47(4) The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 877, 879.

 

Where does time go…(those who follow me on Linked-in know where it went in January).

I flagged Richard de la Tour AG’s Opinion in C‑791/24 TERVE  Production spol. s r. o. v Intesa Sanpaolo Holding International SA when it came out at the time. I am sorry I am only reviewng it now.

E.ON Czech Holding of course features prominently.

The case concerns a dispute re the protection of minority shareholders which did not vote for the delisting of a company (VÚB) in which they hold shares. Slovak law provides that, when such a delisting is decided upon, a takeover bid must be made and that, after the expiry of that bid, the company, or its majority shareholder which made the bid on its behalf, has the right to require the delisting of the remaining shares. Conversely, after the expiry of that period, the minority shareholders may require the purchase of their shares.

Intesa of Luxembourg initiated a share takeover bid, loco VÚB, and, at the end of the three-month validity period, exercised its right of squeeze-out, which resulted in the transfer of the remaining shares into its name. At the same time, TERVE, a minority shareholder opposed to the sale, to exercise its right of sell-out, sent Intesa a draft share purchase agreement, which Intesa did not approve. Intesa justified its refusal on the ground that, since TERVE had not approved its own squeeze-out proposal within the mandatory three-month period, TERVE’s remaining shares had been transferred to Intensa and TERVE therefore no longer had the standing to bring proceedings as a shareholder and had forfeited the opportunity to accept the squeeze-out offer.

The case concerns two types of claims:

The first cause of action seeks to substitute the majority shareholder’s approval of a draft share purchase agreement, presented by the minority shareholders, with a court ruling.

The AG opines this falls within Article 7(1) Brussels Ia’s forum contractus – not A7(2) forum delicti.

The question aims essentially to determine whether the fact that Intesa freely assumed the obligation to make a mandatory takeover bid to purchase
shares in lieu of the issuer of the shares (VÚB, a. s.), in a situation where that
voluntary assumption of the obligation to make a bid preceded and was a
condition for the respondent’s subsequent exercise of the right of squeeze-out, may at the same time be considered as a voluntary assumption of an obligation vis-à-vis Terve (and possibly also vis-à-vis the other shareholders of
VÚB, a. s, who did not vote in favour of delisting their shares) to purchase
shares pursuant to Paragraph 118j of the Slovak Securities Law – a contract whose forum contractus is Slovakia.

Intesa argues there is neither a contract nor A7(2) jurisdiction, the latter it argues requiring ‘civil liability’.

The AG refers to the usual suspects such as CJEU Feniks to come to a wide notion of contract for the purposes of Article 7(1), and dismisses the dense statutory context of corporate take-overs and squeeze-out as being determinant.

His reference (41) in particular to Intesa’s voluntary launch of the take-over bid instead of the corporation itself is confusing (and may indeed lead to the forum shopping consequences he signals. What he really seems to consider crucial (41) is that VÚB’s relationship with its shareholders is contractual in nature. That is the kind of test which I called the ‘ancestry’ test in particular when reviewing Sharpston AG’s Opinion in Ergo.

 

Unfortunately the AG’s answer to the forum contractus question means he does not entertain the forum delicti referral.

 

The other cause of action relates to a claim viz the invalidity of a resolution of a general meeting which decided to transfer the shares of the minority shareholders following the exercise of the right of squeeze-out by the majority shareholder. The response with respect to that claim determines the standing of those minority shareholders to bring proceedings, and the AG opines it is caught by Article 24(2)’s exclusive jurisdictional rule.

(47) the AG first suggests (as does the Commission seemingly) that this question is relevant only if, under Slovak law, the court hearing an application to substitute a majority shareholder’s approval of a sell-out proposal with a court ruling, can rule on the validity of a decision of a general meeting without the company whose decision is being challenged being a party to the proceedings. I assume this is the case for otherwise the decision may be impossible to be imposed upon that company.

(55-57) are the core paras (with reference before and in the paras to the classics such as BVG, Hassett and Doherty, Kerr: In the paras below, I have deleted the references

55.      Consequently, it is necessary to examine whether, in the context of a legal action seeking to substitute the approval of the sell-out proposal with a court ruling, the preliminary issue of the validity of the decision of the general meeting to transfer the remaining shares to the person exercising the right of squeeze-out can constitute the principal subject matter of the dispute.

56.      TERVE’s standing to bring proceedings depends directly on whether or not the resolution of the second general meeting is valid since, if that resolution is invalid, the transfer of the shares to Intesa is called into question and TERVE is still a shareholder of VÚB. However, if that resolution is valid, TERVE has lost its status of shareholder and can no longer exercise its right of sell-out.

57.      I therefore consider that the validity of the resolution of the second general meeting is an essential premiss for TERVE’s action to substitute Intesa’s approval of its draft agreement to purchase the remaining shares with a court ruling.  It is actually that resolution which establishes the right of sell-out for the other shareholders. The situation in the present case is not one in which the alleged invalidity of the decisions of the company’s organs is ancillary to the principal subject matter of the action. Accordingly, the Slovak courts have jurisdiction on the basis of the exclusive jurisdiction provided for in Article 24(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012.

(60) in its own  delisting proposal, Intesa referred to Slovak courts’ jurisdiction: hence being sued there can hardly have been unexpected.

I do hope the CJEU wil take the opportunity of the forum contractus question to refine its formula on Article 7(1).

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 4th ed. 2024, 2.192 ff, 2.405 ff.

 

 

 

 

 

The European Parliament has published in January 2026 two in-depth studies devoted to the operation and future of the 1980 Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction. Together, these studies offer a timely and complementary assessment of one of the cornerstones of international family law instruments in relation to the Brussels II […]

The general course in private international law delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law by Louis d’Avout during the 2022 Summer Session was published in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series (1 032 pages). Louis d’Avout is Professor at Université Paris Panthéon-Assas. In addition to his numerous scholarly works, readers of this blog may recall that his special course on “L’entreprise et les conflits internationaux de lois” was also published in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series in 2019. The general course is title « La cohérence mondiale du droit » (“The Global Coherence of Law”). The publication of a general course in private international law—particularly in the Academy’s Pocket Books Series—deserves the attention of the readers of this blog. The aim of this review is, modestly, to offer a glimpse into this important work so readers who are sufficiently francophone may be encouraged to read it directly, while those who are not are offered a brief overview of the author’s approach. 

Two caveats. First, translations, and inevitable related inaccuracies, are mine. Second, it should be stated at the outset that a work of such scope is not easily summarized: the demonstration, subtle and original, is based on detailed and nuanced analyses and is supported by an impressive bibliographical apparatus, of remarkable diversity. One may note in that respect the author’s relentless effort to draw on a very large number of courses delivered at the Academy of International Law, both in private and in public international law. It is unfortunately impossible to reflect such wealth in the present review other than in a very selective manner.

The course’s program 

The program of the course as encapsulated in the title is ambitious. The idea of “coherence” in law, and especially in private international law (PIL), is particularly evocative. On the one hand, it evokes the often recalled need to preserve the coherence of the forum’s legal order in the face of the disturbance that foreign norms may generate. On the other hand, it also conveys the traditional objective pursued by conflict of laws: the international harmony of solutions. The use of the term “global” (mondiale) gives this search for coherence a particular breadth: it does not concern merely the legal treatment of international or transnational private relationships—the traditional object of private international law—but rather the articulation of legal regimes (State and non-State, domestic and international, public and private) whose still largely disordered coexistence is one of the defining features of our time. As will be seen, the perspective adopted in the course is normative, oriented toward the pursuit of global legal coherence. This search must be understood in a double sense: to uncover coherence where it exists, and to restore it where it does not. At a first level, coherence refers to the rationality and predictability of legal regimes, as well as to their effectiveness. Such coherence (or at least the aspiration to it) is regarded by the author as consubstantial with law itself.

The context in which this search for coherence unfolds is marked by a triple dynamic. On the one hand, increased individual mobility and technological change have diminished the relevance of geographical distance, and even of the crossing of borders. On the other hand, and correlatively, new forms of inter-State cooperation or coordination have emerged. Added to this is the development of non-State and/or transnational legal regimes. These factors give rise to collisions between legal regimes, confronting individuals and enterprises alike. The author proposes to draw on the technical and conceptual wealth of private international law in order to bring coherence to this normative disorder. After all, PIL has a (multi-)millennial experience in resolving conflicts of norms.

Two points are central to the author’s approach. First, the search for coherence must be conducted at the supra-State level. The State level is still relevant for reasoning about conflicts of norms and their resolution, but with a view to a “framework extended to global society” (p. 29). Second, although the search for coherence benefits individuals, it does not necessarily entail a subjective right of individuals to the transnational coherence of law, that is, a right to enjoy a single legal status notwithstanding the crossing of borders and the diversity of legal systems (p. 41). 

Starting point and definitions

An introductory chapter, strikingly entitled “Confronting Global Legal Anarchy” (“Face à l’anarchie juridique mondiale”), provides the starting point of the demonstration and key definitional elements. Legal coherence does not mean “the uniformity of applicable rules and the absolute centralization of dispute resolution mechanisms, supplemented by a transnational enforcement police force,” but rather “the state of a system in which coordination between partial legal systems is generalized and whose effects are guaranteed, for the benefit of the predictability and legal certainty expected by each subject or user of the law” (p. 54). The expression “partial legal systems” refers, it seems, to the incompleteness of any legal system in the perspective of a transnational relation (here at least, comp. p. 117). The definition of coherence introduces the idea of a spontaneous coordination, which plays an important role in the demonstration, as will become clear. The author also revisits the traditional definitions of private international law. Rather than a conceptual definition centered on the notion of internationality (internationality of sources or subject-matter internationality), he prefers a functional definition (p. 75), structured around two objectives: respect for the legitimate expectations of the parties despite their exposure to diverse legal regimes, and the international harmony of solutions, which implies an “aptitude for universality” (p. 75) and the exportability of the solution adopted. Again this definition will prove instrumental in the demonstration (particularly to show that the singularity of PIL rules should not be overstated, compared to other norms).

After a brief historical overview presented in six evocative tableaux, the author examines the merits of three intellectual representations of the discipline, all of which share a connection with general international law: State-centrism, inter-Statism, and the allocation of jurisdiction. The author’s approach is structured by this concern with the relationship between private and public international law. In so doing, he deliberately continues a doctrinal current that has become rather minority in contemporary PIL scholarship (at least in France). In any event, private international law brings together mechanisms for opening State legal orders and articulating them with one another (p. 111).

The author then turns to defining “inter-State and transnational coherence of law” (p. 112). He devotes particularly dense pages to this issue, pages which are difficult to summarize but are decisive for the originality of his perspective. He emphasizes institutional and procedural coherence—that is, the institutions, procedures, mechanisms and actors whose work produces coherence. This procedural coherence is fundamental and constitutes a sine qua non condition of a legal system, whereas normative coherence (the consistency and logical character of the solutions produced) is both secondary—since it flows from institutional and procedural work—and closer to an ideal, often imperfectly achieved. 

Equally decisive is the author’s conviction as to the necessity of coherence. The “praise of incoherence” (p. 127) is dismissed as stemming from a confusion between normative coherence and institutional coherence: the former, being ideal, may fail to convince, whereas the latter is genuinely necessary for the jurist. In short, coherence and incoherence are opposing poles of a complex reality; the existence of incoherences is not sufficient to discredit the need for coherence. As a result, coherence is both necessary and achievable.

Basically, incoherence arises from the tendency of legal systems—particularly the most sophisticated and robust among them, namely States—to reason in autarchy and to impose their own viewpoint (often in the name of their internal coherence) at the expense of the “global rationality of the law applied”. What makes coherence possible is the openness of legal systems to one another (and thus openness to otherness) and their willingness to cooperate. The international (public) legal order itself is marked by a corresponding tension between unilateralism (each sovereign acting alone) and concertation (sovereigns acting together). Coherence in the international order may follow a horizontal (inter-State) or a vertical (supra-State) model. The vertical, supra-State and overarching (tending toward monism) model allows for a form of universality (a jus commune). By contrast, the horizontal model is characterized by pluralism. The author associates each model with a method of private international law: verticality and monism allow for bilateralism, whereas horizontality (and pluralism) implies unilateralism (p. 169). 

The book’s outline and summary

The horizontal/vertical distinction structures the book. The first part is devoted to the study of horizontal interactions: independent “legal spheres” interact with one another, coherence is not guaranteed but may be produced through mutual consideration and interaction. The second part focuses on institutional verticalization, a partial and complementary dynamic (limited to certain sectors or regions of the world), based on the creation and intervention of supra-State bodies capable of producing coherence for the benefit of individuals.

Horizontal interactions between legal systems

The first part of the course is therefore devoted to what the author terms “horizontal” interactions between “independent legal spheres”. In this context, he examines the mechanisms of classical private international law: conflicts of laws and conflicts of jurisdictions or authorities. Here, the “conjunction” of viewpoints (that is, of legal orders) with respect to an international private relationship is, in a sense, voluntary rather than mandatory. It operates through two main sets of mechanisms: first, the attachment of situations to a particular law, court, or authority; and second, cross-border cooperation between authorities (for example, the taking of evidence, the delegation of formalities, or the enforcement of judgments).

The spirit of Relativism

In the first chapter, the author sets out the rudimentary elements of the discipline. These rudiments appear clearly in historical perspective. He explores the tools spontaneously used by courts in order to take account of the foreignness of a person or a situation vis-à-vis the forum. This perspective is original, in particular because it does not merely recount a historical evolution but demonstrates the persistence of these instruments in contemporary PIL. The earliest manifestations of the openness of State legal orders were guided by a concern to achieve equity “formulated from the standpoint of the lex fori”, through recognition of the foreign elements of the situation to be regulated, combined with interpretative techniques applied to the law of the forum to reach a fair outcome. The author emphasizes that these instruments, rudimentary though they may be, are not devoid of subtlety. At their root lies a form of judicial spontaneity oriented toward the pursuit of equity in cross-border relationships. 

This pursuit is guided by a spirit of legal relativity: the transnational private relationship is exposed to a diversity “of laws, customs or values” (p. 187), and this diversity must be considered. The author thus shows how foreignness and relativity constitute the foundational elements of what he terms “international civil law”. The foreigner receives particular treatment when the lex fori is applied, and the international or foreign situation calls either for a reception mechanism (and, correlatively, for limits to relativism, notably an international public policy exception subject to modulation), or for a form of spatial limitation of the lex fori (as exemplified by the presumption against extraterritoriality in U.S. law). The author further demonstrates how these instruments continue to be used in contemporary law to manage situations of legal otherness within the domestic legal order itself. States are prompted to limit the undifferentiated and uniform application of their own laws through compromise solutions, often entrusted to the judiciary (see, from this perspective, the discussion of the Molla Sali judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, p. 218). The identity of individuals may likewise warrant specific accommodations from the inward pull of communities. The author reflects on the relationship between this spirit of relativism (both international and internal) and a form of liberal individualism, particularly as expressed through the growing judicial consideration of fundamental rights. From this perspective, the application of the principle of proportionality in private law may be seen as a manifestation of this spirit of relativity.

The author then explores the tactics developed by judges—and still employed today—to loosen, where necessary, the constraints of the lex fori, which remains the unavoidable starting point for the forum judge when confronted with an international situation. These tactics include the self-limitation of the law of the forum (see, for example, the analysis of the Gonzalez-Gomez decision of the French Conseil d’État, p. 266), creative interpretation of the lex fori, prise en consideration of foreign law, and judge-made international substantive rules. Judicial creativity, however, has its limits: true conflicts are difficult to overcome (see the analysis of unilateral techniques, p. 290 et seq.). The spontaneous modulation of the lex fori, while significant, reveals certain weaknesses and highlights the need for a selective method that appears to “allocate competences among the various legal spheres or among the different poles of law production” (p. 217).

Connecting factors and conflicts rules

The following chapter is devoted to connecting factors, whether from the standpoint of jurisdictional competence or of the applicability of laws. One of the drawbacks of the spontaneous judicial method of adapting the lex fori described in the preceding chapter lies in its casuistic nature, which proves ill-suited to the massification of international private relationships. The author defines the technique of connecting factors in general terms as establishing a rational link between a transnational situation and either a specific legal regime, whether domestic or conventional, or a collective entity (a State or an international organization) (p. 319). He devotes particularly thorough and insightful developments to connecting factors, highlighting their richness, diversity and complexity (see the synthesis at p. 344 et seq.).

Among other points, the author rejects an overly rigid opposition between unilateralism and bilateralism, noting that “the connecting operation may function in both directions” (p. 323): the connecting factor may operate either on the side of the legal consequence or on that of the presupposition of the rule. He usefully distinguishes between the policy of the connecting factor—that is, the intention guiding its author—and the justice of the connecting factor, which results from it and may be assessed independently. The respective connecting roles of bilateral conflict-of-laws rules, unilateral applicability rules, and jurisdictional rules are thus clarified. In another original move, the author also draws a link between the recognition of a foreign judgment and the operation of connecting factors, particularly from the perspective of reviewing the origin of the judgment (indirect jurisdiction).

Following these general observations, the author successively examines jurisdictional connecting factors (judicial or administrative) and substantive connecting factors. With regard to the former, one may summarize (see p. 398) the rich analyses developed as follows. Jurisdictional (or administrative) connecting factors are distinct from substantive connecting factors. They are unilateral (save under conventional regimes) and generally plural and alternative (with some exceptions), giving rise to a situation of “concurrent international availability” of authorities belonging to several legal orders. These connecting factors are not purely localizing: they always have a purpose grounded in considerations of appropriateness, sometimes linked to substantive aspects of the dispute. In any event, the connecting factor is not purely procedural. It affects the substance of the dispute (the forum applies its own procedural law and its own private international law), and it expresses a (legal) policy, understood as a balancing of the interests at stake. As regards administrative authorities, the connecting factors adopted are generally dictated by the applicability of the administrative law concerned, which the authority is tasked with enforcing (according to the model of the lex auctoris). The unilateral and diverse nature of jurisdictional rules creates risks for the coherence of the legal treatment of situations, thus calling for conciliatory mechanisms, namely the forum’s consideration of foreign judicial activity.

With respect to “substantive connecting factors” (conflict of laws rules, then), L. d’Avout claims from the outset a “substantive impregnation of the rules, imbued with objectives and revealing legal policies forged by their authors” (p. 402). These considerations are sometimes specific to the international context and sometimes derive from the orientations of domestic substantive law (often a combination of both). Faithful to his commitment to methodological flexibility, the author develops the idea of a progressive crystallization of synthetic bilateral rules, starting from an intuitive unilateralism (see pp. 412–416). Here he draws on the German doctrine of Bündelung (with reference to Schurig). This approach is convincing with regard to the formation of connecting categories. It is complemented by a sophisticated functional approach (with reference to the work of Professor Brilmayer in the United States). The choice of a connecting factor is above all a matter of appropriateness, taking into account both the divergent interests of the individuals directly concerned and, through consideration of externalities, the collective interests affected by the situation (p. 435).

These balances are struck by the author of the rule and are therefore liable to vary from one State to another, or where the rule has been adopted at a supranational level (for example, at the European level). The author thus distances himself from an apolitical, universalist, but also singularist vision of the discipline: the conflict-of-laws rule is a rule like any other, a deliberate rule. On this basis, the author addresses the classical difficulties of the conflict-of-laws method: characterization and dépeçage (pp. 439 et seq.), conflicts of systems (p. 443), and the authority of the conflict-of-laws rule (p. 447). In each case, the analyses are guided by the previously articulated teleological precepts, without any particular search for originality for its own sake (as the author himself acknowledges), but rather by a concern for… coherence.

The pragmatism advocated by the author is not exclusive of visceral attachment to the conflict-of-laws rule as a rule. Targeted adjustments that depart from this abstract mode of regulation (such as the escape clause or the recognition method) have their place, but they must remain subsidiary and be used with caution. Concluding on this point, the author offers a nuanced diagnosis of the connecting rule. As an international extension of domestic legislation, it is indeed an instrument of coherence (or at least of cohesion). Being anchored in the legal order that adopts it, it is however not capable—at least not systematically—of ensuring “the harmonious junction of legal spheres” (p. 473). Mechanical application must therefore be avoided, and the rule must be accompanied by a cooperative attitude, thus offering a transition to the following chapter.

Transnational cooperation

The final chapter of the first part is accordingly devoted to “transnational cooperation” and “communications between authorities”. The author adopts a broad conception of transnational judicial cooperation, ranging from ancillary technical cooperation (such as the taking of evidence or service of documents) to what he terms cooperation-communication, and even co-determination of solutions (p. 477). These mechanisms are important because they offer some remedy to the shortcomings identified earlier (competing jurisdictions and divergence in substantive connecting rules).

The prominence given to these instruments and the analyses developed in this chapter constitute arguably one of the course’s most strikingly original contributions. To be sure, significant scholarly work has already been devoted to international judicial cooperation (see the references cited in the chapter’s introduction). The analyses presented here stand out nonetheless both for their ambition to offer a comprehensive reflection on mechanisms that had previously often been addressed piecemeal, and, above all, for their full integration into a private international law framework, on an equal footing, so to speak, with the conflict-of-laws rule. This innovation is made possible by the course’s overarching perspective, since transnational judicial cooperation is fully part of the search for the global coherence of law.

L. d’Avout proposes a useful typology: administrative or judicial assistance or mutual legal assistance (acts auxiliary to the main proceedings); cooperation at the periphery of the main proceedings (a category that includes the recognition of judgments and public acts—see the justification at p. 499 et seq.); and more innovative hypotheses of co-determination of legal solutions, whether within a conventional framework (the example given is the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children, p. 507) or through spontaneous coordination. It is in respect of this last category that the developments are the most interesting and innovative (see the examples given at p. 519 et seq.).

On this basis, the author constructs a genuine theory of the concerted resolution of international disputes (illustrated by a traffic-light metaphor, p. 530). Without being able to go into the details of this theory here, its starting point lies in the ideal unity of the proceedings on the merits, possibly supplemented abroad by collaborative ancillary measures and by a subsequent review of acceptability (namely, recognition of the judgment on the merits). Because this ideal is not always achievable—nor even always desirable—additional instruments exist to ensure reciprocal consideration of judicial activity: stays of proceedings (potentially conditional upon a prognosis as to the regularity of the forthcoming judgment), or even the forum’s consideration of the likely outcome of the foreign proceedings. Instruments for managing procedural conflicts also occupy a prominent place (p. 536 et seq.).

The search for coherence does not, however, imply an idealized view of international litigation: frictions do exist, and they cannot always be avoided. What matters is to identify their causes and consequences clearly, rather than proceeding in isolation and disregarding their effects (whether for the parties, or one of them, or for the objectives pursued within a given branch of law). After examining several areas particularly conducive to transnational judicial concertation (family litigation, insolvency, and collective proceedings), the author proposes both existing and potential tools, advancing several stimulating proposals: the transnational procedural agreement and the transnational preliminary reference (question préjudicielle transnationale), to name a few. Should one then recognize an autonomous duty of cooperation incumbent upon judges or authorities in international cases? Characteristically, the author’s answer is cautious: cooperation is not the primary mission of the judge or of an administrative authority; it remains secondary (p. 575). 

Having thus explored the avenues of horizontal cooperation between legal systems—demonstrating both their potential and their limits—and following a rich intermediate conclusion, the author turns to the phenomenon of partial verticalization, which represents their transcendence.

Verticalization

The second part, entitled “Verticalization – Institutional Responses to the Interpenetration of Legal Spheres”, may come as something of a surprise to readers. Indeed, as it goes beyond the horizontality examined thus far, it tends to move away from the classical perspective of private international law. For the author, however, this movement is a natural one, as only a supranational construction is capable of overcoming the residual oppositions between States’ viewpoints. The approach unfolds in two successive stages. The first form of verticality examined is that of federative organizations, such as the European Union, whose role in coordinating legal regimes is undeniable. The second (and more exploratory) form of verticality concerns international law itself: are there international institutions that can be leveraged in the service of the global coherence of law?

The role of federative organizations  

The first chapter of this second part examines “the coherence of law through federative organizations”, that is to say, new modes of articulating legal regimes and of reducing the accumulation and conflict of international rules. The demonstration begins with European regimes of coordination in public law insofar as they affect individuals and companies. European measures facilitating administrative procedures have made it possible to remedy the overlap of national legislation or administrative procedures that necessarily results from individual mobility. European integration has also established articulations of State competences to the same end. Likewise, European Union law has fostered the polymorphous mobility of companies by organizing the normative and administrative interventions of the Member States. The chapter offers further, equally convincing examples: federative organizations effectively articulate sovereignties. The author further proposes a distinction between two aspects : the intensification of horizontal cooperation and institutional federalism. 

The first aspect provides an opportunity to examine mutual recognition as a form of articulation of competences, as well as its limits (p. 664 et seq.). While acknowledging the major achievements of European integration, the author rightly insists on the need to avoid imposing automatic recognition where the underlying control whose outcome is being recognized has not been fully harmonized. The second aspect developed concerns the action of supranational administrative bodies.

The author then turns to the “vertical discipline of conflicts of laws in the interest of private persons”. The issue here is to assess the impact of federative organization on the configuration and resolution of conflicts of laws. Following a preliminary discussion addressing the matter from an institutional perspective (in the form of an illuminating EU–US comparison), the author devotes profound developments to the renewal of conflict-of-laws reasoning brought about by institutional verticality. At the heart of this reflection lies the figure of the supranational judge, an external third party to conflicts of laws between Member States, and a point of “triangulation” of these opposing viewpoints.

Without being able to reproduce the entirety of the argument here, it may be noted that it leads the author to issue the following warning: “an analysis of current law does not support the emergence, within regional spaces, of an unconditional right of individuals to the transnational coherence of law and to a resolution of conflicts of laws favorable to them” (p. 725). Supranational courts that were to lose sight of this would expose themselves to the risk of “judge-made legislation”. The author nevertheless identifies “an intensified duty to take account of discordant viewpoints and, at times, to articulate them in novel ways, in application of the organization’s law and in the absence of harmonization by it of the applicable law”. Particular attention should be drawn to the author’s precise reassessment of the figure of so-called “diagonal conflicts”, based on a fruitful distinction between horizontal conflicts resolved along the vertical axis through fundamental rights, and frictions between a supranational regime and a State regime (see pp. 761 et seq.).

Verticality in public international law

The final chapter is both the natural culmination of the overall demonstration and one that will likely most surprise PIL scholars. Having examined the effects of the verticality of federative organizations of States on conflicts between legal regimes, the author considers it natural to search directly within international law for instruments capable of coordinating legal regimes applicable to private persons. The surprise may stem from the fact that contemporary private international law doctrine—at least in France—has largely ceased to look to general international law as a remedy for deficits in legal coordination.

The author’s perspective here is once again innovative. While there is no substantive subjective right of individuals or companies exposed to discordant legal treatment, the possibility of a procedural subjective right may be envisaged “insofar as such a faculty allows, either immediately or following unsuccessful recourse before State bodies, access to an impartial judge capable of stating the law or of reviewing the manner in which it has previously been applied” (p. 795). The author thus embarks on a quest for this emerging procedural right in its various modalities (individual claims against the State; claims mediated through another State or an international organization). This leads him to explore avenues as diverse as investment arbitration, the fascinating experience of binational courts (and their spontaneous production of private international law solutions, p. 819 et seq.), as well as the International Court of Justice, whose case law is scrutinized to detect the tentative emergence of substantive rights of individuals. The author perceives here a potential for a de-specialization of the Law of Nations through the expansion of its addressees (p. 874).

The author then turns to international institutional fragmentation, that is, the fragmentation of the various regimes (territorial State regimes, special international regimes). He concludes that techniques of horizontal interaction between these legal spheres should be developed, and possibly even hierarchical principles (p. 901). A solution might lie in seizing an authority capable of arbitrating conflicts of competences exercised by independent international bodies, by expanding the advisory procedure before the International Court of Justice, or even by entrusting it with a mission of resolving these conflicts of competence.

Finally, the author seeks to determine whether, in order to transcend the multiplicity of clashing legal regimes, it might be possible to invent and construct a new “jus commune” (droit commun). He advances three series of proposals or concluding observations in this regard. The first concerns the contemporary role of States and State sovereignty: the author calls for the consolidation of an “interface State between local communities and distant communities” (p. 920). In his view, “the durable persistence of State organization requires a minimum level of inter-State cooperation”. The second series of observations concern the possibility of the emergence of this universal jus commune and its defining qualities. The author focuses on points of convergence (principles, values, standards) that make it possible to discern a phenomenon of conjunction between norms of diverse origins. Finally, the author returns once more to the legal discordances affecting international relations to emphasize that, beyond disciplinary, conceptual, and terminological distinctions, a single problem emerges: the lack of coordination between autonomous legal spheres. Given contemporary developments in human societies, spatial mechanisms for resolving certain of these discordances may appear less relevant. What is therefore required is a genuinely substantive coordination, resting on the production of concerted solutions (in the various forms discussed above). For the most difficult cases, the subsidiary intervention of a supranational court could be envisaged.

Highlights

Within the limited space of this review, it is unfortunately not possible to engage in a detailed discussion of the analyses developed, other than by pointing to them in the summary above and advancing the following few remarks, necessarily too general.

The summary above perhaps gives a sense of the scope of the demonstration undertaken. It is particularly impressive and compelling in that it escapes the traditional boundaries of the discipline to embrace the globality of the phenomenon of normative fragmentation. Such an undertaking is remarkable. Global legal incoherences are numerous and addressing them solely through the lens of conflicts of laws or conflicts of jurisdiction would inevitably have been reductive. Moreover, as befits the ambition of a general course, the book offers a comprehensive and original framework for understanding the discipline. It is in a sense conceptualized anew (in object and methods) and endowed with a new vocabulary. This reconceptualization does not however entail revolutionary breaks with existing solutions. Nor is that its ambition: the author warns repeatedly against such ventures. Rather it provides a new perspective that enables regenerating analyses. The author never yields to the temptation of a purely hierarchical response to legal discordances, nor does he idealize horizontality as a sufficient answer to the conflicts generated by the interpenetration of legal spheres. Instead, he patiently reconstructs the diversity of techniques available—horizontal, vertical, institutional, procedural—and evaluates their respective capacities to achieve coherence without sacrificing pluralism. Also worthy of note is the deliberate choice to avoid doctrinal factionalism (unilateralism vs. bilateralism; localizing vs. substantive approaches; monism vs. pluralism) by adopting a generally pragmatic stance. The demonstration is constantly guided by a concern for individuals and economic actors confronted with the accumulation of fragmented regimes. Without positing the existence of a general subjective right to legal coherence, the author identifies concrete expectations, procedural guarantees, and institutional mechanisms capable of mitigating the most difficult effects of normative fragmentation. 

The author concludes with a quote from Savigny, inviting contemporaries to make full use of the doctrinal heritage accumulated in order to contribute to the advancement of scientific progress in the field. This quotation is doubly revealing of the author’s approach. First, the call to exploit accumulated doctrinal wealth is followed here with impressive determination. On every page, the author is keen to draw from both older and more recent sources, and to give resonance to the diversity of viewpoints. Second, the demonstration appears to be guided by an idea of progress: not in the sense that contemporary doctrine or case law would be superior to that of the past, but, as Savigny suggests, in the sense that the conflict-of-laws discipline itself progresses—and thus the coherence of law progresses—through “the combined forces of past centuries.” Without lapsing into naïveté, the argument reflects a form of optimism on the part of the author regarding the march toward global legal coherence. Such optimism is commendable. It may nevertheless be argued that belief in coherence as a cardinal value is not today universal, within and without the law. Thus, for example, the idea that irrational (incoherent) behavior by a State exposes it to sanctions (from within!, p. 920) unfortunately suffers daily contradiction. Moreover, multilateralism is undergoing a crisis so profound (for instance explored here by P. Franzina, from a private international law perspective) that some argue, not without reason, that it has never existed other than as a façade (as contended by the Prime Minister of Canada in a recent speech in Davos). Just over three years after this course was delivered at The Hague Academy, reasons for optimism are scarce. This does not imply that optimism is impossible, perhaps quite the opposite. The 2026 reader may wonder however what influence (if any) the recent aggravation of the crisis of multilateralism (as well as the simultaneous rise of adversarial and transactional sovereignism) would have on the demonstration of the author.

As noted above, the perspective of the course is normative in the sense that the search for coherence is presented as both desirable and possible. The temptation of normative disorder is only briefly considered, and then rejected, essentially on the ground that law and normative disorder are incompatible. Some might find this position not entirely convincing. There are several ways of approaching this issue, but one of them is to try to see what risks being lost in the pursuit of coherence (and thus of order). Alternative, non-modern forms of legality may come to mind. There are alternative presentations of the discipline that assign a predominant role to a radical acceptance of otherness (see, for example, the recent book by H. Muir Watt, reviewed here), from a pluralistic perspective. One of the criticisms then directed at contemporary private international law (at least at bilateralism) is its tendency to make room for alternative normativity only at the cost of its intense reconfiguration through the legality of the forum (through the lens or the rationality of the forum). From this perspective, the search for coherence (the process of rendering coherent) risks appearing as an extension of this rationalizing program. In reality, the opposition should perhaps not be overstated. As noted, L. d’Avout demonstrates methodological flexibility, without a priori privileging either bilateralism or unilateralism (or monism over pluralism, for that matter). Moreover, the coherence at play here is decentered from the forum, rather than imposed from an overhanging forum. In a sense, it is procedural and dialogical between States (as well as other “legal spheres”, i.e. alternative sources of normativity), rather than directly normative. Nevertheless, the demonstration rests on the idea that rationality is the inescapable horizon of law—an idea that maybe will face some pushback. Certain contemporary critiques of the international (legal) order (for instance, the decolonial scholarship, see this paper by S. Brachotte in a PIL perspective) tend instead to deeply deconstruct the very idea of legal coherence. These contemporary dynamics (the deep crisis of multilateralism and the teachings of the critical legal studies) obviously come from very different places and exist on different levels but they have in common a form of skepticism towards the concept of legal coherence. The reader may wonder to what extent they contradict the main thrust of the book, or if they can be reconciled with it, for instance through a reliance on, and reconfiguration of, horizontal (and intrinsically pluralist) modes of coordination.