Droit international général

The Dutch court of first instance held at the end of March (English version of the judgment is here) on the merits of Esther Kiobel’s case against Shell, proceedings which she unsuccessfully tried to bring in the US under the ATS and then pursued in The Netherlands as I reported at the time.

In my earlier post I pointed out that the Dutch court narrowly construed the case that could be pursued in the Netherlands: Only limited claims, of the Nigerian daughter’s involvement in the bribing of witnesses, were allowed to continue. Those claims have now been dismissed.

The judgment is fairly succinct, many points having discussed at length in the interim jurisdictional and case-management decision. Witnesses’ recent interviews (by the Dutch courts, but without cross-examination. Not because it was not offered but because counsel did not feel the need to proceed with it) were cross-checked against earlier statements which had been entered as evidence in the US proceedings. The court [2.26] holds that

the alleged involvement of the SPDC in witness bribery is not proven with the statements of the witnesses produced by the claimants. This is also true when viewing these witness statements in conjunction.

As I pointed out here in reply to Lucas Roorda, if I were claimant’s counsel looking for appeal grounds, I would study the Dutch court’s application of Nigerian common law evidentiary standards for upholding civil liability.

The court’s approach to the witness statements is that they cannot sustain SPDC bribery involvement. The evidence of SPDC staff presence at relevant meetings (often in police stations) is, when not held to be factually (albeit on minor points) contradicted by earlier statements (going back 20 years for some of them), found to be circumstantial only. Witnesses point to people that were referred and /or pointed to when Shell-related employment (as a reward) was discussed, briefcases held by people with the outward, corporate appearance of Shell staff, people driving off in cars with corporate stickers formerly used by Shell. None of this satisfied the court’s evidentiary requirements without however proper discussion of what, under Nigerian law, that standard would require.

Geert.

 

Dutch court holds #Shell is not complicit in Nigerian security forces treatment of Esther Kiobel and others’ family members.
An issue of evidence rather than grand #bizhumanrights legal principle. https://t.co/z1rn2akUVc

— Geert Van Calster (@GAVClaw) March 23, 2022

This post was contributed by Yuliya Chernykh, who is associate professor in law at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (campus Lillehammer).

Addressing incidental issues in a blog post for the European Association of Private International Law feels like bringing a topic ‘back home’. Indeed, incidental or preliminary issues are a well-known concept and a classical entry in encyclopedias in private international law. The concept begs a question that must be resolved before the main issue, and is recognisable in private international law because of a choice-of-law puzzle it raises.

Conceptualising incidental issues in investment treaty arbitration is not that ‘at home’. The system (if it can be called a system in the first place) is not premised on domestic courts but on an uncoordinated variety of arbitral tribunals. These tribunals, working under institutional and ad hoc arbitration rules, build their jurisdiction based on bilateral and multilateral treaties on investment protection (to date, more than 3,000 treaties), and apply treaty provisions to resolve investment disputes. All these disputes (to date, more than 1,100 disputes) are about State responsibility under international law because of breaches of standards on investment protection, such as unlawful expropriation, violations of full protection and security, fair and equitable treatment, most-favoured-nations treatment, umbrella clauses and some other standards of investment protection contained in relevant treaties. The public international law framework of investment treaty arbitration complicates the application of national law (also frequently referred to as domestic or municipal law) and the relevance of conceptual frameworks based on private international law perspectives as a result.

What suggests then that the concept of the incidental issue might bring some value for investment treaty arbitration? Or more precisely, what makes it to suggest that treaty-based tribunals should realise that contract interpretation is an incidental issue, and apply national law to it?  I give detailed answers in my Open Access monograph in – Contract Interpretation in Investment Treaty Arbitration: A Theory of the Incidental Issue. Here, I will present a summary of some observations.

A Failure to Apply National Law as a Major Challenge that a Concept of Incidental Issue Can Solve

To understand the value, one must be aware of the challenges that investment treaty arbitration experiences, on the one side, and the advantages that the concept of the incidental issue provides, on the other side. The challenges are about failures to apply national law to issues traditionally governed by it and overall concerns about the correctness and quality of decision-making and legal reasoning surrounding these issues. The advantages are about structuring decision-making and legal reasoning and ensuring that questions governed by national laws are treated as they should be with the application of the relevant national law. Relying (by analogy) on the concept of incidental issue to approach national law issues in investment treaty arbitration, tribunals ensure that they do not assimilate or unduly substitute their analysis in relation to these issues by other efforts that are not informed by applicable national law. More importantly, if tribunals would approach questions traditionally governed by national law as incidental issues, they would not overlook application of national law.

Practical Importance of Conceptualising (National Law) Incidental Issues

The frequency of reoccurrence of national law issues in investment treaty arbitration explains why conceptualisation matters as a matter of practice. While public international law sets a general framework for how treaty-based disputes are to be resolved, it does not apply to those questions that come into existence under national laws and are governed by them. Treaty-based tribunals regularly decide on issues relating to existence, transfer, validity, and scope of rights arising from property or contracts; they may also need to consider if a legal entity exists and what capacity it has. Neither property nor contracts or legal entities come into existence as a matter of public international law. These issues are governed by national law only. There could be hundreds of other issues pertinent to various aspects of relationships and status that are not governed by public international law in the first place and require decisions to be made under national laws.

Scarcity of Scholarly Efforts

Despite its theoretical and practical attractiveness, the usefulness of approaching national law issues in investment treaty arbitration as the incidental issue has not gained much attention. Some earlier calls may be found in the work of Zachary Douglas – The International Law of Investment Claims (CUP 2009). No voice has so far advocated the conceptualising of contract interpretation as an incidental issue, possibly because incidental issues in private international law are normally more palpable questions often described as addressing/capturing relationships or status. Instead of focusing on the existence of relationships or status, contract interpretation rather depicts the process of ascertaining the content of contractual provisions and its result.

Contract Interpretation as an Incidental Issue

While less discernible, there are still good reasons to treat contract interpretation as an incidental issue. These reasons are essentially the same as articulated earlier. When treaty-based tribunals interpret treaties, there are no doubts about the relevance of the provisions on treaty interpretation contained in Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. When treaty-based tribunals ascertain the content of contractual provisions, no complexity shall arise in taking into account applicable national regulations of contract interpretation. Similar to contract validity, contract termination and contract performance, contract interpretation is governed by national law. It is not governed by international law. Jurisdictions differ in the way that they approach contract interpretation and the choice of applicable national law may impact the outcome of the interpretative exercise. My empirical investigation, however, reveals that in 47% of cases, tribunals have not (expressly) relied upon national law in their attempts to ascertain the content of contractual provisions. Conceptualising contract interpretation as an incidental issue accordingly enables one to preserve the analytical distinction between ascertaining the content of contractual provisions under national law and oversimplified assimilation of this analytical activity to fact-finding and other analytical efforts not informed by national laws. In other words, the proposal ensures application of national law to contract interpretation, advances the correctness of the decision-making and reasoning, its predictability and overall quality.

The suggestion is not trivial and can make a difference for a notable portion of cases that appear in investment treaty arbitration. Contracts frequently play a central role in treaty-based disputes. Their premature termination, a failure to prolong, or otherwise observe may trigger State responsibility under relevant treaties for investment protection. Overall, my empirical study of 573 awards reveals a broad variety of contracts that appear in investment treaty arbitration and necessitate interpretation, such as agreements about concessions, construction, credit, electricity purchase, lease agreements, pledge agreements, privatisation, etc. Numerous contractual clauses may necessitate ascertainments, such as limitation of liability clauses, termination clauses, penalty clauses, stabilisation clauses, exclusivity clauses, etc.

Finally, contract interpretation as the incidental issue fits neatly into the overall structure of decision-making in investment treaty arbitration. By way of example, when tribunals need to decide if expropriation of contractual rights has taken place because of premature contract termination by a State in the exercise of its sovereign powers, they inevitably need to engage with contractual provisions on termination. The question which they typically have to answer is whether a State has contractual grounds for terminating contracts. This question precedes a general conclusion about whether the expropriation of contractual rights has taken place. Contract interpretation of the contractual provisions on termination would appear to be the incidental issue of the second order in this analysis, whereas the question as to whether a termination was allowed under the contract would appear to be the incidental issue of the first order.

–

Vigotop v. Hungary, while not using the concept of incidental issue, illustrates the structure of decision-making, the role of contract-related questions under national laws, and the overall suitability of approaching contract interpretation as an incidental issue (Figure 7 on page 340 of my book: Illustration Chernykh).

To sum up, it appears that private international law has much to offer to the decision-making and legal reasoning within the public international law framework. This yet is another opportunity to look at the convergence between both, a topic that is gaining increasing attention, and rightly so. We may all benefit from symposium posts hosted by the European Association of Private International Law, brainstorming potentials, and pitfalls of convergence and divergence between private international law and public international law.

In the judgment in Owens Bank, C-129/92, the Court of Justice held that the Brussels Convention does not apply to proceedings in a Contracting State concerning the enforcement of judgment given in civil and commercial matters in non-contracting State.

However, that judgment does not clarify whether the Convention applies to a judgment issued in a Contracting State on the basis of a judgment from a non-contracting State and, maybe more accurately, to proceedings concerning its enforcement in a different Contracting State. Unsurprisingly, as some national procedural laws provide for a possibility to ‘introduce’ a third State judgment within their system through a simplified and/or summary procedure, this question has been debated in the literature.

 

Context of the request for a preliminary ruling and the preliminary question itself

Nearly three decades later, the request for a preliminary ruling made in proceedings concerning the enforcement in Austria of an order for payment issued by the High Court of Justice (UK) on the basis of two judgments delivered in Jordan gives the Court an opportunity to address that issue, yet this time under the Brussels I bis Regime.

Last December AG Pikamäe presented his Opinion in the preliminary reference procedure concerning that request (for remarks on the Opinion and the case itself, see also contribution of Geert van Calster on his blog), i.e. in the case H Limited, C-568/20.

In essence, in this case the Court considered itself to be called upon to clarify whether Article 2(a) [definition of the notion of ‘judgment’] and Article 39 of the Brussels I bis Regulation [‘A judgment given in a Member State which is enforceable in that Member State shall be enforceable in the other Member States without any declaration of enforceability being required’] must be interpreted as meaning that an order for payment made by a court of a Member State on the basis of final judgments delivered in a third State constitutes a judgment and is enforceable in the other Member States.

 

Court’s answer and its findings

In its judgment of 7 April 2022, the Court answered in a following manner:

Article 2(a) and Article 39 of [the Brussels I bis Regulation] must be interpreted as meaning that an order for payment made by a court of a Member State on the basis of final judgments delivered in a third State constitutes a judgment and is enforceable in the other Member States if it was made at the end of adversarial proceedings in the Member State of origin and was declared to be enforceable in that Member State. The fact that it is recognised as a judgment does not, however, deprive the party against whom enforcement is sought of the right to apply, pursuant to Article 46 of that regulation, for a refusal of enforcement on one of the grounds referred to in Article 45.

It seems that two elements of major importance paved the way for this affirmative answer. In its reasoning, the Court stresses that ‘it is apparent from the order for reference that the High Court order at issue in the main proceedings was, at the very least, the subject of a summary hearing in the Member State of origin, with the result that it constitutes a judgment within the meaning of Article 2(a) of [the Brussels I bis Regulation]’ and that ‘consequently, since it has been declared to be enforceable in that Member State, it is enforceable in the other Member States pursuant to Article 39 of that Regulation’ (point 32). As seen above, both elements are reflected in the answer.

Moreover, the judgment heavily relies on the mutual trust and highlights its importance in at least two contexts: first, as to the interpretation of the notion of ‘judgment’ (points 29 to 31), second, where the Court seems to acknowledge that this solution may at first glance tantamount to by-passing of the exequatur requirement imposed by the Member State where enforcement is sought (points 33 to 35).

It should be noted that the Court has been asked three preliminary question, with the second (concerning, in essence, the grounds for refusal of enforcement) and third being referred to it only for the hypothesis that the first one is answered in the negative. As the Court ultimately came to the conclusion that the first question has to be answered by an affirmative (points 21 to 39), it did not address two other questions. As seen in the Court’s response, it did nonetheless tackle the issue of the grounds for refusal of enforcement (points 40 to 46).

The judgments is available here.

Further to the announcement of the release of the book edited by Dr Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit and Dharmita Prasad entitled Blurry Boundaries of Public and Private International Law: Towards Convergence or Divergent Still (Springer 2022) earlier in this portal, the editors of the book are organising a virtual book launch to engage further in conversations surrounding the themes of the book.

The virtual book launch will be held on 29th April 2022 and it is to be hosted by Jindal Global Law School, O.P Jindal University.

It features strong panel of experts including Professor Alex Mills (University College London), Rishi Gulati (Owen Dixon Chambers East), Dr Veronica Ruiz Abou-Nigm (Edinburgh Law School), Dr Ivana Kunda (University of Rijeka) and Professor Ralf Michaels (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law).


Please refer to the poster below of the event for details. To register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvduyrrzIuGNVE-U8VT1DthK0SZV0BudZV

 

The new issue of the Revue Critique de Droit International Privé (1/2022) is out.

In an opening article, Paul Lagarde pays tribute to the memory of Pierre Gothot (1936-2021).

The editorial by Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po), Dominique Bureau (University of Paris II) and Sabine Corneloup (University of Paris II) will soon be available in English on Dalloz website (Amicus librorum).

The new issue contains three articles and numerous case notes.

In the first article, Harith Al-Dabbagh (University of Montreal) examines the question of cross-border circulation of foreign Islamic divorces in Quebec (Effet au Québec des divorces étrangers non dotés de l’exequatur – Le cas des divorces islamiques).

The English abstracts reads:

The mobility of individuals and families is constantly increasing. The objective of private international law is to ensure the stability and permanence of their personal and family status across borders. In a land of immigration such as Quebec, many people are getting their divorce elsewhere or settling there after a divorce pronounced abroad. The question of the recognition of divorce and its effects, independently of any exequatur procedure, is thus acutely raised. The issue has given rise to contradictory answers from the doctrine and jurisprudence. Focusing on Islamic divorces, the author attempts to determine the circumstances in which foreign divorce decisions become internationally effective in Quebec independently of any courts’ review of their legality. The study reveals that the dissolution of marriage carried out in Islamic lands frequently comes up against the border phenomenon.

In the second article, Christine Bidaud (University of Lyon 3) analyses the recent French reform concerning the probative value of foreign civil status records, in the light of French and ECtHR caselaw (La force probante des actes de l’état civil étrangers modifiée par la loi bioéthique : du sens à donner à l’exigence de conformité des faits à la réalité « appréciée au regard de la loi française »).

The English abstracts reads:

A new bioethics law was passed on August 2, 2021, in France. Most of the discussions focused on the opening of medically assisted reproduction to female couples and single women, the possibility of identifying a gamete donor, research on human embryos, and other issues of genuine bioethical concern. As for surrogate motherhood, the subject has been introduced more surreptitiously into the debates: the aim was to break the jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation regarding the transcription of foreign birth certificates for children born as a result of surrogacy.

In the third article, Marion Ho-Dac (University of Artois) explores the interplay between EU consumer law and EU private international law, taking the example of the jurisdiction over consumer contracts (Du dialogue interprétatif entre droit (matériel) de la consommation et droit international privé de l’Union – L’exemple du « for du consommateur »).

The English abstracts reads:

The EU consumer law acquis could occasionally be a source of inspiration for EU private international law in order to resolve conceptual uncertainties or fill gaps. This approach has already been followed by the Court of Justice of the European Union, with regard to the notion of consumer in the field of international jurisdiction, opening up a significant interpretative dialogue between substantive EU consumer law and EU private international law. However, the case law of the Court of Justice is far from being clear and uniform in the field, giving rise to theoretical confusion as well as legal unpredictability in B2C relationships. Against this background, the features and merits of an interpretative dialogue between consumer law and private international law in the EU legal order must be analysed. The study proposes, inter alia, to introduce an interpretative test into the reasoning of the Court of Justice based on the requirement of “systemic coherence of EU law”, in order to assess in a systematic way whether or not an intertextual analogy between substantive (consumer) law and EU private international law is appropriate.

More information is available here.

We are happy to share the following information on a conference organised by Robin Cupido (University of Cape Town), Benedikt Schmitz (University of Groningen), and Michiel Poesen (KU Leuven), which will be held in Leuven, Belgium, and online on 16 June 2022 (languages: Dutch and Afrikaans), with funding provided by Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht.

The conveners invite all interested scholars to a one-day conference that explores the interplay between fundamental rights and private international law in the broadest sense. We are looking forward to the following presentations given by young PIL scholars from South Africa, Belgium, and The Netherlands:

• De sociale impact van grensoverschrijdende bedrijfsmobiliteit in Europa (Marilou Hubers, Universiteit Maastricht)
• Asymmetrische forumkeuze en recht op eerlijk proces (Nischa Vreeling, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
• Publieke belangen in het IPR-consumentenrecht (Benedikt Schmitz, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
• Bevoegdheid in het EU IPR: vehikel voor bescherming van fundamentele rechten? (Michiel Poesen, KU Leuven)
• Persoonlijke identiteit v. nationale constitutionele identiteit: interactie tussen EU recht en internationaal privaatrecht (Hester Kroeze, UGent: Raad van State)
• Die beskerming van migrante kinders in internasionale privaatreg (Robin Cupido, Universiteit van Kaapstad)
• The Right to Freedom of Religion and Conscience: A Comparative Analysis of the Doctrine of Entanglement (Mathabo Baase, Universiteit van Kaapstad)

Special thanks to Prof. Xandra Kramer (keynote speaker), and Prof. Geert van Calster and Prof. Thalia Kruger (chairs of the roundtables).

Please click here for more information and to register.

The Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law, Justus Liebig University Giessen and Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) are organizing the conference Sustainable Finance in European Jurisdictions, with the aim of investigating from a comparative law perspective the regulation underpinning the capital flow into sustainable enterprises. The conference will take place at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest on 29 and 30 April 2022 and will also be transmitted via Zoom.

The conference brings together academics to present their findings on 14 different European jurisdictions, seeking to discuss regulation in order to address inconsistencies and identify the path forward. As the challenges faced in this field are global, the necessity for international collaboration appears crucial. Identifying the national regulatory interests and eventual conflicts pave the way to reform and harmonisation.

Attendance is free of charge, however prior registration is mandatory.

See the conference agenda and registration form.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law is organising the seminar From Certainty to Uncertainty – CISG in Hong Kong

On 29th September 2021 at 12:30–2:00pm (Hong Kong Time), the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passed the Sale of Goods (United Nations Convention) Ordinance (Cap. 641) in order to give effect to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Vienna, 1980) (CISG). The Ordinance is expected to come into force at some points in 2022. While the CISG seems like a successful international treaty with (currently) 94 State Parties, yet it is not uncommon for international commercial parties to in fact “opt out” or exclude its application as per the mechanism provided for in Article 6. Not all provisions in the CISG are written in a clear manner. Certain concepts contained therein are unfamiliar to lawyers trained in the common law legal tradition. This seminar is to argue that the decision to introduce the CISG into Hong Kong was in fact the decision to introduce uncertainty into an area of law which was once certain with well-supported statutes, case law authorities grounded upon the solid common law foundation, and advanced private international law and dispute resolution mechanisms.

About the speaker:

Dr Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit is a Lecturer in Maritime Law within the Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania. He is also holding a position of a Research Associate within the Research Centre for Private International Law in Emerging Countries, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Supporting Member of the London Maritime Arbitrators Association. His research interests lie in commercial conflict of laws (private international law), insurance law, private aspects of admiralty and maritime law, carriage of goods by sea, international sale of goods carried by sea, and aspects of international arbitration. His recent publications include: Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit and Dharmita Prasad (eds), Blurry Boundaries of Public and Private International Law: Towards Convergence or Divergent Still (Springer Nature 2022), Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit and Sai Ramani Garimella (eds), Contracts for the International Sale of Goods: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (Thomson Reuters Hong Kong Limited 2019), Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit and Sai Ramani Garimella (eds), China’s One Belt One Road Initiative and Private International Law (Routledge 2018)

CPD credit is available upon application and subject to accreditation by the Law Society of Hong Kong (currently pending).

Register here by 5 pm (Hong Kong time) on 26 May 2022 to attend the seminar.

Cedric Hornung has published an inspiring book , titled Internationales Privatrecht zwischen Wertneutralität und Politik (Mohr Siebeck, 2021), about a fundamental tension underlying Private International Law.

On the one hand, the discipline is meant to be value-neutral, in the sense that it admonishes the judge to abstain from evaluating national legal systems before applying them. On the other hand, conflicts rules have become increasingly charged by politics in the last decades, as illustrated, e.g., by the special rules on the protection of consumers in Rome I and the environment in Rome II, or the discussions about the recognition of same-sex marriages or surrogate motherhood. Against this background, Hornung asks the – apparently rhetorical – question whether a private international law free from politisation is at all possible.

The book has been published in German. The author has kindly provided us with the following English summary:

The first main chapter seeks to provide terminological clarity on the meaning of “value-neutrality” and “politics” in the context of private international law. With the help of political concepts by essential theorists such as Aristoteles, Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière, the author concludes that two main elements characterise the modern understanding of this field of law: pluralism and internationalisation. When­ever a conflict-of-law rule itself or the underlying motivation reflects a unilateral or national perspective, the idea of an apolitical PIL is abandoned. Still, some instruments have been implemented in the European choice-of-law process despite their political background – the ordre public and the idea of overriding mandatory provisions are just two instances of such generally-accepted perforations. However, the author underlines that these political mechanisms need to respect certain boundaries within their politicisations so as to not completely impede the indented value-neutrality.

The second main part deals with the evolution of political and social incitements when it comes to determining the applicable law in past epochs. Starting with the antique ius gentium and moving on to cross-border legal practice in the Middle Ages, the author examines in which way territorial intentions in particular have played a central role for centuries. With regard to the late statutists, he illustrates that regional interests overlayed the conflict between municipal laws even in cases where universal rules had seemingly been established. Following, modern conceptions of PIL are presented: The author points out that, although often being named as the “father” of modern conflict of laws, Friedrich Carl von Savigny did not manage to globally exclude social, economic, and power-related reasons from his image of the “seat of the legal relation”. Then again, the “nationality rule” of his Italian counterpart Pasquale Stanislao Mancini should not be misinterpreted as purely nationalistic procedure – just like some of the approaches from the North American continent. From a German point of view, a depoliticization of the choice of law has only been realised in the PIL reforms of 1986 and 1999 where virtually no unilateral argument came into effect. On the contrary, the author closes the chapter with a glance at the Europeanisation of this field of law which quite regularly resurrects biased explanatory models.

Subsequent to the historical analysis, the view shifts towards recent developments: On the basis of the infamous Art. 10 of the Rome III Regulation and Art. 13 al. 3 of the German EGBGB (Introductory Act to the Civil Code), the author documents the current tendency to stigmatise some legal orders as per se irreconcilable with European ideals. By embodying this trend, these provisions deny a genuine value-neutrality and superimpose a classification ex ante. How social and protective measures can be incorporated into the conflict of laws without a fundamental breach with its principles is explained in matters of human rights: Thanks to their – at least theoretical – universality, they are suited as gateway for political concerns in the search for the applicable law. Particularly in international supply chains, PIL ought to defend these essential guarantees at an early stage of the legal treatment.

Aldricus – Birkenstock sudah ada sejak lama dan masih sangat populer. Mereka tidak hanya bergaya, tetapi juga cukup mendukung, menjadikannya sandal yang luar biasa. Birkenstock dapat membantu mereka yang mengalami sakit kaki atau kesusahan. Sepatu ini memiliki beberapa keunggulan untuk individu dari berbagai usia. Akan bermanfaat bagi kaki Anda untuk memakai sandal Birkenstock dalam waktu lama.

Apa saja manfaat menggunakan brand ini?

Birkenstock sesuai dengan bentuk kaki Anda

Sandal Birkenstock menyesuaikan dengan karakteristik kaki Anda. Secara khusus, gabus dan lateks alam digunakan untuk membuat alas kaki. Ini berbentuk seperti kaki yang sehat, mendukung struktur dan kontur alami kaki dengan mendistribusikan kekuatan secara merata di sekitar lengkungan.

Kenyamanan yang luar biasa

Salah satu perhatian paling penting saat membeli sandal adalah kenyamanan. Untungnya, ini adalah salah satu keuntungan Birkenstock terbesar. Alas kaki mereka dibuat khusus agar pas dengan kaki Anda. Mereka menjadi lebih nyaman saat Anda memakainya untuk waktu yang lama. Ini berarti bahwa jika seseorang mencoba sandal Anda, mereka akan jauh lebih tidak nyaman daripada Anda.

Birkenstocks mendukung berbagai masalah penyelarasan kaki

Anda harus lebih memperhatikan kaki Anda sekarang jika Anda ingin menghindari masalah kaki di tahun-tahun berikutnya. Salah satu manfaat Birkenstock terbaik adalah dapat membantu dalam perawatan masalah kaki yang populer. Birkenstock memiliki insole ortopedi yang memberikan kemampuan, dukungan, dan bantalan pada kaki Anda. Akibatnya, sandal ini dapat mencegah kapalan , bunion, kuku kaki yang tumbuh ke dalam, dan masalah nyeri kaki lainnya.

Tahan lama

Daya tahan sandal Anda sangat penting. Anda harus mempertimbangkan apakah sandal ini akan bertahan lama atau akan cepat kotor dan memerlukan perawatan atau bahkan penggantian secara berkala. Ini sangat penting jika Anda sering bepergian sepanjang musim panas, karena Anda tidak ingin sepatu Anda berantakan di tengah perjalanan.

Bergaya dan Serbaguna

Birkenstock tersedia dalam berbagai desain dan warna. Mereka sangat mudah beradaptasi dan dapat digunakan dengan hampir semua aktivitas atau pakaian. Mereka cocok untukseharian di pantai, berjalan-jalan di sekitar kota, dan bahkan mendaki. Ini adalah sandal klasik dengan sentuhan kontemporer. Birkenstock telah ada di pasaran selama lebih dari 200 tahun dan masih kuat. Keuntungan dan kemampuan beradaptasi mereka hanya meningkat.

The post Beberapa Manfaat Menggunakan Brand Birkenstock appeared first on Aldri Blog.

The Center for International Legal Education at Pitt Law and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators–North America Branch are jointly hosting a hybrid panel event on 21 April from 1-5ET.

This event will bring together academics, arbitrators, and counsel to discuss strategic considerations, best practices, and the legal discord in procuring third-party discovery in aid of arbitration. Top of the agenda will be a discussion of the recent Supreme Court argument regarding 28 U.S.C § 1782, which has given rise to nationwide discord regarding whether parties in international arbitrations can ask federal courts to order U.S. discovery in aid of arbitral proceedings.

Registration for both virtual and in-person attendance in Pittsburgh can be found here.

CILE-CIArb Event

A new blog devoted to transnational litigation — Transnational Litigation Blog, or TLB — is now officially up and running. The primary focus of TLB is on transnational litigation in U.S. courts (both state and federal). It covers notable new cases and recent scholarship and provides commentary on decisions and developments. The founding editors of TLB are John Coyle (North Carolina), Bill Dodge (UC-Davis), Maggie Gardner (Cornell), and Ingrid Brunk Wuerth (Vanderbilt). A link to the blog can be found here.

Last week Saudi Arabia acceded to the HCCH Apostille Convention. The Apostille Convention will enter into force for Saudi Arabia on 7 December 2022. The HCCH news item is available here.

This accession is remarkable in two ways.  First, it clearly signals an increased interest in the Apostille Convention in the Middle East. In this regard, it should be noted that the Apostille Convention entered into force for Bahrain on 31 December 2013 and for Oman on 30 January 2012. For a list of Contracting Parties, click here.

Secondly, it will greatly facilitate the ease with which public documents circulate in this region (and globally) as in some of these countries a legalization, especially for commercial documents, is either very expensive or the fees are dependent on a percentage of the total amount of the invoice or a tabular fee. See for an example here. The price of an Apostille should be, after all, reasonable.

The Radboud University Nijmegen is organising a hybrid conference on 9-10 June 2022 dedicated to The Role of Courts and Access to Justice in the Digital Era. The programme of the event can be consulted here.

The conference is a collaboration of three groups of researchers based at Radboud University: the Institutions for Conflict Resolution group, the Digital Legal Studies group and the Interdisciplinary Hub on Privacy, Security and Data Governance (iHub), and it is made possible also with the support of the Digital Legal Studies Sectorplan and Radboud University.

The theme of the event is triggered by the European Union and national governments emphasis on the need for and benefits of digitalisation of justice. Digitalisation is meant to ‘modernise’ the conduct of judicial procedures. However, there is little reflection on what such ‘modernisation’ entails – beyond saving time and costs – and why a ‘modernised’ procedure is preferable to a ‘traditional’ procedure. In addition, the overall impact of digitalisation of justice on access to justice remains unaddressed: what kind of (access to) justice are governments building? In turn, this requires to examine whether digitalisation of justice changes or indeed transforms – as the concept of ‘digital transformation’ claims – the nature of the justice system, and whether these changes are always positive or desirable. Some even argue that beyond ‘modernisation’ or ‘transformation’, the current reforms amount to a ‘digital revolution’.

Digitalisation is often viewed as a key condition to ensuring effective justice in the modern era, enhancing ‘resilience’ of justice systems. It presumably helps tackle delays, enhance legal certainty, and make justice cheaper and more accessible for all. At the same time, challenges associated with digitalisation are highlighted, such as ensuring access for disadvantaged groups to digital technologies, the impact of digital technologies on fundamental rights and procedural justice, and ensuring security and privacy of digital solutions. The emergence of new technology brings with it the need for ongoing assessment of its impact.

For this purpose the conference brings together about 60 researchers from approximately 30 countries to critically assess the process of digitalisation of justice systems and the evolving role of courts in the digital era in Europe and beyond.

Further information about the conference can be found here. Registration is available here.

                    Judges & collective redress:

new perspectives and opportunities for judiciary

          Thursday 12 May 2022, 15:00 to 17:30 CEST

       This online event will be held in English and is reserved for judges and members of judiciaries.

 

                            >>> REGISTER HERE <<<

Judges may play an important role in collective redress actions following mass harm situations. Mass harm situations refer to cases where a number of persons are harmed by the same illegal practices relating to the violation of their rights by one or more traders or other persons. Collective redress actions may seek the cessation of such practices and/or compensation. The fact that such disputes concern large numbers of persons raises specific procedural challenges but also offers opportunities in terms of efficient administration of justice.

In the context of the EU’s Representative Actions Directive, which will come into application in June 2023, judges will be called upon to undertake specific tasks. Depending on the national rules transposing the Directive, they may be required to assess the admissibility and merits of the actions, to ensure that consumers are appropriately represented and informed, to verify that the interests of all represented parties are well-protected, etc. The objective of this workshop is to raise awareness on collective redress and to exchange on the roles of judges in collective redress actions.

During a panel discussion, three judges with recognised expertise in the field of collective redress will share their insight and experience:

Mr. Fabian Reuschle (judge at the Stuttgart Regional court – Landgericht – Germany). Fabian Reuschle actively participated in the adoption of the German Capital Markets Model Case Act (KapMuG) establishing a lead case procedure for the collective handling of capital market-related actions.

Sir Peter Roth (judge at the London High Court & UK Competition Appeal Tribunal). Sir Peter presided over a collective litigation against MasterCard lodged on behalf of 46 million consumers.

Mr. Jeroen Chorus (retired judge, formerly at the Amsterdam Court of Appeal, the Netherlands). Jeroen Chorus was notably in charge of the Dexia and Shell mass settlement with consequences on consumers in multiple European jurisdictions.

Programme:

15:00-15:05 Welcome 15:05-15:15 Setting the scene: What does collective redress mean for judges? (Stefaan Voet, KU Leuven University) 15:15 – 16:30 Panel discussion with:

• Judge Roth
• Judge Chorus
• Judge Reuschle

Panel moderated by Maria José Azar-Baud (University of Paris-Saclay, France) & Ianika Tzankova (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands) 16:30-17:15 Questions & Answers session with the audience (moderated by Magdalena Tulibacka, Oxford University, UK/Emory  University – United States and with the participation of the representatives of the Directorate-General for Justice & Consumers of the European Commission 17:15-17:30 Concluding remarks

This project is funded by the European Union.

Attendance to the event is free but registration is mandatory. The number of registrations is limited. Therefore, please register as soon as possible via the following link.

For questions, please contact us.

In a judgment of 11 May 2021 (Stetsov v. Ukraine; final version: 11 August 2021), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on whether commercial claims may be enforced by restraining the debtor from leaving the country which ordered the payment of the claim. It found that, in principle, enforcing commercial claims through such restrictions was compliant with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention), but that the restriction in the case at hand was disproportionate and thus justified the finding that Ukraine had violated the Convention.

Background

Mr Stetsov, a Ukrainian national and resident, granted a personal guarantee to a bank that a company would reimburse a loan of USD 1.5 million. After the company defaulted, the bank sued Stetsov for payment in Ukrainian courts. The Court of Appeal of Kharkiv and a Ukrainian superior court eventually ordered Stetsov to pay about USD 950,000 and additional sums in hryvnias (Ukrainian currency) in judgments rendered in 2014.

As Stetsov would not pay, enforcement officers applied to courts in Kyiv for an order prohibiting Setsov from leaving Ukraine until full payment of the claim. The Kyiv Court of Appeal granted the remedy at the end of 2014, on the grounds that Stetsov knew about the judgment, and had not made any effort to start paying the judgment in four months.

Stetsov applied to replace the measure by establishing a payment of 20% of his monthly salary. The alternate remedy was established, but enforcement officers refused to lift the restriction until full payment of the judgment.

Stetsov sued Ukraine before the ECtHR.

Protocol 4

Ukraine has ratified Protocol No. 4 to the Convention securing certain rights and freedoms other than those already included in the Convention and in the first Protocol thereto, which provides

Article 1 – Prohibition of imprisonment for debt
No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation.

Article 2 – Freedom of movement
1 Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.
2 Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.
3 No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are in accordance with law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the maintenance of ordre public, for the prevention of crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
4 The rights set forth in paragraph 1 may also be subject, in particular areas, to restrictions imposed in accordance with law and justified by the public interest in a democratic society.

Judgment

Both parties agreed that Mr Stetsov suffered a restriction to his freedom of movement. They also agreed that such restriction was provided by law (a Ukrainian statute, the legal basis has changed since then) and served a legitimate goal, which was “the protection of the rights of others”. The ECtHR agreed.

The only debate between the parties was thus whether the restriction was proportionate. The ECtHR ruled that after a short initial period, the restriction could only be maintained after finding that the restriction could serve its purpose, i.e. ensuring the payment of the debt.

In this case, the ECtHR found that the decision of Ukrainian enforcement authorities was that the restriction could only be lifted after full payment of the debt. The ECtHR concluded that the restriction could thus not be reviewed to assess whether it was still justified, which made it a disproportionate restriction to the freedom of movement of the applicant.

The applicant sought EUR 10,000 in compensation for its ‘prejudice moral’. The ECtHR generously awarded him EUR 1,000.

Assessment

Some will find it disappointing that the ECtHR did not condemn more vigorously the use of restrictions to the freedom of movement for the purpose of enforcing civil and commercial claims (French human rights scholar Margenaud has made it clear in a short commentary he has written on this case). It seems, however, that the comparison between Articles 1 and 2 of the protocol makes it clear that legislative intent was not to ban restrictions from leaving a territory, but rather to give significant discretion to the Contracting States.

In contrast, imprisonment for the purpose of paying a debt seems to be banned in principle, irrespective of the proportionality of such remedy. An interesting question is whether the prohibition would extend to imprisonment for failing to comply with an injunction aiming at securing the payment of a debt, such as a Cyprus or Irish Mareva injunction.

The Court of Justice delivered on 7 April 2022 its judgment in case C‑645/20 (V A), which is about the Succession Regulation:

“Article 10(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 […] must be interpreted as meaning that a court of a Member State must raise of its own motion its jurisdiction under the rule of subsidiary jurisdiction referred to in that provision where, having been seised on the basis of the rule of general jurisdiction established in Article 4 of that regulation, it finds that it has no jurisdiction under that latter provision”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=257493&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2662053

The Court of Justice delivered on 7 April 2022 its judgment in case C‑568/20 (J v H Limited), which is about Brussels I bis:

“Article 2(a) and Article 39 of [Brussels I bis] must be interpreted as meaning that an order for payment made by a court of a Member State on the basis of final judgments delivered in a third State constitutes a judgment and is enforceable in the other Member States if it was made at the end of adversarial proceedings in the Member State of origin and was declared to be enforceable in that Member State. The fact that it is recognised as a judgment does not, however, deprive the party against whom enforcement is sought of the right to apply, pursuant to Article 46 of that regulation, for a refusal of enforcement on one of the grounds referred to in Article 45”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=257492&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2662053

The Court of Justice delivered on 7 April 2022 its judgement in case C‑236/20 (PG), which is about the working conditions of the Judges of the Peace in Italy. Progressively, with this case and previous ones on working conditions of judges, along with several judgments on the Rule of Law (e.g. touching on the recruitment of judges, or disciplinary proceedings against judges), the Court of Justice is building a European framework of the status of judges.

“1. Article 7 of Directive 2003/88/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 November 2003 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time, Clause 4 of the framework agreement on part-time work […] and Clause 4 of the framework agreement on fixed-term work […] must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which does not provide for an entitlement for magistrates to 30 days’ paid annual leave or to a social security and pension scheme deriving from the employment relationship, such as that provided for ordinary judges, if that magistrate comes within the definition of ‘part-time worker’ within the meaning of the framework agreement on part-time work and/or ‘fixed-term worker’ within the meaning of the framework agreement on fixed-term work and is in a comparable situation to that of an ordinary judge.

2. Clause 5(1) of the framework agreement on fixed-term work […] must be interpreted as precluding national legislation pursuant to which a fixed-term employment relationship can be renewed a maximum of three times successively, each renewal being for a duration of four years, for a total duration that does not exceed 16 years, and which does not provide for the possibility of penalising in an effective and dissuasive way the abusive continuance of the employment relationship”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=257484&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2654588

AG Collins delivered on 31 March 2022 his opinion in case C‑18/21 (Uniqa Versicherungen AG v VU), which is about the European Order for Payment:

“Articles 16, 20 and 26 of Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 creating a European order for payment procedure do not preclude the adoption, in the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, of a national measure that interrupted the 30-day time limit for lodging a statement of opposition to a European order for payment contained in Article 16(2) thereof”.

Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=256962&text=&dir=&doclang=EN&part=1&occ=first&mode=DOC&pageIndex=0&cid=1171245