Reform and Development of Private International Law

This book is a contribution to the field of reform and development of private international law. The contributors, who are drawn from around the world, are all acknowledged experts of international standing and reputation. Many have been involved in recent attempts to reform this area of the law and provide a unique insight into this process.

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This collection of essays by his friends and colleagues honours Sir Peter North's remarkable career and outstanding contribution to private international law. It takes as its theme the reform and development of private international law, reflecting the three different levels at which the development and reform of private international law takes place. Robin Morse discusses the creeping codification of private international law. Trevor Hartley draws attention to an area of private international law, that relating to matrimonial property, which is entirely judge-made. Joost Blom shows how quickly the judges, in this case in the Supreme Court of Canada, can develop private international law once they set their mind to it. Sir Lawrence Collins discusses the concept of comity in modern private international law. Writers too have had their part to play in the development of private international law; this is the subject of the contribution by Ole Lando. Kurt Siehr looks at the impact of international instruments on national private international law and the problems that this throws up.

A number of contributors discuss various aspects of the ever-growing Europeanization of private international law. Ian Fletcher focuses on the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings and its impact upon established law and practice in England and Wales. Paul Beaumont examines questions of legal basis and external competence and the best way for the UK and Europe to be represented in issues of private international law globally as well as offering a technical analysis of the contract provision of the Brussels I Regulation. Hans Ulrich Jessurun d'Oliveira examines the uneasy relationship between the European Union and private international law and the movement towards eroding the latter. Peter Nygh compares declining jurisdiction under the Brussels I Regulation and the preliminary draft Hague Judgments Convention.

Other contributors have concentrated on aspects of the reform of private international law on a world-wide basis. Jonathan Harris discusses the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition 1985 in his examination of the trust in private international law. Not surprisingly there is much discussion in this book of the ambitious project that has been absorbing the Hague Conference for nearly ten years, namely a Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters. David McClean discusses the history of the project and, if it does fail, a possible way forward. Ron Brand suggests a more modest goal at the Hague Conference, namely a choice of court plus recognition convention. Whatever the fate of the Hague Judgments Convention, the work undertaken at the Hague can still be used in the future. It can inform the discussion of what we should do in intellectual property cases in private international law, which is the subject of James Fawcett's contribution.