Journal du Droit International: Issue 1 of 2022

The first issue of the Journal du droit international for 2022 has just been released. It contains three articles and several case notes relating to private international law issues.

In the first article, Gian Paolo Romano (University of Geneva) revisits the interplay between “private” international law and “public” international law (Droit international dit « privé » et droit international dit « public » : éléments d’une théorie unitaire et humanisée du droit international).

The English abstract reads :

The doctrine of private international law and the doctrine of public international law rely on two supposedly self-standing theories whose independence is justified by the difference in their subject-matter : public international law mainly deals with relations between States and the international organizations they form, while private international law deals with relations between private individuals and corporations. However, each of these theories comes up against multiple paradoxes and unresolved problems that their specialists candidly acknowledge. The author argues that a unified and human-centered theory of international law promises to overcome such difficulties, to give a more accurate account of the contemporary law of international relations and to facilitate its further progress.

In a second article, Alejandra Blanquet (Catholic Institute of Paris) focuses on the issue of international child abductions in Japan under the 1980 Hague Convention (Le risque juridique au sein de la Convention de La Haye de 1980 : le cas des enlèvements internationaux d’enfants au Japon – À propos de l’arrêt de la première chambre civile de la Cour de cassation du 28 janvier 2021).

The English abstract reads:

When a French judge confirms that a wrongful removal or a retention of a child have taken place, he must apply The Hague Convention of 1980 and order the child’s return to the place of his habitual residence. The only exception accepted to this solution is the fulfillment of one of the situations described on the text, especially the one exposed in Article 13. Exceptional in nature, these situations also received a restrictive interpretation preventing French jurisdictions from taking legal risk into consideration. This concept may be defined, in our opinion, as the danger derived from the content of foreign law, specifically the one from the country of habitual residence of the child, and which application could lead to negative consequences for the child in the event of a return. By excluding its consideration, the Court of Cassation confirms its preference for a restrictive interpretation of Article 13.b while she closes the door to a possible adaptation of the Convention’s solutions that may be useful to face the particular problem of Japanese kidnappings.

In the third article, Élodie Kleider (PhD, Strasbourg & Bâle Universities) discusses the scope and interpretation of the Lugano Convention based on Norwegian and Swiss case law (Convention de Lugano, États tiers et CJUE : entre influence et ignorance, exemples venus de Suisse et de Norvège).

The English abstract reads:

Only a few non-Member States of the European Union benefit from the Lugano Convention of October 30th, 2007. The United Kingdom hoped to join them after the Brexit. Such a position is advantageous : thanks to the convention, the third country enjoys the benefits of the European judicial area, while keeping great flexibility. Jurisdictions of those countries tend to comply with the judgments of the ECJ, but sometimes clearly deviate. Some Swiss and Norwegian decisions will prove it.