Economic Sanctions in Swedish Private International Law

On 8 November 2024 Gunnar Bramstång will publicly defend his doctoral thesis on economic sanctions in private international law at Lund University in Sweden. The thesis, written in Swedish, is titled Ekonomiska sanktioner i svensk internationell privat– och processrätt (Economic Sanctions in Swedish Private International Law) and is available in its entirety here.

The English abstract of the thesis reads as follows:

This thesis deals with private international law issues related to the treatment of economic sanctions in international commercial contract disputes in Swedish courts. The dissertation consists of 10 chapters. The first chapter is an introduction. Chapter 10 contains a summary.

In Chapter 2, the author examines what economic sanctions are, and in chapter 3, economic sanctions are classified as belonging to public law. This gives rise to specific problems in the field of private international law, especially when the sanctions belong to foreign law and not to the lex fori. As far as Swedish private international law is concerned, attitudes towards foreign public law have been expressed in the principle of isolation (isolationsprincipen).

In Chapters 4–6, the author primarily considers whether commercial disputes involving economic sanctions fall within the framework of the Brussels I Regulation and the Lugano Convention. The author examines the extensive case law of the CJEU on the interpretation of civil and commercial matters, which determines the material scope of the instruments. Disputes between commercial parties involving economic sanctions should, in general, be classified as civil and commercial matters. When the same disputes fall outside of the Brussels/Lugano-instruments Swedish courts determine their jurisdiction according to Swedish private international law.

In Chapters 7–9, the author explores two different methods for dealing with sanctions when determining their effects on the contractual relationship. A first option is to classify the economic sanctions as internationally mandatory rules under Article 9 of the Rome I Regulation. The second option is to take the sanctions into account as facts when applying the lex contractus, e.g. as force majeure. The approach chosen depends on the origin of the economic sanctions and their connection to the dispute.

Erik Sinander (Stockholm University) will act as faculty opponent.