Law Commons^™

Comparative Method And International Litigation 2020, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In this article, resulting from a presentation at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law, I apply comparative method to international litigation. I do so from the perspective of a U.S.-trained lawyer who has been involved for over 25 years in the negotiations that produced both the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. The law of jurisdiction and judgments recognition is probably most often taught in a litigation context. Nonetheless, that law has as much or more …

Online Dispute Resolution, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This chapter was prepared from a presentation given by the author at the 2019 Summer School in Transnational Commercial Law & Technology, jointly sponsored by the University of Verona School of Law and the Center for International Legal Education (CILE) of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In the paper, I review online dispute resolution (ODR) by considering the following five questions, which I believe help to develop a better understanding of both the concept and the legal framework surrounding it:

A. What is ODR?

B. Who does ODR?

C. What is the legal framework for ODR?

D. What …

The Cisg: Applicable Law And Applicable Forums, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Despite being in effect for over thirty years, a debate continues on whether the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has been a success. With 89 Contracting States, it clearly is widely accepted. At the same time, empirical studies show that private parties regularly opt out of its application. It has served as a model for domestic sales law, and as an important educational tool. But has it been a success? In this article I consider that question, and suggests that the scorecard is not yet complete; and that it will perhaps take significantly …

Challenges To Forum Non Conveniens, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This paper was originally prepared for a Panel on Regulating Forum Shopping: Courts’ Use of Forum Non Conveniens in Transnational Litigation at the 18th Annual Herbert Rubin and Justice Rose Luttan Rubin International Law Symposium: Tug of War: The Tension Between Regulation and International Cooperation, held at New York University School of Law, October 25, 2012. The doctrines of forum non conveniens and lis alibi pendens have marked a significant difference in approach to parallel litigation in the common law and civil law worlds, respectively. The forum non conveniens doctrine has recently taken a beating. This has come (1) in …

Federal Judicial Center International Litigation Guide: Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This publication was prepared for the U.S. Federal Judicial Center as a guide for Federal Judges on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. It covers applicable law in federal courts, the issues raised when a foreign judgments recognition case, grounds for non-recognition (and their sources in the law), and recent developments that may affect future adjustments in the rules. The law in those states that have adopted one of the Uniform Acts is covered, as is the law in states that remain under a common law system for recognition and enforcement of judgments. Also covered is the 2005 Hague …

The Rome I Regulation Rules On Party Autonomy For Choice Of Law: A U.S. Perspective, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This chapter was presented at a conference in Dublin on the (then) new Rome I Regulation of the European Union in the fall of 2009. It contrasts the Rome I rules on party autonomy with those in the United States. In particular, it considers the rules in the Rome I Regulation that ostensibly protect consumers by discouraging party agreement on a pre-dispute basis to the law governing a consumer contract. These rules are compared with the absence of private international law restrictions on choice of forum and choice of law in the United States, even in consumer contracts. The result …

Reconciling European Union Law Demands With The Demands Of International Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

European Union ("EU" or "Union") law and the law of international arbitration have traditionally occupied largely separate worlds, as if arbitral tribunals would rarely be the fora for the resolution of EU law claims and as if EU law, in turn, had little concern with arbitration. For several reasons, this pattern has recently been altered, although the relationship between EU law and international arbitration law is at present anything but settled. From the present perspective, the past looks like an age of innocence, for as these two worlds have begun to intersect, they have not done so entirely harmoniously.

Part …

The European Magnet And The U.S. Centrifuge: Ten Selected Private International Law Developments Of 2008, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This article considers ten developments in private international law that occurred in 2008. In doing so, it focuses on the way in which these developments demonstrate a parallel convergence of power for private international in the institutions of the European Community and dispersal of power for private international law in the United States. This process carries with it important implications for the future roles of both the European Union and the United States in the multilateral development of rules of private international law, with the EU moving toward an enhanced leadership role and the United States restricting its own ability …

European Union's New Role In International Private Litigation, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Lugano Case In The European Court Of Justice: Evolving European Union Competence In Private International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

On October 19, 2004, the European Court of Justice held its first en banc hearing since the 2004 enlargement to twenty-five Member States. The case was Opinion 1/03, involving a request by the Council of the European Union on whether the Community has exclusive or shared competence to conclude the Lugano Convention. While the case on its face deals only with a single convention, it has far broader implications and is likely to influence the development of private international law and private law on a Community level for years to come. This brief article traces the origins of the issues …

Community Competence For Matters Of Judicial Cooperation At The Hague Conference On Private International Law: A View From The United States, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The Amsterdam Treaty's introduction of Article 65 into the European Community Treaty took little time to achieve practical importance. In fact, the questions were practical as early as they were theoretical. A 1992 request by the United States that the Hague Conference on Private International Law negotiate a global convention on jurisdiction and the recognition of civil judgments resulted in a laboratory for the new-found competence of the Community. Thus, negotiations already underway--which included delegations from all 15 EU Member States--were affected significantly by the transfer of competence from those states to the Community institutions for matters under consideration at …

European Law: Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Hans Baade's career spans a period marked by the progressive recognition of European law in American academic circles. At the time that Hans Baade decided to make the United States his academic home, historical circumstances had only recently brought to American shores a whole generation of legal scholars, mostly continental European in background and training. Aided by the compelling nature of the stories about law that they had to tell, these scholars connected strategically with an American legal academy that was then only slowly and tentatively emerging from what could be described, not unfairly, as a period of relative intellectual …

Direct Effect Of International Economic Law In The United States And The European Union, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

One of the most important and challenging issues in international law is the manner in which we address the relationship between the individual and the international legal system. The traditional framework, in which we set a "sovereign" government between the individual and the development and application of the rules, is no longer sufficient in all circumstances. The fact that governments feel insecure or threatened by the application of international legal rules in actions brought by individuals is not sufficient reason to preclude that development. The purpose of government is not to perpetuate traditional power structures, it is to provide security …

Choice Of Law Clauses In Consumer Contracts: A Comparative Study Of American And E.E.C. Law, Jean-Marie Henckaerts

LLM Theses and Essays

The selection of the law applicable to a certain relationship may seem to be the sole purpose of choice of law rules. However, it is questionable whether this choice should be made independent from the content of the various laws available. The selection of the most appropriate law cannot disregard the social, economic and political values that form the basis of substantive rules. In modern legal systems, social values such as consumer protection are recognized to a growing extent.

The present work explores the concept of choice of law – namely party autonomy with a focus on consumer contracts in …