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This paper deals with the question how, if at all, international law influences, or has the potential to influence, national laws on co-parenting, and whether it prescribes, supports or obstructs co-parenting. This question is answered by discussing the relevant provisions of international and European instruments, such as the CRC, the ECHR, the EU Charter and the CEFL Principles, by comparing the different types of instruments with each other; and by highlighting the emerging trends.

By surveying binding law in civil and common law jurisdictions and non-binding law produced by national, regional and international organizations, this article tries to map the international state of affairs with respect to child relocation. Various legal topics that have concerned legislatures are discussed. It appears that - worldwide and more specifically within Europe - great variety exists with respect to child relocation law, which leads to legal uncertainty. As a consequence, parents often do not know how to act in case of child relocation. This might have a negative effect on other issues, such as child abduction. Harmonization of law on child relocation seems necessary to diminish the existing legal uncertainty. It is concluded that the development of a European or international non-binding law instrument that addresses both national and international relocation cases could be a first step in the harmonization process.

National law is increasingly influenced by European developments in a process characterized by the term 'Europeanization'. This contribution illustrates the magnitude by which this process of Europeanization continues to shape national contract law in the Member States. In particular, the focus is placed on the dynamic and interwoven interaction of legal scholars, legislators and the courts, on both a national and European level and hence they collectively form the driving force behind the process of Europeanization. The author demonstrates that employing a solely national approach is no longer a sustainable preference in the emerging European legal landscape. For this reason, the author calls for all stakeholders to partake in further debate concerning the future of contract law in the Member States.

In analysing 'wrongful life' cases, comparative law is used extensively. This article examines these wrongful life cases, especially in light of the contradicting outcomes in different jurisdictions across the world, with the Dutch Kelly case and the South African decision in Stewart v Botha as its main examples. I will test the hypothesis that it is not so much the outcomes and (more importantly) the arguments found elsewhere through the comparative law method that are decisive in highly debated cases like those concerning wrongful life, but that instead it is something else that decides the issue, something I would define as the cultural background of, or the legal policies within a tort law system.

This contribution deals with the (importance of the) burden of proof, especially in tort cases, and its relationship with procedural law in general, i.e. other devices within procedural law, most notably evidence law. To be more precise: I will analyse the burden of proof in European tort law systems against the background of the use of other procedural devices that might be of importance for the substantive law outcome of specific (liability) cases. Meant are of course such devices as presumptions (be it in the form of “Anscheinsbeweis”, “res ipsa loquitur” or otherwise) or the standard of proof (“Beweismas”), but also procedural duties to supply information, and the like. To phrase my topic in more general terms: what is to be analysed here is the relationship between all these various (procedural) devices, including the burden of proof, when it comes to tort cases.

Although it is not one of its main features, the Principles of European Tort Law (PETL) have devoted some attention to the rules regarding the burden of proof in tort cases, especially to the possibility of a reversal of that burden. Since such a reversal of the burden of proof will be highly relevant for the substantive outcome of a tort case, one needs to be able to justify such a reversal on normative grounds. However, that justification is not always advanced clearly enough in the PETL. At the same time the PETL focus largely on the possible exceptions to the general rule on the burden of proof. As a result, the underlying general rule as such has not been codified. This paper analyses the burden of proof rules in the PETL not only from a more technical point of view, but also from the perspective of the possible influence they might have on the substantive outcome of tort cases. To highlight their content, importance and possible inspirational force for a future ‘European tort law’, these Principles are contrasted with their counterparts under Dutch tort law. The aim is to answer the question whether the choices made in the PETL are justifiable and whether the Dutch tort system can – or maybe even should – seek inspiration from these Principles.

Originally, private law was considered to be immune from the effect of fundamental rights, the function of which was limited to being individual defences against the vigilant eye of the state. This traditional view, however, has recently been put under pressure as a result of fundamental rights increasingly becoming relevant for private law. The relationships between private parties under private law have started losing their immunity from the effect of fundamental rights. The major question at present is no longer whether fundamental rights may have an impact on private law, but to what extent this will occur, and the answer to this question will determine the future of private law. The primary aim of this article is to establish how fundamental rights and private law (may) relate to each other at present in different legal systems. In light of this, the article considers how fundamental rights (may) affect the relationships between private parties under private law and what consequences this effect has for the relationship between fundamental rights and private law.

This paper addresses the specific challenges arising from the monetization of political speech on social media, and propose a normative argument to extend consumer disclosures to political speech. Political speech enjoys the highest degree of protection by national constitutions as well as supranational and international charters. Unlike commercial speech which usuallyenjoy less constitutional protection, political speech is the foundation of constitutional democracies. The blurring line between political and commercial speech introduces a new layer of complexity in tackling hidden political advertising. Indeed, political speech is likely to attract commercial speech inside a broader scope of protection with the result that potential limitations of this kind of speech would be required to pass a very strict test through the balance with other constitutional safeguards or legitimate interests according to the criteria of necessity, legitimacy and proportionality. This could also question the scope of other regulation designed to govern commercial speech like advertising. To this end, the paper compares regulatory and judicial interpretations adopted in Europe and the United States, and is structured as follows. In the first part, we explore the content monetization business models (including influencer marketing) used on social media, and we identify three types of influencer ‘personas’ who are prone to engage in political speech. The second part looks into the constitutional differences between commercial and political speech across the Atlantic. The third part provides the normative argument at the intersection between consumer law and freedom of expression, and the fourth part concludes.

Dissatisfaction with the administration of justice is as old as law proclaimed the distinguished American legal scholar Roscoe Pound in 1906. The system of administration of justice has been under considerable scrutiny in Cyprus following the excessive delays in resolving disputes that are highlighted in reports such as the European Union’s Justice Scoreboard, the World Bank’s Doing Business Reports as well as European Commission papers on Cyprus, urging authorities to modernize the system in order to be able to meet the demands following the financial crisis. For this reason, various experts have been assigned with the task of identifying the problems and coming up with proposals and solutions. The discussions, though, are not new as similar problems have been presented in common law jurisdictions, in particular, but they have been tackled decades ago, with the adoption of reforms that moved the adversarial system of justice closer to civilian stereotypes.

This national report deals with the regulation of company groups in the Netherlands primarily from a company law perspective.After providing a general introduction into Dutch company law and the regulation of company groups in the Netherlands, the chapter provides an introduction into the various definitions of company groups and subsidiaries. The point of departure is company law but definitions in other areas of the law are also briefly mentioned. Next to that, issues of group management as well as liability issues in company groups are discussed. The chapter furthermore touches upon the issue of minority shareholder protection as well as a number of other miscellaneous issues relevant in relation to company groups such as bankruptcy and private international law. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the most important aspects of the regulation of company groups.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to expose obsolete business practices and nudges companies into a new status quo, a disruption worth (re)considering is for companies to replace their over-reliance on litigation with mediation. In order for mediators to make this transition more appetizing for businesses, we must: 1) promote our mediators to be trained more holistically through an interdisciplinary education, and 2) foster cognitive diversity amongst the mediators.

This article aims to discuss the enforcement of foreign collective action and settlement judgments in Canada. More specifically, it investigates the enforceability of the decision by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal declaring binding a class settlement in the Ageas case. The development of the Netherlands into a prime venue for (cross-border) collective settlements – including with respect to claimants and defendants residing across the Atlantic – renders a discussion of the enforceability of court decisions pertaining to the collective settlement of disputes of interest from a Dutch, EU and extra-EU perspective.

In 2016 the Eastern Cape Local Division in Mthata heard a claim by Mrs Winnie Madikezela-Mandela that, amongst other things, her customary marriage to former President Nelson Mandela continued to exist until his death, despite the dissolution of their civil marriage. Not long thereafter, in 2017, former President Jacob Zuma's daughter made headlines by claiming half of her soon-to-be-ex-husband's multimillion-rand estate despite the couple’s having entered into a valid ante-nuptial contract. The claim was that her preceding customary marriage had not been accompanied by an ante-nuptial contract, and therefore the marriage was in community of property. These high-profile cases raise the fundamental legal question: what effect does a civil marriage between parties have on the parties' customary marriage to each other? Historically the subsequent civil marriage terminated the customary marriage, as such marriages were not legally recognised in South Africa. The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 allows for such dual marriages without specifying the consequences thereof. Most commentators have interpreted the provisions to perpetuate the historical position; the civil marriage terminates the customary marriage. While this appears distasteful, the rationale is legal certainty and accords with the recommendations of the South African Law Commission. Furthermore, alternative customary dispute resolution mechanisms are still available to the parties, who are unlikely to suffer prejudice under the interpretation. In addition, given the social reality in which dual marriages are conducted and how they are perceived by parties, parties should be allowed to conclude an ante-nuptial contract after their customary marriage but before their civil marriage to regulate the proprietary consequences of their marriage.

The role of nationality laws and their implementation in underpinning or undermining the modern state in Africa is both important and has received too little attention from policy-makers to date. This is the finding of a comparative analysis of nationality laws across all 54 African states, matched with detailed case studies of the ways in which the law has interacted with politics, especially in countries that have had crises centred on identity. Recommendations call for reform of law and practice to provide a right to a nationality in the country where a person has the closest connections.

In its efforts to counteract terrorist threats and contain the risks posed by returning foreign fighters, the Netherlands, like several other European states, has enacted legislation introducing denationalisation as a counter-terrorism measure. The Dutch measures target convicted terrorists and foreign fighters alike, the latter without the prior involvement of the judiciary. This practice not only challenges traditional conceptions of citizenship, but also raises several human rights concerns, of which discrimination is the most pressing. This Article therefore examines the measures taken by the Netherlands and analyses their compatibility with Articles 14 and P12-1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to assess the measures' disproportionate focus on Dutch-Moroccans from a legal perspective. Based on this conclusion of inequality, the Article then ventures beyond purely legal analysis to discuss the Dutch legislation more broadly, before linking the legal argument with normative critiques on the denationalisation of terrorists, and foreign fighters in particular. Taken together, the legal and normative findings establish that denationalisation as a counter-terrorism measure in the Netherlands cannot be reconciled with the legal or normative dimension of the equality principle.

For as long as our modern legal systems exist they have operated on the basis of the lex rei sitae rule. As an expression of the principle of territoriality, the law of a country applies to all objects that are situated on the territory. In domestic cases, of course, the regular rules apply, but in international disputes a legal system uses its own rules to be able to apply its own domestic law. The doctrine of lex rei sitae becomes relevant in a situation in which two legal systems come into contact with one another. A conflict of laws or conflit mobile arises when the law of one country is to be applied in the law of another country. Over the last centuries an intricate system of rules has developed with which private international lawyers resolve conflict of laws by pointing towards one of these legal systems as the applicable law. They do so - at least in theory - blindfolded, so that they cannot favor one legal system over the other. Instead of choosing one system over another, a set of impartial and objective rules is used to determine what legal system is to be applied. Private international law theory is, however, less facilitative in practice. In the European Union there is an internal market in which there is free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. This internal market is governed by principles and theory that are very different from the principles and theory underlying private international law. EU law works on the basis of a market functionalism that seeks to allow legal relations to remain to be governed by their country of origin. Property private international law rules are aimed to have legal relations governed by the host country. This tension between two opposite viewpoints is part of a larger tension between the unifying nature of EU Law and the procedural autonomy of the EU Member States. Rather than having EU law decide what is to be the applicable law, in general private international law cases, the host country, i.e. the lex fori, decides this by itself. In the past decade, however, many private international law rules have become EU law to centralise the rule deciding on applicable law and jurisdiction. The EU has therefore claimed competence in the area of applicable law and jurisdiction. However, when property law has been concerned, mostly connection has been sought, also at the EU level to the traditional lex rei sitae rule. In practice however, also an EU lex rei sitae rule turns out to be difficult to apply. The best example of this is perhaps the EU Succession Regulation that allows one single legal system to be applied to an entire cross-border succession case.

Towards a legal framework of multiple parenthood? A case study of Belgium and the Netherlands A child can have a maximum of two legal parents in Belgium and the Netherlands. This is a challenge for plus-two-parent families in which a child is raised by multiple parental figures. This article gives an overview of the (potential) legal measures taken to better accommodate plus-two-parent families, in respect of the recommendations of the Dutch Government Committee on the Reassessment of Parenthood.

This dissertation analyzes the impact that European Union law has had upon Cyprus law, focusing on the problems that arose after the financial crisis and how EU law can be used as a vehicle for dealing with problems of over-indebtedness. Contract law and civil procedure in Cyprus are only now experiencing major processes of transformation as a result of the financial crisis and the claims that reach courts, despite acceding to the EU 17 years ago. EU accession was initially seen by many as an opportunity for reform and modernization of the legal system, however, in certain areas of the law this was only realized, as a result of the problems caused by over-indebtedness and the lack of specific institutions to deal with such problems.

Where EU action affects the legal or factual situation of an individual, guarantees for the affected persons’ rights must exist. If rights have been violated, a remedy must be provided. This thesis concentrates on this relationship between the EU and individual applicants in human rights cases. It critically analyses how the EU may be held accountable for violations of human rights through procedures and remedies available to the individual applicant. The key in this situation is for the EU to find a role in the spectrum of human rights law, where it will bear human rights obligations and individuals will be the right holders who may claim their rights. The thesis focuses on procedures for annulling an EU act, claiming damages against the EU as well as engaging the EU’s responsibility under international law.

At first glance, the French legal framework for whistleblower protection may appear to be particularly well developed. Indeed, since the so-called Sapin II Law, it has offered general criteria to qualify a person as a whistleblower and set procedural and substantive guarantees against possible retaliatory measures. Although advanced, the system is not complete. Its shortcomings are repeatedly mentioned, to the extent that the transposition of European Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 is an opportunity to correct the limitations of the current system. No matter if the criteria may be too restrictive, the procedure too constraining or the protective measures insufficient, there are many elements that need to be modified. However, a question may arise as to whether a unitary treatment of the alert is possible when it does not always serve the same purpose. The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the Fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

The article examines the problematic aspects of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the European Union in relation to the application of the public policy clause. Analysis of the content of public order also constitutes part of the article. It focuses on the EU law instruments which provide unequal conditions for non-recognition of foreign judgments. The authors discuss if inclusion in the CJEU of the limits on the interpretation of the public order clause is a sufficient guarantee to ensure proper application of the public order clause. Moreover, the authors analyse the principle of res judicata according the EU law.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Ottília Lovasné Tóth v ERSTE Bank Hungary Zrt can be seen as a missed opportunity, first, in elaborating on Article 3(1) of Directive 93/13, in particular whether the two criteria set by the article, of a term causing a ‘significant imbalance’ and it being contrary to ‘good faith’ should be assessed separately; and, second, in clarifying the status of the transparency requirement found in Article 5 of the directive. This case note focuses on the latter question, taking into account the repercussions of the judgment of the CJEU in Verein für Konsumenteninformation v Amazon EU Sàrl. In the latter case, the CJEU introduced an information duty about the existence of mandatory rules such as Article 6(2) of Rome I Regulation. In its decision in Ottília Lovasné Tóth, the CJEU decided to limit the scope of the judgment in Amazon to the particular circumstances of that case.

Several crypto communities have claimed to have revolutionary potential and to present a possible alternative to the state legal order. In this paper, we first mention three different generations of crypto communities, revealing their shared narrative, before focusing on the Silk Road dark web marketplace. Based on the qualitative content analysis of the Silk Road forum, we look into whether this platform should be understood as a legal order, a revolutionary movement, or simply a capitalist marketplace. Lastly, the article includes a short discussion of the question whether or not an online platform such as the Silk Road poses a serious challenge for state sovereignty.

‘Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because we’re forced to do it... because it is good for our business.’ –Niall Fitzgerald, Former CEO, Unilever Corporate Social Responsibility is an umbrella concept for a corporation’s responsibility towards the society. It embraces an ethical, moral and business element that requires the commitment of people at all levels of the corporation. The concept tends to present itself with a soft law shield and therefore corporations usually have to go beyond their initial (legal and economic) obligations to implement its policies. But why should a corporation make an effort to adopt this concept? This article tries to answer this question by first of all examining the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility and the development of its regulation at an international and European level. Furthermore, recent corporate scandals and their post-scandal behaviour is investigated to highlight the power of society on a corporation and its well-being. Lastly, the use of a case study will present the added value found in Corporate Social Responsibility for corporations.

The editors and board of the Amsterdam Law Forum (ALF) hereby proudly present the 2020 Winter Issue. This is the first issue to be presented by an entirely new editorial team for the academic year of 2019 - 2020. Besides changes to the editorial team, we are also pleased to announce the launch of the improved ALF website. As a result of this transition period, the publication of the Winter Issue has encountered some delay, however, the publication of the Spring and Summer Issue are expected to follow as planned. The final matter that we would like to touch upon is our annual conference. Every year ALF organises a conference where various experts are invited to present and discuss their perspectives on a topical issue. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the sphere of uncertainty, our team has decided to cancel this year’s conference.

A creditor can establish a security right by pledging his claim. The right of pledge is considered an absolute right under current Dutch law, i.e. a right that can be invoked against anyone. A claim, on the other hand, is a relative right that can only be exercised against one or more specific persons. Considering this, is it possible that the pledgee's right in case a claim has been pledged is of an absolute nature? In order to provide a starting point for answering this question, A.J.H. Smit researches the Roman law pignus nominis, i.e. the pledge of a claim under Roman law. The praetor awarded the pledgee an actio utilis to collect the pledged claim, that is, an action analogous to an existing action. What kind of action was this? Was it a personal or a real action? Following the example of which action did the praetor formulate this action? You will find the answer to these questions and to many others in this thesis.

This paper presents a multilingual legal information retrieval system for mapping recitals to articles in European Union (EU) directives and normative provisions in national legislation. Such a system could be useful for purposive interpretation of norms. A previous work on mapping recitals and normative provisions was limited to EU legislation in English and only one lexical text similarity technique. In this paper, we develop state-of-the-art text similarity models to investigate the interplay between directive recitals, directive (sub-)articles and provisions of national implementing measures (NIMs) on a multilingual corpus (from Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg). Our results indicate that directive recitals do not have a direct influence on NIM provisions, but they sometimes contain additional information that is not present in the transposed directive sub-article, and can therefore facilitate purposive interpretation.

The book examines the field of European and global standardisation, showing how standards give rise to a multitude of different legal questions. It explores diverse topics in regulation such as food safety, accounting, telecommunications and medical devices. Each chapter offers in-depth analysis of a number of key policy areas. These multi-disciplinary contributions go beyond the field of law, and provide cross-disciplinary comparisons.

Corporations are the most powerful economic entities in contemporary society. The main finding in this thesis is that existing regulatory approaches in corporate law, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility are methodologically suboptimal and politically biased. Their continued use entrenches corporate power and undermines our ability to properly deal with the social, economic and environmental effects of corporate misbehaviour. This conclusion draws on insights from twelve disciplines: law, political economics, economics, psychology, anthropology, management studies, sociology, political science, criminology, theology, media studies and philosophy.The resolution of global crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality requires us to urgently reform corporate law, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. The reform chapter outlines how such an overhaul can be achieved without fundamental shocks to the economy.

In the academic context, plagiarism is usually seen as an ethical offence, the boundaries and definition of which are often unclear. However, in some countries, plagiarism is also a legal wrong, amounting to copyright infringement. This article proposes a test for assessing plagiarism of academic works. The test is based on the law and jurisprudence of a particular country, Portugal, where plagiarism is framed as copyright infringement. Article 196 of the Portuguese Copyright Law sets four elements that must be fulfilled for a finding of plagiarism: There must be a protected work; the alleged plagiarist must have used a partial or total reproduction of that work; the alleged plagiarist must have failed to attribute the authorship of the work to its rightful creator; and the work of the alleged plagiarist must lack its own individuality. The authors argue that, even if the law of a particular country does not frame plagiarism as a legal offence, these elements should be part of a test to be adopted and applied by academic institutions for the sake of legal certainty.

This book includes the conference proceedings of a conference in September 2019. The Institute for Property Law of the University of Leuven had the opportunity to welcome numerous authoritative legal scholars to debate on the impact of sustainability challenges on the crossroads between contract and property. While environmental issues, and more broadly sustainability, are often conceived as a matter of public law, if a matter of law at all, in recent years, also private law aims to join in. More fundamentally, environmental law could challenge the main division in private law, the division between contract and property. Fundamental rules of traditional private law, with strong historical roots, such as the privity of contracts, the closed system of property rights, the praedial rule with regard to servitudes, etc. are under pressure. The contributions of this book therefore are situated at the point of encounter of at least three fields of law: environment, contract and property. Very often, a fourth field of law joins this encounter: the constitutional protection of ownership plays a major role in the described challenges. The contributions in this book are on the one hand, careful analyses of national laws, and on the other hand, more general views on the interplay between property law and sustainability: -Property Law, Contract Law and Environmental Law: Shaking Hands with the (Historical) Enemy - Vincent Sagaert -Sustainable Obligations in (Dutch) Property Law - Bram Akkermans -Contractual Regulation of Property Rights: Opportunities for Sustainability and Environmental Protection - Siel Demeyere -Towards Sustainable Real Estate in a Circular Economy - Benjamin Verheye -Quebec Private Law, Destined to Preserve the Environment?- Gaële Gidrol-Mistral -Real Burdens in Scots Law: An Environmental Perspective - Andrew J M Steven -Positive and Negative Obligations of Landowners in South African Law: An Environmental Perspective - Elsabé van der Sijde -The Introduction of Conservation Covenants in English Law - Christopher Pulman and Nicholas Hopkins -The 'obligation réelle environnementale' in French law- Blandine Mallet-Bricout. -Environmental Duties in the German Land Register - Christine Godt -Nordic Perspectives on Contract and Property Law with an Environmental Perspective: Examples from Norway Berte-Elen Konow

The dissertation provides new jurisdiction rules that yield predictable and efficient adjudication in cross-border copyright infringement cases. The dissertation argues that the alleged infringer can only be sued in the EU member state (or states) that was the objective target of their activities. The increased predictability regarding in which member state one may get sued, will result in the exchange of information and cross-border trade being less affected. The importance of the predictability has increased due to the prohibition for businesses to geo-block their websites for consumers from EU member states. The dissertation also argues that the copyright holder should have the possibility to obtain full redress before the court of the member state in which the damage has been obviously substantial. The abovementioned proposals will alleviate the burden on the judicial systems of the member states. The proposals can be used in the European Union and at international level.

On 25 October 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) provided for a preliminary ruling in its Polbud judgment concerning a cross-border company conversion. This conversion had to be accomplished by transferring the company’s registered office from one EU Member State to another. The Court’s ruling – first, that such a transfer, whether or not involving at the same time the company’s headquarters or economic conduct, falls within the ambit of Articles 49 and 54 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) on freedom of establishment, and, second, that legislative measures imposed on the migrating company by the Member State of origin entailing the winding-up of the company on the conclusion of a liquidation procedure are precluded – deserves approval. The Polbud judgment not only provides for clarity but also further completes the options of cross-border migration operations for companies and firms. At the same time, however, the Court’s ruling demonstrates the need to establish uniform legislative standards at the EU level, safeguarding the interests of all company stakeholders under the reign of Article 52 subsection 2 litera (g) TFEU. Both the experience with Directive 2005/56/EC on cross-border mergers and, from the late eighties of last century onwards, various initiatives having resulted in consecutive ‘pre-drafts’ for a Cross-border Company Migration Directive, may serve as guideline for further harmonisation in the field related. It is now for the Commission to take action, seeking a proper balance between the potentially diverging interests of all company stakeholders.

In the international community, there is a continuing trend to deprive citizens of their nationality for certain undesirable behaviour. The 1961 Convention prohibits this practice in cases where the individual concerned would become stateless as a consequence. However, State Parties can reserve certain exceptions to this prohibition by filing a declaration under Article 8 (3) at the time of ratification. This article aims to conduct a thorough analysis and a critical reflection of the declarations of ratifying States of the 1961 Convention submitted under Article 8 (3) of the Convention. This approach includes a quantitative analysis of the submitted declarations against the background of recent geopolitical events, which will show an absolute, yet not a proportional rise, of declarations submitted under Article 8 (3). An analysis of the legality of the submitted declarations as well as a discussion of the corresponding national provisions will be conducted. Furthermore, an evaluation of the reaction of other Contracting States to the submitted declarations will demonstrate serious shortcomings in the due diligence of Contracting States, arguing that a double-standard is applied to declarations submitted under Article 8(3) by Western Contracting States in comparison to the treatment of Contracting States from the Islamic World.

Mutual trust is one of the cornerstones of cooperation in the field of European Union private international law. Based on this principle the rules on the cross-border recognition and enforcement of judgments in the European Union are still subject to simplification. The step-by-step approach of the implementation of this principle led to the abolition of the exequatur, often accompanied by a partial harmonization of enforcement law to improve and support the smooth working of cross-border enforcement without exequatur. In this regard, it seems that the Member States still want to have control over the ‘import’ of judgments which results in maintaining the ground for non-recognition and the possibility of relying on them in the Member State of enforcement. This article considers the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition in three areas of justice: civil and commercial matters, family law and maintenance. In these areas the European Union legislator has chosen three different approaches for the implementation of this principle.

Cross-border civil and commercial conflicts can be adjudicated by courts of sovereign states or in a private setting, namely by arbitration panels. Against the background of a globalizing world and an increase in popularity of arbitration as a means of dispute resolution ‘Europe’ (the European Union) faces the challenge to demarcate borderlines as litigation in court and arbitration tend to get in conflict more often. Conflicts may relate to the jurisdiction of courts versus the competence of arbitration panels (inter alia resulting in anti-suit court orders or even arbitral awards), as well as to the recognition of foreign court orders being capable of frustrating arbitral awards or vice versa. This contribution attempts to analyze how these clashes ought to be resolved under the reign of ‘new’ cross-border civil and procedural law in Europe (EU Regulation 1215/2012, or ‘Recast’) on Jurisdiction and Recognition of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters’ (in force January 15, 2015). Two preliminary rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) though still interpreting EU Regulation 44/2001 (i.e. the legislative predecessor of the Recast), remain important to the law regime of the Recast. The final conclusion is that, even though the Recast respects the international law framework of notably the 1958 New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards, a considerable amount of legal uncertainty remains, as Recital 12 of the Recast Preamble contains ‘open-ended’ parameters leaving discretionary room for national law of each individual EU Member State and calling for further interpretative rulings of the CJEU.