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Erasmus Law Review

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Issue 3, 2014 Expand all abstracts

Laura Carballo Piñeiro
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Santiago de Compostela.

Xandra Kramer
Professor at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, visiting scholar at Stanford Law School.
Article

Access_open Faith and Scepticism in Private International Law: Trust, Governance, Politics, and Foreign Judgments

Keywords private international law, conflict of laws, foreign judgments, European Union, United States
Authors Christopher Whytock M.S., Ph.D., J.D.
AbstractAuthor's information

    In both the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), the law governing the enforcement of foreign judgments is evolving, but in different directions. EU law, especially after the elimination of exequatur by the 2012 ’Recast’ of the Brussels I Regulation, increasingly facilitates enforcement in member states of judgments of other member states’ courts, reflecting growing faith in a multilateral private international law approach to foreign judgments. In US law, on the other hand, increasingly widespread adoption of state legislation based on the 2005 Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (2005 Act), which adds new case-specific grounds for refusing enforcement, suggests growing scepticism. In this essay, I explore possible reasons for these diverging trends. I begin with the most obvious explanation: the Brussels framework governs the effect of internal EU member state judgments within the EU, whereas the 2005 Act governs the effect of external foreign country judgments within the US. One would expect more mutual trust – and thus more faith in foreign judgment enforcement – internally than externally. But I argue that this mutual trust explanation is only partially satisfactory. I therefore sketch out two other possible explanations. One is that the different trends in EU and US law are a result of an emphasis on ’governance values’ in EU law and an emphasis on ’rights values’ in US law. Another explanation – and perhaps the most fundamental one – is that these trends are ultimately traceable to politics.


Christopher Whytock M.S., Ph.D., J.D.
Christopher Whytock is Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
Article

Access_open The Role of Private International Law in Corporate Social Responsibility

Keywords CSR, conflicts of law, Kiobel, Shell
Authors Geert Van Calster Ph.D.
AbstractAuthor's information

    This contribution firstly reviews developments in the EU and in the United States on corporate social responsibility and conflict of laws. It concludes with reference to some related themes, in particular on the piercing of the corporate veil and with some remarks on compliance strategy, and compliance reality, for corporations.


Geert Van Calster Ph.D.
Geert van Calster is professor at the University of Leuven and Head of Leuven Law's department of European and international law.
Article

Access_open Global Citizens and Family Relations

Keywords global governance, family relations, nationality, habitual residence, party autonomy
Authors Professor Yuko Nishitani Ph.D.
AbstractAuthor's information

    As globalisation progresses, cross-border movements of people are becoming dynamic and multilateral. The existence of different groups and minorities within the community renders the society multiethnic and multicultural. As individuals acquire new affiliation and belonging, the conventional conflict of laws methods may no longer be viable and should be subject to a thorough re-examination. Against this background, this paper analyses appropriate conflicts rules in international family relations to reflect an individual’s identity. Furthermore, in light of the contemporary law fragmentation, this study also analyses interactions between state law and non-state cultural, religious or customary norms.


Professor Yuko Nishitani Ph.D.
Professor at Kyushu University Faculty of Law, Japan. This work was supported by the JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (Grant Number 26380063). The author sincerely thanks Professor Carol Lawson (Nagoya University) and Ms. Nettie Dekker for their devoted editing work.

    The Rome I Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations contains several provisions aimed explicitly at the protection of ‘weaker’ contracting parties, such as consumers and employees. However, in addition to this, the interests of weaker parties are sometimes also safeguarded through the application of ‘overriding mandatory provisions’, which are superimposed on the law applicable to the contract to protect a fundamental interest of a Member State. This article is an attempt to clarify the extent to which the concept of overriding mandatory provisions may serve as a vehicle for weaker party protection. To do this, it examines the definition and limitations of the concept and its relation to conflict of laws rules based on the protective principle. Finally, the article seeks to establish whether the doctrine of overriding mandatory provisions remains relevant in the case of harmonisation of substantive law at the EU level, for which it will differentiate between full and minimum harmonisation.


Laura Maria van Bochove Ph.D.
Assistant professor in the Department of Private International and Comparative Law at the Erasmus School of Law. The author would like to thank the reviewers for their comments.
Article

Access_open Private International Law: An Appropriate Means to Regulate Transnational Employment in the European Union?

Keywords private international law, applicable law, overriding mandatory provisions, transnational employment relations, posting of workers
Authors Prof.dr. Aukje A.H. Ms van Hoek
AbstractAuthor's information

    The regulation of transnational employment in the European Union operates at the crossroads between private international law and internal market rules. The private international law rules are currently laid down in the Rome I Regulation. This regulation is complemented by the Posted Workers Directive, a directive based on the competences of the EU in the field of free movement of services. The current contribution first describes the rules which determine the law applicable to the employment contract under Article 8 Rome I Regulation and the way these rules are interpreted by the CJEU before critically analysing these rules and the reasoning that seems to lie behind the court’s interpretation (section 2). The law applying to the contract is, however, only of limited relevance for the protection of posted workers. This is due inter alia to the mandatory application of certain rules of the country to which the workers are posted, even if a different law governs their contract. This application of host state law is based on Article 9 Rome I Regulation in conjunction with the Posted Workers Directive. Section 3 describes the content of these rules and the – to some extent still undecided – interaction between the Rome I Regulation and the PWD. The conclusion will be that there is an uneasy match between the interests informing private international law and the interests of the internal market, which is not likely to be resolved in the near future.


Prof.dr. Aukje A.H. Ms van Hoek
Aukje van Hoek is Professor at the University of Amsterdam.

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