General Report: Trasnational Civil Litigation between European Integration and Global Aspiration
TRANSNATIONAL CIVIL LITIGATION IN THE EUROPEAN JUDICIAL AREA AND IN RELATIONS WITH THIRD STATES, Arnaud Nuyts, Nadine Watte (Brussels: Bruylant, 2005), pp. 595-675
81 Pages Posted: 3 Dec 2013
Date Written: 2004
Abstract
This paper was prepared in 2003-2004 as the general report of an international research project on how the European private international law instruments approach questions of jurisdiction and judicial cooperation involving third countries and non-Member State residents. The paper is concerned less with summarizing the conclusions of the book's contributions and more with providing a comprehensive, conceptual background to the emerging discourse on international civil litigation in Europe and beyond.
The paper is divided in four parts, the first two dealing with the “constitutional” aspects of the subject, while the last two with the “horizontal” or doctrinal aspects. Part I provides an overview of the institutional dimension and the gradual construction of a European Judicial Area (I.A). Special attention is paid to issues regarding the external competences of Community and its Member States (I.B.). Part II examines the limits set on the European Judicial Area (principally the Title IV instruments, but also Member States in their exercise of Community jurisdiction), by the “economic constitution” of the European Union (II.A), the European system of human rights (II.B), and public international law (II.C).
The second half of the Report studies the EC instruments on transnational civil litigation from up close. First, Part III tests the limits of a common approach to the instruments. After a typology of the connecting factors used in the instruments (III.A), the paper considers the methodological choices involved and possible alternatives or reconceptualizations (III.B). The paper subsequently examines the underlying policies of the Area’s instruments (III.C). A subsequent section studies the ways of dealing with “conflicts” between European and international instruments (III.D). Finally, Part IV considers separately the special issues that arise in each of the five Regulations then in force: Brussels I, Brussels II, Insolvency, Service and Evidence.
Keywords: private international law, European Judicial Area, Brussels I Regulation, jurisdiction to adjudicate, commercial litigation, European private law
JEL Classification: K41, K40, K33, K20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation