Court systems and private international law
News
Guest lecture International Commercial Courts Cyprus
Xandra Kramer gave a guest lecture on ‘International commercial courts: a game changer in international litigation?’ at the Neapolis University Pafos in Cyprus on 12 April 2024. She discussed the rise of international commercial courts in the Middle East and Europe, in the context of needs of international business, court specialisation and access to justice and in relation to international arbitration.
Focussing on key features of these courts she gave insights on the different courts, and in particular the Singapore and Netherlands Commercial Court. Highlighting some innovative features and the opportunities the Hague Judgments Convention of 2019 offers, she concluded that these courts have an effect on the international litigation market, but they have not triggered a huge shift from arbitration or other courts to these new business courts.
Published: March 9, 2018
On 2 March Xandra Kramer gave a talk at a conference in Berlin on 'How European is European Private International Law?'. She focused on the how the judicial infrastructure can contribute to the application of European private international law rules, using among others aggregated statistics on the number of preliminary questions of national courts in the Member States and an inventory among experts and stakeholders in a number of Member States. One of the issues addressed was the rise of international commercial courts, in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany in particular, as is studied in depth by Georgia Antonopoulou in our ERC project. These courts are, however, not established with a view to facilitating the proper application of EU private international law rules.
Whereas specialized courts, special chambers within courts, specialised judges, court experts, judicial training, formal (e.g. EJN) and informal networks are useful to improve the application of these rules, it should be realized that in many courts these rules are only relevant in relatively a small number of cases, and measures should be cost-effective not to burden the available court budget. In addition, reflection is necessary as to the role of European private international law in view of current developments and the political and social climate in the EU.