In May 2018, the Hague Conference on Private International Law (‘HCCH’) produced a draft convention for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. A Diplomatic Session of the HCCH is expected to take place in 2019 at which this draft ‘Judgments Convention’ will be presented. If a multilateral convention emerges from the Diplomatic Session, Australia is likely to be an early adopter: the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department conducted a public consultation on the draft Judgments Convention in 2018. Against that background, this article considers the impact of implementation of the Judgments Convention in Australia. It is argued that domestic legislation that emerges from the Judgments Convention will deliver an overdue refurbishment of the Australian law relating to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. Australia’s adoption of the Judgments Convention ought to be welcomed.
The paradigm of the jurisdiction agreement designates a single, exclusive forum, allowing each party to determine, in advance of a dispute, the forum for litigation. The principles governing the enforcement of jurisdiction agreements are largely designed for this model. Some parties draft agreements that differ from this model, including agreements that purport to nominate multiple courts with "exclusive" jurisdiction, and unilateral optional agreements giving one party an option to select the forum after a dispute arises. These features raise the question of whether principles developed for the exclusive model regulate jurisdiction agreements that depart from it. This article explores the approach to exclusivity under the Hague Choice of Court Convention, the Brussels I Recast, and at common law. We demonstrate that non-uniquely "exclusive" and unilateral optional jurisdiction agreements are uncomfortably accommodated within and inconsistently treated by these regimes, comparing, particularly, the acceptance of unilateral optional agreements in England with their rejection in France.
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