In a series of recent posts (Part I, Part II and Part III), I argued that states should not ratify the Hague Choice of Court Agreements Convention (“Convention”) and, if they had already done so, that they should denounce the Convention.  Two good friends, Trevor Hartley and João Ribeiro-Bidaoui, recently responded on Kluwer Arbitration Blog…

This post continues from Part I. Party Autonomy and Consent:  How the Convention Undermines Them My previous posts argued that the Convention undermines vital protections that existing law provides for party autonomy and genuine consent.  In response, Mr. Ribeiro argues that the Convention advances notions of party autonomy: it supposedly serves to “enable parties to…

Gary Born, in a three-part series in Kluwer Arbitration Blog last month, addressed why States should not participate in the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice Of Court Agreements (“Hague Convention”). We assume that readers are familiar with Mr. Born’s posts (available as Part I, Part II, and Part III), and so we will confine ourselves to recalling this…

The HCCH 2005 Choice of Court Convention (“Convention“), adopted over fifteen years ago, has recently become the subject of damning criticism from Gary Born in a series of posts published on the Blog (see Part I, Part II, and Part III). In the series, Born dramatically suggests that states bound by the Convention should denounce…

Introduction In October 1865, Sir Robert Hart, a former British diplomat and by then an official in the Qing Chinese Government, wrote to Empress Dowager Cixi expressing his opinion that China should desperately seek progress through investments in mining, the telegraph, the telephone and especially in railways. The reaction of Empress Cixi’s closest advisors was…