“Jurisdiction” may raise the questions whether any court of a legal system can hear a case; which court of the same system is the proper court to hear the case; what is the extent of legislative authority.¹ The sense of the word is confused by the concept of “international” jurisdiction for recognition of foreign judgments (meaning by a foreign judgment, a judgment of another legal system). (i)Aattempts to bring proceedings againstBin Ruritania. The courts of that country refuse to examine the merits ofA’s case because they have no jurisdiction by Ruritanian law. (ii)Wasks...

If a court is not restricted to the rules of thelex fori, but ought to select the most appropriate law from all the systems available, internal or foreign, then it is embarking on a different kind of inquiry from that in a purely local case. On this basis (which is traditional), choice of law is a means of “shunting” a problem into one of many systems of law. This means that, assuming that there areNavailable systems and that a legal issue has been raised where there is jurisdiction to deal with it, the function of choice of...

Various ambiguities can arise in choice of law rules. For example, there may be a “renvoi” situation arising as follows. The applicable conflict rule refers to the law of a jurisdictionJ_p, and there is an issue in theforum J_f. The conflict rule ofJ_fsimply refers to the “law” ofJ_pwithout distinguishing between conflict rules and other rules.¹

A conflict can be defined as positive or negative. Ontario law equates personal law with domicile; French law equates it with nationality. The personal status of a Frenchman domiciled in Ontario is therefore governed by Ontario law according to...

There is some analysis in chapter two of the fundamentals of a contract where foreign elements are involved and where there may be a question of applying non-standard law. The function of this chapter is to discuss certain features of the interpretation of written obligations, and the illustration chosen is the interpretation of money instruments involving foreign currency. This chapter considers a more complicated interpretation situation than that discussed in chapter two and examines the working-out in contracts of traditional theory (such as the “proper law”). “As regards money, we should know that it acquires its function naturally, not by...

A sale may create various relations: e.g., between the sellerAand the buyerB; betweenBand creditors ofA, orAand creditors of B; betweenBand previous owners.¹ Property rights and obligations may arise through contract and other events, e.g., change of possession or formalities for completion of title, and these rights and obligations may involve legal categories, such as (a) the contractual relationship betweenAandB, which (apart from situations such as an undisclosed principal or ajus quaesitum tertio) involve only these parties; (b) property questions which may or may not depend upon...

The purpose of this chapter is to examine French law and the common law on the recognition of status in regard to marriage, divorce, annulment of marriage, legitimacy, legitimation, and adoption. In Canada, and to a greater extent in Britain, statutory alterations in the principles of divorce jurisdiction have contributed to a more liberal attitude on recognition, although the boundaries of some of these developments are still uncertain.¹ The effect of foreign adoptions has been canvassed, and the decisions have been controversial. A Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce in Britain has recommended reforms affecting recognition,² and there has been...

Because a corporation has a legal personality, the tendency has been to model the recognition of foreign corporations on the recognition of status in regard to physical persons.¹ It is tempting to apply “personal law” to an organization that has a “personality” and to introduce concepts of “nationality” and “domicile.” Nationality and domicile are indeed attributed to corporations, though in a different sense from the way in which the terms are used in respect to human beings. But the idea of corporate personality can be carried too far, and there are different views as to its meaning.² “The danger attendant...

This chapter attempts to gather together some of the suggestions that have been made in previous chapters. These suggestions have been put forward as direction indicators for a re-design of the rules on foreign law and judgments with reference to a system of private law. The following summary of the main ideas may be useful in this connection.

The approach in chapter one was to advance principles for the working out of jurisdictional rules which would exclude those situations in which no court of the country should entertain the action. In the great majority of cases, some court of the...