There is an old saying that being right and being proven to be right at court are two different things. In the end, the value of rights depends on their enforceability - and on their prior determination in legal proceedings by courts and tribunals.

Legal proceedings in international cases raise numerous issues ranging from jurisdiction and procedure in cross-border proceedings to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. Those issues are dealt with by the national law of a country. On the other hand, considerable efforts have been made to unify these rules and to simplify the formalities with a view to a rapid and simple system recognition and enforcement of judgments, both on the international level as well as within Europe.

The course deals with the problems raised by cross-border proceedings and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, and with the rules governing these issues. It follows a problem-based and comparative approach. With respect to the rules it will put an emphasis on the Lugano Convention, but also look at relevant EU Regulations and international instruments like Hague Conventions.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• understand the general concepts of international civil procedure, of jurisdiction and procedure in cross-border proceedings, and of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments;
• detect and discuss procedural problems in international cases;
• identify and interpret legal sources of international, European and national law, and to apply them to a set of facts.

Lectures.

A mix of classic and Socratic method will be used. All students are therefore expected to prepare in advance for class and to participate in class discussions.

Autumn (teaching semester): written school exam

Spring (semester without teaching): written school exam

4 hour written school exam (graded: A - E for passed, F for fail) - see Section 3-1 no. 2, first sentence of Studieplanen for masterstudiet I rettsvitenskap ved UiB.

Exam language:

the exam question: English

the answer: English

Support materials allowed during school exam:

See section 3-5 of the Supplementary Regulations for Studies at the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen.

Special regulations about dictionaries:

• According to the Regulations for Studies, one dictionary is permitted support material during the examination. Bilingual dictionaries containing for example both Norwegian-English and English-Norwegian are considered as one dictionary.
• Bilingual dictionaries to/from the same two languages - for example Norwegian-English/English-Norwegian - in two different volumes are also considered as one dictionary (irrespective of publisher or edition).
• Dictionaries as described above cannot be combined with any other types of dictionaries.
• Any kind of combination which makes up more than two physical volumes is forbidden.
• In case a student has a special need for any other combination than the above mentioned, such combination has to be clarified with/approved by the course coordinator minimum two weeks before the exam. Students who have not been granted permission to have a special combination minimum two weeks before the exam will be subject to the http://www.uib.no/en/jur/22852/supplementary-regulations-studies-faculty-law-university-bergenusual regulations (Section 3-5) about examination support materials.

No academic overlapping with courses at the Law Faculty in Bergen.

Combines successfully with JUS278-2-A Comparative Private Law and JUS259-2-A Internasjonal privatrett (in Norwegian).

Lecturers:

Berte-Elen R. Konow (course leader)

Volker Lipp

Administrative contact:

elective-courses@jurfa.uib.no