Hague Choice of Court Convention

Hague choice of court convention

Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements
parties (purple) and signatories (green)
Signed	30 June 2005[1]
Location	The Hague, The Netherlands[1]
Effective	Not in force[2]
Condition	2 ratifications/accessions[1]
Signatories	European Union Singapore United States[2]
Parties	1 (Mexico)[2]
Depositary	Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Languages	English and French

The Hague choice of court convention, formally the Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements is an international treaty concluded within the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It was concluded in 2005, but had as of 2013 not entered into force. It was signed (but not ratified) by the European Union (on behalf of all its member states except Denmark), the United States, while Mexico acceded to it. Ratification of 1 more country will trigger its entry into force.^[2]

Parties under the convention recognize a choice of court agreement between parties in the field of civil law and thus courts not chosen in the agreement will stay all proceedings (unless the chosen court refuses the court). For the convention choice of court agreements must be "exclusive": which means in the context of the convention that also a group of courts may be chosen, as long as they are in the same country. It is not required for a choice of court agreement to explicitly state that the agreement is exclusive, designating a specific (set of) courts will automatically render it exclusive.

Judgements by the chosen court must be recognized in all states where the convention is applicable.

History

The Hague Conference started with the "Judgements project" in 1996: the development of a convention regarding jurisdiction and recognition of judgements. Jurisdiction within such a convention would be classified in three categories: bases of jurisdiction which were obligatory, optional or prohibited. As the negotiators were not able to come to a consensus on such a convention, the scope of the work was reduced to jurisdiction and recognition of decisions based on a choice of court agreement between the parties. During the negotiations parallels were drawn between the New York Convention on arbitral awards: the aim was to create a system of recognition of decisions based on court cases where the court was chosen pursuant to a choice of court agreements, which would create the same level of predictability and enforceability as is the case in arbitral awards in New York Convention states.^[3]

Parties

State	Signature	Ratification/Accession	Entry into Force	Comments
European Union	02009-04-01-00001 April 2009			EU territory of all member states except Denmark
Mexico		02007-09-26-000026 September 2007
Singapore	02015-03-25-000025 March 2015
United States	02007-01-19-000019 January 2007

References