In this book interaction between the rights guaranteed in the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR) and private international law has been analysed by
examining the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) in
Strasbourg and selected national courts. In doing so the book has focused on the
impact of the ECHR on all three of the main questions of private international law:
jurisdiction, the applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of foreign
judgments. First, a concise introduction to both private international law and the
ECHR has been provided. Next, an important preliminary question has been
answered: what is the meaning of Article 1 ECHR for private international law?
Thereafter, the impact of the ECHR on the three main issues of private international
law has been examined in depth. It has been demonstrated in this book that
the impact of the ECHR on private international law is indeed considerable, and
that its impact in some areas of private international law is still somewhat
underestimated.
This book is based on the research which I mostly carried out at Amsterdam
University’s Amsterdam Center for International Law (ACIL) during the period
2008–2013. A small part of the research was carried out at the Swiss Institute for
Comparative Law. I would like to thank the staff of the Institute for their
hospitality.
This research was made possible by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research (NWO). It was part of the VICI project on ‘The emerging international
constitutional order—the implications of hierarchy in international law for
coherence and legitimacy of international decision making.’ I am grateful to Erika
de Wet for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this research project, which
allowed me to combine two of my favourite subjects of law.
An older—and abbreviated—version of chapter 4 of this book is based on a
presentation delivered at the Colloquium ‘The Impact of the European Convention
on Human Rights on Private International Law’, organized by the University of
Amsterdam on 12 November 2010. This presentation was first published in the
journal Nederlands Internationaal Privaatrecht (NIPR). My thanks are extended to
all the participants at the conference, who provided me with useful commentary.