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HAGUE ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Lis Pendens in International Litigation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I* INTRODUCTION

A. Of the Conflict of Litigation

B. The litispendence phenomenon

1. Forum shopping in parallel litigation

2. Horizontality

3. Overlapping jurisdiction-conferring rules

4. Kompetenz-Kompetenz : who determines jurisdiction ?

C. Intellectual origins of the idea of lis pendens

1. Civil Law: in the image of Roman Law?

2. Common Law: the legacy of Equity’s struggle for supremacy in England

D. Legal techniques for the control of competingjurisdictions

1. Tolerance of parallel proceedings and res judicata

2. Rules of priority

3. Consolidation of related proceedings

4. Party autonomy, election and waiver

5. Discretions to decline jurisdiction or control parallel litigation

E. The Rule of Law and the Function of Adjudication in International Cases

Chapter II. Private international litigation

A. Deference, indifference or control ?

1. A world of two hemispheres ?

2. Two contrasting approaches in Civil Law systems

3. Two contrasting approaches in a Common Law system

B. Strict lis pendens : pursuing the res judicataparallel

1. Translation of an internal into an international rule

2. The search for identity of action

(a) Same parties

(b) Same subject-matter and same cause

3. Assessment of effects

(a) The negative declaration

(b) The reflexive effect of a convention

C. Jurisdiction-declining discretions

1. Litispendence within the forum non conveniens enquiry

(a) Double litigation by the same plaintiff

(b) A forum contest between plaintiff and defendant

2. Declining jurisdiction in favour of related proceedings

D. The rise and fall of the anti-suit injunction

1. Commonwealth use of anti-suit injunctions to control foreign parallel litigation

2. A division of principle in the United States

3. Contraction of the anti-suit injunction in the face of comity concerns

(a) Conflict of laws cedes where no true litispendence

(b) Requirement of jurisdictional nexus

(c) European law constraints

E. Interim conclusions

Chapter III. International arbitration

A. The place of parallel proceedings in international arbitration

1. The use of party autonomy as an escape from multiple fora

2. Instances of overlapping jurisdiction.

B. International commercial arbitration

1. Kompetenz-Kompetenz or who decides on arbitral jurisdiction

(a) The arbitral tribunal or the courts

(b) The courts of the seat and other courts

2. Parallel and related arbitral proceedings

3. The anti-suit injunction in arbitration

(a) Issue of anti-suit injunctions by arbitrators

(b) The Front Comor and anti-suit injunctions in aid of arbitration

(c) Anti-arbitration injunctions

C. Investment treaty arbitration

1. The particular potential for conflicts of jurisdictionin investment treaty arbitration

2. The distinction between breach of contract and breach of treaty

(a) National law and international lawremedies distinguished

(b) Effect of contractual jurisdiction clause

3. Election and waiver

(a) The fork in the road

(b) Waiver

4. The impact of an umbrella clause

5. Parallel treaty arbitration

D. Interim conclusions

Chapter IV. Public international litigation

A. The judicialization of Public International Law.

1. The rise of public international adjudication

2. Rationales for the proliferation of internationaltribunals

3. Polycentric nature of modern disputes

(a) Concurrent individual and State respon sibilityfor international crimes

(b) Concurrent regional and international trade law proceedings

B. Relationships between international tribunals

1. Express provision

(a) Human rights

(b) The Law of the Sea

2. Is lis pendens a general principle of law appli cable to international tribunals ?

C. Relationship between national and international litigation

1. Rules of separation of international from national proceedings

2. Effect of pending international proceedings before national courts

(a) The Consular Convention cases — ICJ and US Supreme Court

(b) The Caribbean cases : the Privy Council and the Inter-American Human Rights system

D. Interim conclusions

Chapter V. Conclusion

A. The exercise of adjudicatory authority in a plural world

1. The fact of decisional fragmentation

2. A constitutional or administrative law model?

3. General principles in the resolution of the conflict of litigation

B. The search for new solutions

1. From a Westphalian to a cosmopolitan paradigm

2. Declining and referring jurisdiction — newmodel lis pendens

3. Judicial co-operation and communication

C. Final conclusions

Select Bibliography

About the author

Biographical note

Principal publications