New Hague Judgments Convention: finally adopted but may be some years before impact is felt

The post below was first published on our Litigation blog

On Tuesday, 2 July 2019, the Hague Conference on Private International Law finalised a new treaty on enforcement of judgments: the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters, or the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention.

The new Convention has been a long time in the making. Its origins go back to 1992, when work began on a general convention dealing with jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments. Political consensus could not be reached, initially, and so the Hague Conference decided to focus on the area where consensus was possible – jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments where the relevant court was chosen under an exclusive jurisdiction clause. That resulted in the 2005 Hague Choice of Court Convention.

The new Convention goes much further than the 2005 Convention, in that it is not limited to judgments based on exclusive jurisdiction clauses. And, in contrast to the 2005 Convention, employment and consumer contracts are within scope.

The Hague Conference press release describes the 2019 Convention as “a gamechanger in international dispute resolution”, saying it will be a single global framework, enabling the free circulation of judgments in civil or commercial matters, which will provide "better, more effective, and cheaper justice for individuals and businesses alike”.

The 2019 Convention is welcome, but it will of course only apply between those countries that ratify it and bring it into force. The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it will now start the process of preparing EU accession to the Convention, although the timescale for accession is uncertain. The UK will also be looking closely at accession in its own right in a post-Brexit scenario, subject to any transitional arrangements that may be agreed with the EU. But it is worth noting that the Convention won't come into force for any state until (approximately) 12 months after ratification, and even then it won't apply unless the proceedings that led to a judgment were instituted at a time when the Convention was in force for both the state of origin and the state where the judgment is to be enforced. This means that there will be some considerable time before the Convention applies to any judgment, even if the EU and the UK (and other countries) take early steps to accede to it.

Some may hope that the 2019 Convention will provide an alternative route to the easy enforcement of English judgments post-Brexit, when the dynamics for enforcement will become significantly more complex as the recast Brussels Regulation and the Lugano Convention will no longer apply to the UK (as discussed here and here for example). But the 2019 Convention should not be seen as a complete answer, in part because of the likely delay before its impact is felt, and in part because its effect is more limited than the Brussels/Lugano regime (recognition and enforcement can be refused on broader grounds, for example, and it deals only with enforcement rather than jurisdiction – apparently work is underway on a further instrument addressing jurisdiction). So while it is certainly a positive step, it is still hoped that the UK and EU will be able to agree other arrangements more closely replicating the current regime, including an agreement for the UK to join the Lugano Convention.