[Ecommerce] Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judg ments

[Ursula Pachl]

Jamie asked for info on the proposal regarding certification etc that was
made by Professor Catherine Kessedjian  ( Deputy Secretary General of the
Hague conference on International private Law) in Geneva last year. I would
like to point to the fact that this was her personal idea and it  has not
been recommended by the working group on consumer contracts at this Round
Table meeting. Although I like the idea of launching an international
initiative on minimum consumer standards, I don't like this proposal,
because it means : self regulation (at what level of protection? ) plus
country -of origin rule.  Certainly her idea could be improved by saying:
self regulation plus country of destination law. However, I spoke to Ms
Kessedjan today and she said that she did not work on this proposal any
further, but might do in the future. 

Interesting is in my view what the working group at this Round Table last
year recommended (recommendations have not been put on the net as far as I
know and I only have them on paper, but I'll fax them to Jamie and Frank),
which was a general ground of jurisdiction in the consumers home country,
the scope extended not only to the consumer, but also to small enterprises.
This will again be discussed in Ottawa, hopefully. Another issue to be
discussed in Ottawa apparently is limitations of choice of court clauses. 

I would  very much be interested to hear about the US gov position (the
arguments why they are against) on the consumer provision in the convention.
The European Commission supports the draft,  so does the majority of the
European Member States, but nothing is granted.


Ursula Pachl
Legal Advisor - BEUC

BEUC - The European Consumers' Organisation
Avenue de Tervueren 36, B-1040 Brussels - Belgium
Tel: 322 743 15 90; Fax : 322 735 74 55
e-mail: upa@beuc.org
website: www.beuc.org
***************************************************************
BEUC- The European Consumers' Organisation
***************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: James Love [mailto:love@cptech.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 6:04 PM
To: Torres, Frank
Cc: ecommerce
Subject: Re: [Ecommerce] Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign
Judgments


"Torres, Frank" wrote:
> 
> Some of the FTC staff would like to meet with consumer groups about the
> Hague Convention.  If anyone is interested, please let me know.   It is my
> understanding that there is an effort to remove some language on
> jurisdiction that I understand is favorable to consumers.  They are
> suggesting that negotiations be delayed until everyone has a chance to
fully
> contemplate what any changes will do.  I understand that there is a
meeting
> scheduled for later this month in Ottawa.
> 
> Please let me know if you are interested in meeting with the FTC on this
> issue, or if you have any thoughts on whether delaying negotiations is in
> our interests or not.
> 
> Thanks.  Frank.

   Vergil and I will attend the FTC meeting.  

I found the text below in the press release, it seems pretty important. 
I would be pleased if anyone has further details of this proposal:

   5.  For business-to-consumer transactions, further assessment is
required in the light of all the interests involved. Particularly,
during the second plenary, Professor Catherine Kessedjian proposed to
avoid the traditional dichotomy between the "country of origin" (i.e.
that of the seller or provider) and the "country of reception" (i.e.
that of the consumer). She proposed to start with a process of
site-certification along the lines of the work done within the icc and
other private organisations. This certification process should include
minimum substantive rules of protection for the consumer including
warranties, and a fair and easy dispute resolution mechanism which could
possibly be free of charge to the consumer. When a site has obtained the
certification label, it could provide for the application of the law of
the country of origin and for the courts of that country for the
residual cases which could not be solved by the dispute resolution
mechanism part of the certification. If a site has not been certified,
then the law and the courts of the consumer's location would be
competent.



=======================================================
James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org 
P.O. Box 19367                 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
Washington, DC 20036           | fax:   1.202.234.5176
=======================================================



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