Harvard Law Review Publishes Student Comment on Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements

The Harvard Law Review has just published a student comment: Recent International Agreement, Private International Law -- Civil Procedure -- Hague Conference Approves Uniform Rules Of Enforcement For International Forum Selection Clauses. -- Convention On Choice Of Court Agreements, Concluded June 30, 2005, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 703 (2006). Here is the Introduction:

Trade is greatly facilitated when international parties can make contracts safe in the knowledge that their disputes will be recognized and resolved in the forum of their choice. Yet legal systems may fail to protect these reasonable expectations. Recently, the member states of the Hague Conference on Private International Law approved the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, which lays out uniform rules for the enforcement of international choice of court clauses. The Convention not only requires that courts in member states assume jurisdiction pursuant to certain forum selection agreements between businesses around the world, but also lays out rules for the recognition of judgments thereby entered. These provisions will--if signed and ratified by the United States--render immaterial difficult Erie questions regarding which law federal courts should apply to such agreements. Moreover, the Convention may also serve as a catalyst for standardized treatment of domestic forum selection clauses among the states and may later promote a much-needed legislative standardization of domestic jurisdictional law.