Actes et documents de la Vingtième session / Proceedings of the Twentieth Session

This set collects the three volumes of the HccH’s Proceedings of the Twentieth Session (2005).
Volume 1 includes general information such as membership of the delegations and the minutes of the Opening and Closing Sessions. The complete text of the Final Act of the Twentieth Session appears thereafter. This is followed by the preliminary documents, the conclusions of the Special Commissions of 2003, 2004 and 2005 on General Affairs and Policy of the Conference, together with the working documents and minutes of the First Commission, which dealt with these questions at the Plenary Session.

Volume II contains a selection of the relevant documents, including the working documents and minutes of discussions, pertaining to the so-called “Judgments Project” on which the Hague Conference carried out work from 1992 up to and including the First Part of the Nineteenth Session of the Conference, which took place from 6 to 22 June 2001. These negotiations did not produce a Convention.

While the documents directly related to the final text of the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, which resulted from a new direction taken in 2002, are published in Tome III of the Proceedings of the Twentieth Session. This volume contains the preliminary documents and working documents, among which are the Report drawn up by Catherine Kessedjian in 1997 which set the stage for much of the work that followed, the reports on the work of the Special Commissions of June 1997 and March 1998, as well as a number of reports of various meetings of Experts Groups charged with specific questions. It further contains the preliminary draft Convention adopted by the Special Commission of 30 October 1999, as well as the Report of the Special Commission drawn up by Peter Nygh and Fausto Pocar, and a document comprised of the comments of the governments and international organisations on the preliminary draft Convention and on the Nygh / Pocar Report.

Volume III contains most of the relevant documents and minutes of the discussions of the Twentieth Session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, dedicated to the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, which took place from 14 to 30 June 2005. It encompasses only the documents directly related to the final text of the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. The documents concerning the initial phase of the so-called “Judgments Project”, which took on a new direction in 2002, are published in Tome II of the Proceedings of the Twentieth Session.

This volume contains the preliminary documents and working documents, among which the Report drawn up by Andrea Schulz which contextualises the change in direction decided upon with regard to the Convention along with the initial stages of the new working routes, as well as a number of reports of the meetings of the Working Group charged with the question and the successive draft Convention texts. The principal working documents and reports of the meetings of the Special Commission of 2003 and 2004 are also included, exceptionally, in this volume, accompanied by the conclusions reached by the participants in these two meetings. The working documents and minutes of Commission II, the organ charged with this work during the Diplomatic Session in June 2005 are also included. In conclusion, this volume contains the final adopted text of the Convention, as well as its Explanatory Report drawn up by Professors Trevor Hartley and Masato Dogauchi.