Hague Conference On Private Law Underway

Good morning,

Premier and Minister of Finance, the Hon. Paula A. Cox, JP, MP

Dr. Christophe Bernasconi, Deputy Secretary General, Hague Conference

Mr. Jarvis Matiya, Legal & Constitutional Affairs Division, Commonwealth Secretariat

As Attorney General and Minister of Justice, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Bermuda for the Hague Conference on Private International Law with the interactive seminar focusing on “The Work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law and its Relevance for the Caribbean Region and Bermuda”.

Today we are honoured to have a number of distinguished speakers, in addition to senior government officials, and prominent attorneys from around the region participate in this event.

The scope of your respective disciplines represented at this conference highlights the importance of the subject we are going to discuss over the next three days.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is commonly said that today’s world is a single global community.

For some of you, as with us here in Bermuda, this is a development which offers many opportunities as it does challenges.

In many ways Bermuda is a jurisdiction of unique contradictions. We are indeed one of the remotest (if not smallest) destinations in the world. In fact, a common local saying is that ‘Bermuda is another world’.

And yet geographical location and limited size aside, we have managed to carve our own little niche in the global tourism industry, and we are considered one of the premier international insurance and reinsurance domiciles.

Nowhere is this global interconnectivity more exemplified than in our legal arena and the ever increasing need for our respective jurisdictions to cooperate and to reconcile our domestic interests with our international relations, to our mutual benefit.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware of the extent of this need when it comes to traditional matters such as trade, commerce and law enforcement particularly as relates to the protection of our borders against illicit substances.

However, in our increasingly globalized world the need for international cooperation has evolved to take on such challenges as protecting our societies from fraudulent schemes hatched in foreign lands; to safeguarding the vulnerability of our domestic IT networks form cyber attacks from anywhere in the world at any given time.

Our respective Island homes are particularly in need of addressing the kinds of issues and availing ourselves of the types of solutions that this Conference offers.

In the legal arena of ‘conflict of laws’, we tend to find ourselves at the mercy of disproportionately overwhelming powers which in turn necessitates that we calibrate our efforts to offset that disadvantage.

North America and South America nations with each of whom, to one degree or another, we have inextricable ties bolstered by a history of interdependence.

It follows that the legislative and judicial independence of our respective jurisdictions will from time to time encounter inconsistencies and conflicts that need to be resolved through a legal framework devised skilfully and deliberately to do so.

Our neighbouring Island nations are also emerging and evolving in their own right.

The relatively cosmopolitan composition of our respective populations attests to that.

You will find that there is hardly a Caribbean nationality that is not represented within Bermuda. Such is the increasing connectivity between us. Therefore it is with special interest that we must all observe developments in private international law as relates to the Caribbean region.

Of recent note is the 2001 signing of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas as an evolution of CARICOM. As a result we now have the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as a powerful statement of regional judicial interconnectedness.

Its location in Trinidad with judges from five Caribbean nations as well as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands Antilles, speaks to its scope and admirable ambition.

As observers we are all no doubt in interested in the developments with respect to Belize, Guyana and Barbados’ adoption of the CCJ as the court of last resort in both civil and criminal matters.

Of course with bold steps to unify come major challenges to divide, and we will watch with equal interest as to how those will be overcome.

Here in Bermuda we look to a future in anticipation of increasingly availing ourselves of the benefits of private international law as relates to regional interconnectedness.

We do so in further anticipation that as the law evolves with the support and leadership of this Conference; it will afford an increasingly powerful tool to deal with the three primary challenges of resolving conflict of laws, i.e. jurisdictional issues, choice of law and the integration of foreign judgments with our respective legal regimes.

With Bermuda being a pillar of international business, this importance cannot be understated.

Our domestic legislative regime is evolving to keep apace. Mundane but vital statutes such as the Rules of The Supreme Court 1985 made pursuant to the Supreme Court Act 1905; provides the parameters for engaging other jurisdictions as to service of foreign legal process.

In this instance both regional synchronization and cooperation are vital components of ensuring the effectiveness of such enactments. Hence the need for the Conference’s own apostil instruments such as its ‘Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legislation For Foreign Public Documents’.

Without such instruments the administrative and procedural hurdles to the international legal process would be insurmountable.

The indispensability of regional evolution relates also to the more direct human dimension of our interconnectedness. Bermuda’s International Child Abduction Act 1998 became operative the following year as a crucial legal instrument devised to protect our families and young children in particular, from one of the scourges of modern international jet travel.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction facilitates the jurisdictional connectedness of our respective states which in turn makes the effectiveness of this domestic law possible.

A few months ago a triumphant ending was witnessed to a local drama with international dimensions as a Bermudian father achieved success at regaining custody of his 14-year-old son through a Floridian court, after approximately nine years had elapsed since his abduction.

Such feats would not be possible without the ‘Conference’ and the legal instrumentalities and administrative provisions it has devised for extra-jurisdictional resolution of legal issues.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will end on the note of optimism which this case exemplifies.

In our global world of de-isolation Bermuda along with our Caribbean counterparts constitute a region challenged with pursuing the development of private international law as a cornerstone of the unification that we unavoidably share.

We do so in partnership with the Hague Conference and the indispensable resources it affords to this end. Accordingly, I look forward to the next few days and the sharing of information, ideas and resources that this gathering will yield.

My very best in this regard, and once again a warm and inviting welcome to Bermuda.

Thank you.

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