A Study On The Recognition And Enforcement Of Punitive Damages

The award of punitive damages, with a long history of more than 200 years,has always been controversial among the different countries. The civil lawcountries who do not adopt this practice, and the common law countries whoadopt it, have different opinions on this practice, which leads to a situation that itis difficult to obtain the recognition and enforcement of the award of punitivedamages.First of all, this paper introduces the controversy of awarding punitivedamages, and analyzes the reason why the awards of punitive damages areusually refused to recognise and enforce by foreign countries. Then, this paperfocuses on the effort made by and results achieved by the Hague Conference onPrivate International Law on the recognition and enforcement of punitivedamages judgments, which started from the year of 1992. In addition, this paperanalyzes the provisions of Drafted Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and ForeignJudgments in Civil and Commercial Matters of 2015, and points out that theseprovisions are an indirect and halfway method to deal with the award of punitivedamages. Lastly, this paper makes some suggestions about how our country shallrespond to the provisions of the Drafted Convention, after having considered ourcountry’s current statutes, and proposes some measures for improvement.