The Principle Of Forum Non Conveniens

The doctrine of forum non-convenience prevails in Anglo-American countries to solve the problem of positive conflict of international jurisdiction. It means in an international civil action, when a plaintiff initiates a suit in a court, if the defendant insists that he would not be treated fairly in the court, he can require to discontinue the suit by the means of the doctrine of forum non-convenience. And then according to the application of the plaintiff, the court of suit thinks that another court in another country or in another region will be more convenient to initiate the suit, so after consideration, it rejects the suit or abandons the jurisdiction. The doctrine of forum non-convenience is very meaningful in making the suit to be more convenient and lightening the burden of a court. But because of its flexibility, it has lots of disadvantage in theory and in practice. At present, the manner of it in law circle is quite different. So the author tries to research in it in an all-round way according to its development. And then to find its essence according to the study of its intension and function, discuss the standard of measurement, put forward the specific procedure of exploitation, and hope to be helpful for the relative legislation in our country.This paper can be mainly analyzed from the following three parts: Part One: This part comparatively introduces the origination and development of the doctrine of forum non-convenience. Because that the doctrine of forum non-convenience mainly prevails in the Common Law countries, the paper emphasized its history in the British Commonwealth countries and in the United States. At first, it introduces the origination in the Scotch, and then according to the case of Spiliada to introduce its transform of the standard from "vexation and oppressive" to the standard of "more appropriate court".At the same time, it analyses the practice in some other British Commonwealth nations such as in Canada and Australia. When analyzing the development in the United States, the author firstly points out that the case of Canada Malting opened the door for the doctrine of forum non-convenience, and then according to the case of Gulf. Oil, it had been officially established in the United States, and the case of Piper developed the doctrine of forum non-convenience. The author emphasizes the enforcement of it in the American cases of international circumstance, analyses its abuse, and maintains that the doctrine of forum non-convenience should to be abolished in this domain.Part Two: This part analyses the doctrine of forum non-convenience from the positive and negative aspects. In one hand, the author points out its reasonableness such as lightening the burden of court, restraining the expansion of jurisdiction and so on. In another hand, the author also points out its abuse such as giving the judge too much discretionary power, lacking unified standard of application and so on.Part Three: This part is based on the study of the current legislation and practice of the doctrine of forum non-convenience in our country. At first, the author looks back the present condition of legislation in our country. Although at present there is no definite legislation in our country, some applications of judicial interpretation and some relative cases come up. The author elaborates the necessity of establishing the doctrine of forum non-convenience according to the aspects such as the present social condition in our country, supporting the sovereignty, fair and efficiency, etc. At last, the author puts forward some suggestion on the legislation of the doctrine of forum non-convenience in China, mainly discusses the standard of its application and the construction of its specific contentions procedure.By means of evidence and comparative method, this paper analysesthe history of the doctrine of forum non-convenience and the transform in its development in an all-round way. And then it puts forward an objective commentary. At the same time, the author aims at the present facts of China...