Agreed Jurisdiction In Private International Law Study

Contractual jurisdiction is currently universally accepted and applied in international civil litigation. It is a natural result of both the application of the theory of "will autonomy" to international civil judicial procedure, and the expansion of international trade and communication. On the domestic level, most countries have already made relevant legislation so to enable the parties of disputes arising from international civil and commercial cases to apply contractual jurisdiction in practice. On the international level, the European Community Council Regulation on Jurisdiction and the Recognition of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters ("Brussels I") and the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements("Hague Convention") are regarded as models of the international legislation about contractual jurisdiction. China, as an important role in international civil and commercial activities, has made its own rules and regulations about contractual jurisdiction in cases involving foreign elements.However, these rules and regulations and the relevant judicial practice fail to establish a complete and consistent mechanism of contractual jurisdiction in civil litigation involving foreign elements in China. On the legislative level, the relevant Chinese laws either lack specific stipulation about the relevant issues, or make inarticulate and outdated provisions. While on the judicial level, the Chinese courts have inconsistent judgments on the same issue, hence certain mess in practice.This thesis explores the legislation and cases of the U.S. and Germany, as well as the relevant provisions and practice of the Brussels I and the Hague Convention, so as to find out appropriate approaches to solve the problems in China's practice and to improve the relevant legislation of China.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter starts with an introduction of contractual jurisdiction in international civil litigation, including the definition of basic concepts, the elaboration of the function of contractual jurisdiction as well as the history and trend of the development of the contractual jurisdiction in international civil litigation. This chapter later focuses on the major issues of contractual jurisdiction in international civil litigation which are the forms, the scope and the legal effect of contractual jurisdiction. The second chapter investigates the relevant legislation and judicial practice of China, and categorizes the problems according to the issues discussed in the second chapter. The third chapter explores the relevant legislation and cases of the U.S. and Germany. The fourth chapter looks into the relevant provisions and practice of the Brussels I and the Hague Convention. The last chapter comes up with some suggestions for the improvement and perfection of China's legislation and judicial practice about contractual jurisdiction in civil cases involving foreign elements based on the analyses and comparison of the legislation and practice of the U.S., Germany, the Brussels I and the Hague Convention in terms of the aforementioned issues.