Research On The Principle Of Forum Non Convenience Of Foreign-related Litigation In The United States

With the development of economic globalization, the mobility of goods, services, and personnel is increasing. The international civil and commercial activities are more and more extensive; therefore the international civil and commercial disputes are growing. Due to advances in technology and communication technology, it is easily for the parties to choose different countries or regions to sue. "Forum shopping" become widely exists in the international civil and commercial cases. There are more and more international parallel proceedings. The reasons are various; one of the main reasons is the conflict of national jurisdiction. The existence of the parallel litigation can not lead to the goal of fairness and justice of law. First, because of the equality of national judicial sovereignty, the decisions of all the court are equally authentic. In practice, courts of different countries may make different, even opposite judgment of the same case, and the goal of justice of law cannot be achieved. Second, in many cases, the parties will choose a favorable court to sue, which may cause the unfavorable situation of the defendant, equal protection of the law, this can not reflect the legal equality to protect the interests of the parties. Third, the presence of international parallel proceedings produced more "lawsuit" in various countries and regions, wasting a lot of judicial resources, reduce judicial efficiency.According to the international parallel proceedings, countries have taken different measures. The common law countries have adopted forum non convenience doctrine, anti-suit injunction to solve the conflict of jurisdiction. The forum non convenience doctrine is a highlight in solving the international jurisdiction conflicts, which is playing a positive role in international jurisdiction conflicts. However, this principle is not widely used in the international society, because the common law countries and civil law countries has differences on application of this principle. In common law countries, the judge will have wide discretion to ensure the fairness and justice of the case. And the application of the forum non convenience doctrine also need such discretion for support, so forum non convenience doctrine is supported in the countries of Anglo American law system. However, civil law countries pay more attention to the relative certainty of law, opposition to give the courts or judge too much discretion, therefore not willing to take the forum-non-convenience doctrine.In China, although the civil procedure law does not stipulate the doctrine of forum non convenience, in judicial practice, the district court and the Supreme People’s court have applied the doctrine. International cases involving the doctrine are increasing. Due to no regulations exists, so how to know and apply this principle has become a problem of theory and judicial practice department in our country. Through the research on forum non convenience doctrine, I try to sort out the problem, and put forward some specific suggestions, hoping to have certain reference function that enrich and perfect our relevant legislation and judicial practice.