On April 30^th 2018, the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions at the Law Faculty, University of Niš, was honoured to host the distinguished guest, Prof. Marta Pertegás, the former First Secretary of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (2011-2017); Professor of Private International Law and Transnational Law at the Law Faculty, University of Maastricht, as well as the Law Faculty, University of Antwerp. In the course of her lecture From Niš to the World: Conventions as Connections, Professor Pertegás discussed the practical application of five Hague Conventions in force in the Republic of Serbia (the 1965 Service Abroad Convention; the 1970 Taking of Evidence Convention; the 1993 Adoption Convention; the 1996 Children Protection Convention and the 2007 Maintenance Protocol).

Besides the students of the Law Faculty in Niš, the Center was pleased to host the practising judges of the Basic Court and the Higher Court in Niš, as well as the lawyers from the Social Care Center in Niš. Likewise, the Center for  Private International Law of the Hague Conventions was honored to welcome two representatives of the Serbian Central Authority (CA) for the 1993 Hague Adoption Convention and the 1996 Hague Children Protection Convention: Mr. Vukota Vlahović, Head of the Department for Administrative and Supervisory Affairs in the area of family protection, and Mr. Stevan Popović, an official of the Serbian Ministry of Labor, Employment, Social and Veteran Affairs.

In her welcome address, Associate Professor Maja Nastić, the Vice Dean of Studies and Scientific Research at the Law Faculty in Niš, highlighted the most important professional accomplishments of Professor Marta Pertegás.

After the Vice-Dean’s welcome address, Professor Pertegás and the participants were greeted by Assistant Professor Sanja Marjanović, acting on behalf of Professor Mirko Živković, Head of the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions and on her own behalf. She provided a brief account on Professor Živković's initiative to establish the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions at the Law Faculty in Nis and the Center activities in the past period.

In the course of presenting the first topic, the 1965 Service Abroad Convention and the 1970 Taking of Evidence Convention, Professor Pertegás tackled some of the most controversial issues regarding the "non-mandatory" or "non-exclusive" effects of these procedural Hague Conventions, which triggerred a lively discussion with the students, judges and the Serbian CA representatives.

The next topic included three Hague Conventions on family law issues: the 1993 Adoption Convention, the 1996 Children Protection Convention, and the 2007 Maintenance Protocol. During the highly dynamic discussion on this matter with the participants, Professor Pertegás provided an extensive analysis of various problems, such as: the child's habitual residence; the habitual residence of migrant temporary workers; the special protection of the uncompanied migrant children and the international adoption of this extremely vulnerable category of children. Considering the great interest in the subject matter, the discussion lasted for almost two hours. Professor Pertegás and the Serbian Central Authority representatives highly commended the students’ enthusiasm, active participation and attention to detail in addressing these issues.

On 10^th April 2017, the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Convention at the Law Faculty, University of Niš (Serbia) was honoured to host Mr. Hans van Loon, former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1996-2013), and organize a series of lectures for law students and legal practitioners.

In the welcome address, Assistant Professor Maja Nastić, Vice Dean of Studies and Scientific Research at the Law Faculty in Niš, underscored that the Law Faculty in Niš took pride in the fact that these lectures are the first lectures for law students that Mr. Hans van Loon has ever held in Serbia and former Yugoslavia countries. On behalf of the Law Faculty in Niš, the Vice-Dean credited Mr. Hans van Loon for his kind support to establishing the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions on the premises of the Law Faculty in Niš, and thanked him for officially opening the Centre on 5^th October 2012. On behalf of the Hague Conference, Mr. van Loon presented the Center with an extremely valuable collection of Actes et documents. The Vice-Dean also noted that the Faculty of Law in Niš is the only law school in Serbia that has introduced the course in Private International Law of the Hague Conventions as a compulsory subject in the Master degree law study curriculum, upon the initiative of the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions.

After the Vice-Dean’s welcome address, Mr. Hans van Loon and the attending students were greeted by Professor Mirko Živković, Head of the PIL Center in Niš. In his opening address, Professor Živković recalled Mr. Van Loon’s first visit to the Law Faculty in Niš in 2012, when Mr. Hans Van Loon was the speaker at the 10^th Jubilee Private International Law Conference organized on the premises of the Law Faculty, University of Niš. The annual PIL Conferences have been traditionally organized since 2003, at the initiative of Professor Živković, with an aim of bringing together PIL professors and assistants from the former SFRY countries.

The topic of the first lecture given by Mr. Hans van Loon was The Global Horizon of Private International Law, where the students of the Law Faculty in Niš had the opportunity to learn how the Hague Conference approaches the problem of global unification of Private International Law, creates a flexible system of cooperation among the Contracting States to the Hague Convention, addresses and overcomes the problems arising thereof. 10^th Jubilee Private International Law Conference organized on the premises of the Law Faculty, University of Niš. The annual PIL Conferences have been traditionally organized since 2003, at the initiative of Professor Živković, with an aim of bringing together PIL professors and assistants from the former SFRY countries. compulsory subject in the Master degree law study curriculum, upon the initiative of the Center for Private International Law of the Hague Conventions.

The second lecture given by Mr. van Loon was on Coordination of the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1996 Protection of Children Convention. Apart from students, the participants of this session were the local court judges and legal practitioners from the City of Niš. During this session, which took two and a half hours, the audience took advantage of the given opportunity to participate in a vibrant discussion with Mr. van Loon and address certain issues concerning the successive implementation of the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1991 Child Protection Convention, which has only recently entered into force for the Republic of Serbia (on 1^st November 2016). The matter of particular interest were issues raised on the retention of jurisdiction of the court of the state of habitual residence of the child to decide on parental responsibility in child abduction cases (Article 7 of the Child Protection Convention), as well as the (possible) court interpretations of the provisions on grave risk exception in the proceedings for the return of the child (Article 13 para. 1, item b) of the Child Abduction Convention) in domestic violence cases where the immediate victim is not the child but the abducting parent. 

In the afternoon workshop, Mr. Hans van Lon was presented the basic ideas of the Hague Conference Judgment Project and elaborated on the development of this very important project which should result in adopting a global convention on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. During the dynamic discussion on this matter with the students of the Law Faculty in Niš, Mr. van Loon provided an extensive analysis of the provisions envisaged in the latest version of the 2017 Draft Convention on the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. Considering the great interest raised by the discussion topic, the workshop took two and a half hours, in the course of which the students posed numerous questions, expressed opinions and provided some suggestions to some of the discussed issues.

The students were prepared for the in-depth discussion on the Judgement Project by Assistant Professor Sanja Marjanovic.

All the participants of the jubilee 10th PIL Conference have evaluated the Conference proceedings as highly successful and rewarding in terms of quality contents, overall organization, good attendance and remarkable composition of participants.

The success of the Conference has been significantly enhanced by the organizer's decision to use a less usual conference format. Namely, the traditional conference model based on paper presentation has been replaced by a more interactive discussion format. Thus, the topics were introduced by carefully selected rapporteurs who provided the introductory report on the given topic, which was further discussed and elaborated in the course of a 2,5-hour debate (per session). Some topics inspired constructive polemic discussions, conducted with a lot of spirit and tolerance. Such a concept has given rise to a number of very significant PIL questions and concurrently resulted in a number of interesting proposals and solutions.

The participation of young PIL assistants from almost all law faculties of ex-Yugoslavia has given this Conference an added quality. The Conference was also attended for the first time by the official representatives of the Ministry of Justice, which is the central authority for some Hague conventions.

This Conference has been organized by prof. dr Mirko Živković and teaching assistant Sanja Marjanović.


 

The Faculty of Law, University of Niš, has a pleasure to announce the 10th jubilee Private International Law Conference, which will be held on 4^th and 5^th October 2012 on the premises of the Law Faculty in Niš. The Conference is organized under the title "A Decade in the Development of Private International Law: 2003-2012", which covers four general topics:

1. Private International Law of the European Union 
   (rapporteur: Prof. dr Michael Bogdan, Faculty of Law Lund, Sweden);
2. National Systems of Private International Law and Regional Cooperation
   (rapporteur: Prof. dr Christa Jessel-Holst, Max-Planck Institute of Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg, Germany);
3. The Hague Conventions on Private International Law 
   (rapporteur: Mr. Hans van Loon, Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, Netherlands)
4. Comparative Private International Law 
   (rapporteur: Prof. dr Kurt Siehr, Professor emeritus of the Faculty of Law, Zürich, Switzerland, Free research associate at the Max-Planck Institute of Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg, Germany);

This Conference will gather more than 50 participants from a number of countries, including the most eminent professors of Private International Law. Please find enclosed: The Letter of Introduction, the Conference Agenda.

For more details on the Conference please see the Report on the Conference.

On 14th April 2016, the Center for Private International Law  of the Hague Convetions of the Faculty of Law in Niš had an honor to be the host of the 4th Balkan Conference. The topic of the Conference Personal Name in Internal Law and Private International Law gathered the scholars and attorneys from  Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey . 

The organization of this kind of regional conferences is the idea of distinguished Greek Professor Spyridon Vrellis, Professor emeritus of the University in Athens and longstanding director of the prestigious Hellenic Institute of International and Foreign Law. Professor Vrellis has also participated in the 4th Conference in Niš.

Traditionally, every Balkan conference deals with specific Private International Law matters and takes place in a different Balkan country. 

The first Balkan Conference was organized by the Hellenic Institute of International and Foreign Law (in Athens, on 31 May 2010). This Conference had no specific subject, given that its purpose was to investigate the possibility of future collaboration among the participating institutions. Its agenda was the following: (a) Short presentation of the respective institutions; (b) Lectures on specific topics of common interest; (c) Organization of scientific meetings on regular basis; (d) Publication of articles; (e) Possibility for  research in our institutions; (f) Information on foreign law.

The third Balkan Conference (on Maintenance law in the Balkans) was organized by Κοç University Law School (in Istanbul, on 30 September 2013).

You can find here the details regarding the List of Participants, the Conference Agenda and the Photo Gallery.