Dilemma And Thoughts In Extraterritorial Recognition And Enforcement Of Prc Civil Judgments

Mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters between countries is one of the major issues in respect of private international law, among which, the extraterritorial recognition and enforcement of judicial judgments in civil and commercial matters constitute an important part thereof. Under the background of economic globalization, Chinese enterprises are going up to integrate into the world market – by making foreign direct investment(FDI) or trading with foreign enterprises, which lead to a series of cross-border legal issues that are hard to be resolved. It is important for Chinese parties whether the PRC judgments they’ve got can be recognized and enforced in foreign countries and how it works. In general, it is natural for a country’s judgment only having its legal force inside its territory, while the personnel and capital flows freely, which increase the difficulty to solve the cross-border disputes.The theories of mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments between countries include theory of comity, theory of reciprocity, doctrine of vested rights and theory of res judicata. And the legal basis of the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments include international treaties, bilateral agreements, reciprocal principal and domestic legislations, etc. Generally speaking, as for the international treaties, the international community has not come to a consensus in effect in respect of the recognition and enforcement of judgments yet; as for the bilateral treaties, the bilateral judicial assistance treaties entered into between China and foreign countries have limited coverage range and there are even no bilateral judicial assistance treaties between China and our main traders. Therefore, given the lack of neither the effective international treaties nor the effective bilateral treaties, the legal basis of the recognition and enforcement of PRC judgments inside the territory of our main traders shall be the reciprocal principal and their domestic legislations.Given the lack of neither the effective international treaties nor the effective bilateral treaties with our main traders, as well as varying understandings on reciprocal principals and domestic legislations, the exterritorial recognition and enforcement of PRC civil judgments has met up with a dilemma. However, there still appears some success cases, such as “Sanlian Pinghu vs. Robinson”, "Zublin International Gmb H vs. Wuxiwoke" and "Jianshan Photoelectric Case". These cases are the first cases in their respective fileds in which PRC judgments have been recognized or enforced in Germany/U.S.A, which provides a beneficial reference and demonstration significance for Chinses parties to realize their rights and interests in Germany, U.S.A or other countries.This dissertation starts from the theoretical matters of extraterritorial recognition and enforcement, combing analysis of the cases that PRC judgments have been successfully be recognized and enforced in foreign countries, to analyze the standards adopted by foreign courts when they are reviewing the application of recognition and enforcement of a PRC judgment, comparing different understanding on jurisdiction, due procedure, finality and reciprocity, and to dig out the dilemma of the issues in recognition and enforcement of a PRC judgment by foreign courts and put forward some suggestions thereof-- our country shall revise relevant articles in civil procedure law; we shall contribute to the reciprocity relationships between China and foreign countries; we shall enter into bilateral judicial assistance treaties with more countries and change the status of the lack of treaties; we shall give effort to improve the acknowledge to the judicial system in China and then smooth the extraterritorial recognition and enforcement of PRC judgments.The First Chapter of this dissertation, “Introduction of Extraterritorial Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments”, introduces the theoretical matters of extraterritorial recognition and enforcement. It focuses on the basic concept of extraterritorial recognition and enforcement, the legal basis of extraterritorial recognition and enforcement between countries(including theory of international comity, reciprocity, theory of res judicata, theory of vested rights, etc.), as well as the legal grounds of the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments(international treaties, bilateral agreements, international conventions and domestic legislation, etc.).The Second Chapter, “The Review Standards for Extraterritorial Recognition and Enforcement of PRC Judgments and Dilemma thereof” introduces, analyzes and compares the review standards in U.S.A, Germany and Hong Kong in combination of the analysis of cases such as “Sanlian Pinghu vs. Robinson”, “Zublin International Gmb H vs. Wuxiwoke”, “Jianshan Photoelectric Case” and “Chiyu Banking Corporation Limited v. Chan Tian Kwun” and then digs out the dilemma thereof.The Third Chapter, “The Development and Advices of Extraterritorial Recognition and Enforcement of PRC Judgments”, introduces the new developments regard extraterritorial recognition and enforcement of PRC judgments and provides some suggestions in how to make it easier for PRC judgments to be recognized and enforced in foreign countries.