Update - The Hague Convention On Choice of Court Agreements

The Hague Convention ('Convention') has come into force on 1 October 2015. The Convention aims to ensure the effectiveness of choice of court agreements. This is to be achieved by creating an international framework to ensure court agreements are respected and judgments based on such agreements are enforceable. This has the potential to bolster litigation as a means of resolving international disputes.

A choice of court agreement expresses the parties' intention that the courts of a specific country will have exclusive jurisdiction to decide any disputes between them. Whilst such clauses are often used to manage risk in international commercial contracts they are not always respected under divergent national rules. The Convention was designed to address this issue by creating a uniform set of rules on choice of court agreements by providing an "international legal regime". This will provide greater legal certainty and predictability to commercial parties who enter