By Rick Mendenhall

Two years ago, the EU passed a resolution to harmonize the conflict-of-law rules governing inheritance across the European Union. The hope was to simplify the conflict-of-law procedure so that each jurisdiction knew which nation’s rules applied without jeopardizing the substantive law. In addition, the EU re-forged the rules of evidence governing inheritance to further standardize this area of law. This August, that resolution comes into effect.

To learn about the intricacies and the effects of this resolution, please join American University’s Washington College of Law on March 25^th when they host a panel on EU regulation 650/2012. Speakers hail from France, and should provide an instructive discussion.

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April 03, 2015

By Elizabeth Gibson^*

The U.S. State Department has just rolled out a new policy that should help reduce a rare form of statelessness caused by a conflict of laws related to Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

Technologies designed to help infertile couples have children have greatly improved over the past few decades. The use of egg and sperm donors as well as gestational surrogates has become increasingly common, and last month nine Swedish women made headlines for receiving womb transplants.

However, the law has often struggled to keep pace with the evolving definition of what it means to be a mother or father, especially as couples travel across borders in search of cheaper or newer procedures. In some cases, couples have used Assisted Reproductive Technology overseas only to later be told that they cannot take their newborn home because conflicting laws say the child is not their own or does not qualify for citizenship in their home country.

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February 08, 2014