Abstract

Courts of industrialized nations are often faced with adjudication of cases which involve foreign components. It is common for those courts to be asked by individuals or legal entities from a transnational environment to adjudicate with regard to some elements already adjudged in a different legal system as if it were a local judgment. The question that arises is how effects should be given when dealing with prior adjudications. Most countries agree to recognize some effects determined by foreign jurisdictions, as long as those determinations meet standards that guarantee proper integration of the foreign decision into the domestic setting. These problems are at the core of recognition and enforcement of foreign-country judgments. These foreign judgments can be classified into two categories - money-judgments, and non-money judgments. This paper reviews the law applicable to the recognition of foreign non-money judgments, assesses the particular problems encountered by such judgments with regard to their recognition abroad, and defines their needs with regards to further acceptance in foreign legal systems. This paper also proposes a review of current alternatives for reform in the field of foreign non-money judgments to heighten the recognition and enforcement of foreign non-money judgments in a defined system. A comparative analysis of the American and French practices of recognition and enforcement of foreign-country judgments will be undertaken. While the American system’s full faith and credit clause of the Constitution lends a favorable opinion towards recognition of foreign-country judgments, the French system restricts recognition of these foreign judgments. These different approaches to foreign-country judgments highlight the difficulties arising from incompatibilities in the laws, rules of procedures, and legal philosophies of the systems at hand.

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