Bibliographie sélective OHADA

LL.M. (International Commercial Law) <br>The resolution of jurisdictional conflicts is one of the main functions of private international law. It provided rules to be applied when the courts of more than one country are seized of the same case in international litigation. In determining what that rule should be, regard must be had to the interest of all the relevant entities, namely, the parties to international cases and the courts dealing with such cases. The need to strike a balance is even more urgent in international commercial litigation where the outcome of the case normally has significant economic consequences. From this background, a study has been conducted of two major private international law regimes regarding their approaches to the resolution of jurisdictional conflicts, namely, the common‐law and the European Union (EU). This study is an inquiry into the suitability of each approach in the resolution of jurisdictional conflicts in international commercial cases. It is the view of the present author that each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The common‐law through the doctrine of forum non conveniens shows a greater ability to prevent forum shopping and to prevent injustices in specific cases. However, it is highly unpredictable. On the other hand, the EU approach through the lis pendens rule succeeds in ensuring predictability and certainty in the resolution of jurisdictional conflicts which is very crucial in international commercial litigation. However, its rigidity and inflexibility leads to the determination of international commercial cases by courts that are ill‐suited, thereby giving some room for forum shopping. It is therefore recommended that the two approaches should learn from each other so that their handling of international commercial cases is in line with the special nature of international commercial litigation. The common‐law approach should be made more predictable and the EU approach should allow the courts in the EU to determine which court is best suited to deal with an international commercial case.

A partir da pretensão inicial, expressa no título e tema, este trabalho acaba por resultar numa reflexão aturada e solitária (como aliás muitos autores o destacam no caso das suas teses de doutoramento) que ultrapassou o mero âmbito da “apreciação jus-internacional da integração regional africana”, para desembocar num levantamento (pelo menos) de pistas sobre o fenómeno e as concepções do Direito, em geral, e particularmente na interacção historicamente inevitável entre os direitos públicos africano e euro-ocidental. Diferentemente da maioria dos trabalhos académicos sobre a África dita moderna (tanto por africanos como por outras entidades, que não precisam sequer de exibir qualquer tipo de ostensivo eurocentrismo, já minimamente extirpado do mainstream formal hodierno), que partem, geralmente, dos pressupostos teorético-formais euro-ocidentais, transportados, quase sempre de forma acrítica para o Continente, em processos legislativos e noutros aspectos hermenêutico-aplicativos do Direito, nós seguimos uma metodologia que julgamos singular. Singularidade que não reside sequer ou simplesmente na ideia de partirmos de uma pretensa rede de sistemas teorético-formais “genuinamente africanos”, o que, desde logo, conflituaria com a ideia apurada de que essa “África moderna” é uma “invenção” tão recente e prenhe de tensões que mal a deixariam criar tais sistemas com alguma consistência e coerência. Entendemos que a singularidade metodológica deste empreendimento reside, essencialmente, no facto de que tentamos partir da realidade nua e crua da factologia histórica, antropológica e cultural múltipla e diversa dessa África moderna, que resultou da traumática experiência colonial e pós-colonial, sem no entanto deixarmos de relacioná-la com o seu passado mais remoto (perante si e perante o resto da Humanidade). Ora, ao confrontarmos essa pura realidade africana com as metodologias aplicativas do direito moderno (estamos essencialmente no domínio da criação e “efetivização” do direito público, base do nosso objeto de dissertação) de matriz, necessariamente, euro-ocidental, embembido no seu extasiante perfume formal-positivista que lhe vem de Roma, do Renascimento europeu e do Século das Luzes, deparamo-nos com um enorme “buraco negro”, devorador atroz do conteúdo e do sentido desse tipo de direito, no Continente, e desintegrador, ao mesmo tempo, de sistemas tradicionais positivos, no sentido da dignidade e da dignificação humana. Concluímos, pois, que o problema não reside nem na realidade, que é e será sempre inelutável como a força do vento, nem propriamente na formulação da proposição jurídica de cariz euro-ocidental que acompanha essa infiltração, inicialmente exógena, mas que se tornaria ela própria irreversível e integradora necessária da realidade africana hodierna. Propomos, assim, uma nova metodologia de aplicação do direito: olhar para as atitudes dos agentes políticos e de outros aplicadores do Direito, acima das estritas normas jurídicas formais, perante os imperativos ético-morais que a situação do Continente exige. Quanto ao que ao “direito de integração regional e continental” diz respeito, nem sequer é o seu conteúdo e sentido que são absorvidos pelo aludido “buraco negro”, mas antes os das próprias regras adjectivas programadas para a sua criação, autonomizando-o de um direito internacional africano, ele próprio vogando em atribulados mares e agitados ”grandes lagos”. Na África Austral, particularmente na África do Sul, com base na presumível sublimação da filosofia tradicional Ubuntu, tentando sustentar uma convivência na multirracialidade e multiculturalidade, não obstante a pressão a que está sujeita pelo mainstream “afrocentrista”, encontramos o modelo em que tal “buraco negro” é, aparentemente, diminuto, tendo em conta a preservação dos dois pilares (europeu e nativo) em que assenta a sociedade, com reflexos positivos no funcionamento e aplicação do Direito, na base de um casamento, aparentemente ideal, entre a tradição e a modernidade. Enquanto isso, em Angola, estudada como caso médio da África Negra, encontramos o protótipo de uma sociedade em que o “buraco” devorador de conteúdos e sentidos jurídicos é avassalador, como resultado tanto de uma política assimilacionista-integracionista colonial, seguida de outra, a do racionalismo marxista-leninista, que contribuiu para o acanhamento e desvirtuamento da axiologia nativa ou tradicional, completando-se o drama com a diluição dos valores positivos da modernidade ocidental, com as prolongadas guerras civis que determinaram, inicialmente, um êxodo considerável de populações de origem europeia, como suportes deste outro pilar da construção da nação africana moderna, em Angola. De todo o modo, podemos nos aperceber de alguns traços de um direito de integração regional africana, reflectidos e sustentados, ao mesmo tempo, no e pela emergência de uma frágil jurisprudência. Fica a dúvida de se saber se esses diáfanos traços poderão sobreviver à virulência das “próximas chuvas” e preencher-se de vez o vazio lamentado pelos últimos pan-africanistas como Ki-Zerbo e Édem Kodjo

This mini-dissertation explores the implications of Lagoon Beach Hotel (Pty) Limited v Lehane 2016 (3) SA 143 (SCA) for the South African cross-border insolvency dispensation, as this case deals with the various problems that arise in cross-border insolvency. As a result of these problems and a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to dealing with cross-border insolvency issues, many investors are reluctant to invest cross-border. This is due to the fact that multiple countries, each with their own laws concerning cross-border insolvency, are involved. Thankfully, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law has provided a set of guidelines in this regard, namely the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency. Although South Africa has enacted the Cross-Border Insolvency Act 42 of 2000, and most of the provisions provided for in the Model law have been included in the legislation, the Act still remains inoperative. Throughout this dissertation the Lagoon Beach case will therefore be critically analysed. The analysis will start off with a discussion of the common law, as it is currently the legal position in South Africa. Thereafter a detailed analysis will be conducted of the various orders of court of the Lagoon Beach case and how the courts differed or agreed in their approach. Finally, the Lagoon Beach case will be discussed in light of the Act and the issues in the case will be solved hypothetically by applying the Act to the problems discussed throughout the dissertation.

Social legitimacy is conventionally conceived to encompass an empirical notion based on the idea that, lacking societal acceptance, a (political or legal) regime will eventually disintegrate. This concern is reflected in the original compromise of 'embedded liberalism', which stands at the basis of the internal market of the European Union. The primary law set up of the internal market, indeed, shares the idea that the benefits of a joint commitment to free trade can only be achieved in a sustainable way if combined with an acknowledgement of domestic societal objectives within the same frameworks. Nevertheless, social legitimacy will eventually depend on the institutional design and structural rationales that embed societal values within such regimes and vice versa. This perspective is further developed, normatively, on the basis of the work of Karl Polanyi and adopted to critically assess the structural rationales that are developed within internal market adjudication, which the thesis approaches as a separate field of social ordering within the European Union. Thus, social legitimacy is developed as a requirement that perceives the legitimacy of internal market law on the basis of the extent to which it can respond and integrate social practice and values. On this point the thesis finds that the internal market lacks a sufficiently developed rationale or "common language" that is able to address the normative concerns of social legitimacy. Societal realities are often valued within a metric that risks doing violence to potentially genuine and worthwhile aspects of Member States' 'social spheres'. The thesis develops that the normative claims of social legitimacy are best addressed on the basis of a rationale of mutual responsiveness, which is considered a necessary but underdeveloped element of the constitutional form and social purpose of the internal market that is implicit in the constitutional theory of transnational effects. From a perspective of mutual responsiveness, the social purpose of the internal market is not to condition choices that necessarily require the market to trump the social sphere - or the opposite- to allow the social to necessarily trump the market. Mutual responsiveness advances a more holistic approach that conceives the market and the social, literally, as 'communicating vessels'. The normative concerns of social legitimacy and the potential of mutual responsiveness to address these normative claims are the central and connecting elements throughout the thesis.

Please refer to full text to view abstract <br>LL.M. (International Commercial Law)

Securing fast, inexpensive and enforceable redress is vital for the development of international commerce. In a changing international commercial dispute resolution landscape, the combined use of mediation and arbitration, and particularly a combination where the same neutral acts as a mediator and an arbitrator (same neutral (arb)-med-arb), has emerged as a dispute resolution approach offering these benefits. However, to date there has been little agreement on several aspects of the combined use of processes, which the literature often explains by reference to the practitioner’s legal culture. There is a heated debate in the international dispute resolution community as to whether it is appropriate for the same neutral to conduct both mediation and arbitration. When the same neutral acts as a mediator and an arbitrator, caucuses become a primary concern. This is largely due to the danger that an arbitrator will appear to be, or actually be biased, and the risk that the process may offend the principles of due process.A review of the literature shows that the combined use of mediation and arbitration raises more questions and concerns than it offers answers and solutions. This thesis proposes remedies for this situation. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, to investigate ways to address concerns associated with the same neutral (arb)-med-arb, which should allow parties to benefit from time and cost efficiencies of the process and the ability to obtain an internationally enforceable result. Second, to examine whether the perception and use of the same neutral (arb)-med-arb varies depending on the practitioner’s legal culture. The research involved an analysis of legal sources complemented by a two stage empirical study conducted through questionnaire and interview.The thesis identifies three major ways to address concerns associated with the same neutral (arb)-med-arb: 1) the involvement of different neutrals in combinations, 2) procedural modifications of the same neutral (arb)-med-arb, and 3) the implementation of safeguards for using the same neutral (arb)-med-arb. It demonstrates that not all of these ways will achieve the goals of fast, inexpensive and enforceable dispute resolution. The results support the conclusion that the perception and use of the same neutral (arb)-med-arb varies throughout the world depending on the practitioner’s legal culture. This and other factors ultimately affect the choice of ways to address concerns associated with the same neutral (arb)-med-arb. Further to these significant results, the thesis argues that the same neutral (arb)-med-arb is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ process. Other combinations discussed in the thesis require more attention from practitioners and academics.This thesis makes a substantial and original contribution to the understanding of combinations in international commercial dispute resolution in four ways. First, the empirical study is the first study to investigate specifically the use of combinations in international commercial dispute resolution. Its results shed light on the use of combinations in international commercial dispute resolution, their common triggers, the way in which the processes are combined most frequently, and the most common forms of recording the outcome of combinations. Second, the thesis synthesises existing ways of addressing concerns associated with the same neutral (arb)-med-arb in international commercial dispute resolution and groups them into the three major categories mentioned above. Third, having identified that there is scope for a more widespread use of combinations in international commercial dispute resolution, the thesis provides recommendations on how to enhance the use of combinations. Finally, the thesis highlights several areas where future research is needed.

Designers are those individuals within our society with a desire and drive to create. In general designers can be found in all facets of industry and good designers (and ultimately good designs) are the very backbone upon a successful business is built. Designers are required to marry practical knowledge with artistic ability and we are reliant on their skills and to turn abstract ideas into formal designs for everything from the groceries we purchase, the cars we drive and of course, the clothes we wear. Whilst there is no definitive delineation of what a fashion design is, generally fashion designs relate to the creation of designs that focus on clothing, apparel and accessories. The style and functionality of the end products rest firmly within particular time frames, economic and socio-cultural environments within which particular designers find themselves. Accordingly the fashion design industry is never one that stagnates but rather is one that is constantly evolving. In South Africa, the fashion industry is blossoming. As an emerging economy, it is important to create opportunities and not barriers for entry into particular sectors for emerging entrepreneurs. The entire fabric of the fashion industry has certainly changed over time and these changes have brought an increased focus on issues of copying and counterfeiting. It is the contention of some in the industry that there is a need for stricter protection of the actual design in and of itself. Using intellectual property rights as a means of protecting fashion designs is very fitting as every new design begins with an idea, which then evolves, though a process of creative engagement and application of skill and labour to become the final original end product. Designers seeking to protect their designs would need to consider the provisions of the Copyright Act, the Designs Act and the Trade Marks Act. These Acts may in some instances provide a means for protect the actual design incidentally, i.e. by protecting the designer‟s rights in relation to reputation and goodwill associated with the goods whilst in others may afford protection to the design itself. The focus of this research will be a discussion of the legal mechanisms available to fashion designers in South Africa for the protection of their designs using their intellectual property rights and an assessment of whether the fashion industry is in need a stronger intellectual property regime than the current one.