The Doctrine of Forum Non Conveniens and its Development in the UK and USA

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ph.D in Private Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

10.48308/jlr.2024.235073.2701

Abstract

Forum non conveniens is a doctrine applied in common law countries allowing the court seised of a case the discretion to decide that a court in another jurisdiction is more convenient, and thus to waive its jurisdiction over the case. The doctrine has been adopted and developed by common law jurisdictions, such as the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia, etc. This paper addresses its developments in the USA and UK. The paper also aims to answer the following questions: The first question is why did the common law jurisdictions create the forum non-conveniens doctrine? The second one is what are the accurate requirements for applying this doctrine? The paper demonstrates that common law countries created this doctrine to avoid the undesirable effects of the traditional rule of jurisdiction in personam, which means that the court may exercise jurisdiction over a person who is served notice of legal proceedings in that court’s area. The paper also shows that there are two requirements for applying this doctrine. The first one is that the court in which the claim was brought is inappropriate to decide the dispute and the second one is that the court of another country is more appropriate to decide the dispute.

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Legal Research Quarterly

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 30 November 2024

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 March 2024
  • Revise Date: 13 November 2024
  • Accept Date: 30 November 2024

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