Territoriality and Sovereignty in the Conflict of Laws: Joining the Dots
Date: April 20, 2026 (Monday)
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU
Fundamental to the common law rules of the conflict of laws is respect for the principles of territoriality and sovereignty. There are some who would argue that this, more than anything else, gives substance to the idea of comity in the common law conflict of laws. But almost as fundamental to the common law is the willingness to find a way around these limitations, and, as some would say, to allow a court to do indirectly that which it dare not do directly. These shadow principles, working in harmony with the rules of the conflict of laws as the lymphatic system works in support of the circulatory system, are a strength, not a weakness. When we collect them together, the results are striking and the lessons for the future worth learning.
Adrian Briggs KC is Emeritus Professor of Private International Law at the University of Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, from the service of each of which, after 41 years, he retired in September 2021.
He is the author of several books on private international law, most notably Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (8 editions, most recently 2025); Private International Law in English Courts (2 editions, most recently 2024); and The Conflict of Laws (Clarendon Law Series, 5 editions, most recently 2023). His Agreements on Jurisdiction and Choice of Law (2008) is about to be revived.
He is a Bencher of the Middle Temple, and continues to practice from Blackstone Chambers, Temple. He is also the joint author, with Andrew Burrows (now Lord Burrows JSC) of The Law of Contract in Myanmar. He has held visiting appointments in Singapore, more recently at NTU Taipei, and currently HKU.
Moderator: Kelvin Low, Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
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