Comity among authorities: a new approach to precedent

Determining the authority of precedent is difficult because it largely depends on the authorities in question and the context in which they operate. The vast difference in types of authorities, combined with the diverse contexts in which they operate, tends to suggest there is no general analytical solution to the problem. There is one principle however that may assist authorities to make this determination – the principle of comity. Comity is a useful, yet relatively misunderstood principle that can assist authorities to determine how they ought to act with respect to the legitimate authority of others – including their prior decisions. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a general principle of comity – one that sheds new light on the nature and authority of precedent. By doing so, this thesis argues that comity may provide authorities with the guidance they need to determine the authority of precedent in any given context

Voluntary Third-Party Intervention in International Arbitration for Construction Disputes: A Contextual Approach to Jurisdictional Issues

In arbitration, the ability to take part in proceedings is exclusively determined by evidence of the parties' 'consent' to arbitrate. However, this approach is unable to accommodate modern construction projects which have become increasingly complex and require the participation of multiple parties for their completion. Despite playing active roles in construction projects and having substantial legal and financial interests in the outcome of disputes, third parties may not take part in arbitral proceedings between two contracting parties who have consented to an arbitration agreement. This may result in an inequitable and commercially undesirable situation not only for third parties but often for one of the contracting parties who may require the third party's participation to assert certain claims or defences. This article suggests that where multiple parties are involved in one construction project a contextual approach should be used to determine arbitral jurisdiction. Where a third party voluntarily submits to arbitral jurisdiction upon invitation of one of the contracting parties and where the intervention is to assist the inviting party's claims or defences, a contextual approach would provide a more effective means of resolving the disputed issue of third-party intervention without offending the principle of party autonomy or arbitration's consensual origins.  </jats:p

Navigating sovereignty and transnational commercial law: the use of comity by Australian courts

Academically, the principle of comity is all but dead. Not only is there a distinct lack of literature regarding the principle, but in circumstances where it is addressed it is considered to be of negligible importance for the resolution of modern private international law disputes. However, a review of Australian case law demonstrates that there is a significant disjunct between the academic view of comity and its actual use in judicial practice. In the last ten years, over 850 Australian court decisions have made reference to comity – many of which relate to the field of private international law. In this article, the authors review 77 Australian cases where comity played a definitive role in the resolution of private international law issues. These cases demonstrate that comity is a relevant, useful legal tool to guide the development and application of private international law rules – doing so in a manner that helpfully mediates between the political need to uphold the doctrine of sovereignty and the commercial and judicial need to permit law to act transnationally in order to accommodate international commerce. This is the purpose for which comity was created almost 400 years ago and the examined case law demonstrates that it continues to be effective in reflecting these interests in the law

Rediscovering the Principle of Comity in English Private International Law

Academically speaking, comity is all but dead. Cold-shouldered by the literature, the principle has become known as little more than a useless relic of the past. But a review of the case law tells a very different story. Comity thrives in the judicial decisions of English courts, which suggests that, in particular areas of law, comity is alive and well. In light of the disjunct between the literature and judicial practice, this article seeks to shed new light on the role of comity in English private international law. Ultimately, it seeks to unbridle comity’s legal potential and reposition it as an important principle of English private international law worthy of further academic research.Académiquement, le principe de la comity, ou courtoisie internationale, est presque morte. Ignoré par la doctrine, le principe est essentiellement perçu comme une relique inutile du passé. Mais si l’on porte un regard attentif à la jurisprudence, une histoire très différente émerge. La comity prospère dans les décisions des tribunaux anglais: à tout le moins dans des domaines particuliers du droit, la comity est résolument en vie. Partant de ce contraste entre doctrine et pratique judiciaire, les auteurs cherchent à apporter un nouvel éclairage sur le rôle de la comity dans le droit international privé anglais. A partir de là, il semble possible de débrider le potentiel juridique de la comity, en le repositionnant comme un principe important du droit international privé anglais méritant une attention soutenue de la doctrine

Rediscovering the Principle of Comity in English Private International Law

Abstract: Academically speaking, comity is all but dead. Cold-shouldered by the literature, the principle has become known as little more than a useless relic of the past. But a review of the case law tells a very different story. Comity thrives in the judicial decisions of English courts, which suggests that, in particular areas of law, comity is alive and well. In light of the disjunct between the literature and judicial practice, this article seeks to shed new light on the role of comity in English private international law. Ultimately, it seeks to unbridle comity’s legal potential and reposition it as an important principle of English private international law worthy of further academic research. Résumé: Académiquement, le principe de la comity, ou courtoisie internationale, est presque morte. Ignoré par la doctrine, le principe est essentiellement perçu comme une relique inutile du passé. Mais si l’on porte un regard attentif à la jurisprudence, une histoire très différente émerge. La comity prospère dans les décisions des tribunaux anglais: à tout le moins dans des domaines particuliers du droit, la comity est résolument en vie. Partant de ce contraste entre doctrine et pratique judiciaire, les auteurs cherchent à apporter un nouvel éclairage sur le rôle de la comity dans le droit international privé anglais. A partir de là, il semble possible de débrider le potentiel juridique de la comity, en le repositionnant comme un principe important du droit international privé anglais méritant une attention soutenue de la doctrine.</jats:p

The History of Comity

This article explores the history of comity through events and the ideas of those who most influenced its development. By doing so, a number of important aspects may be revealed about the principle which have been hidden from view. This may shed new light on comity and open the door to new ways of thinking about the principle.Comity was created to resolve the vexed question of how, and under what circumstances, sovereign States ought to recognize each other’s authority. Although originally developed as a means to facilitate international trade and commerce, it became a principle of justice. States act with, or ought to act, with comity because the recognition of foreign authority will, in many cases, be the most just exercise of their own. The principle embodies the idea that whereas every State is sovereign, often the most just exercise of one State’s own authority will in fact be to recognize the authority of another

Identifying earthquake swarms at Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand: a machine learning approach

Mt. Ruapehu is an active andesitic stratovolcano, consisting of several peaks with the summit plateau at 2,797 m, making it the tallest active volcano in New Zealand. The extent of the volcano spreads 40 km across with a series of complex faults encompassing almost the entire base of the volcano. A series of earthquakes occurring 20 km west of the summit of Mt. Ruapehu, near the small town of Erua, which preceded the 1995/1996 major volcanic eruption sequence has been proposed as a medium-term precursor for eruptions at Mt. Ruapehu. We use unsupervised machine learning clustering algorithms HDBSCAN and DBSCAN to define anomalous earthquake swarms in the region and determine whether the Erua swarm was unique by identifying key characteristics in space, time and magnitude distribution. HDBSCAN found six spatial cluster zones to the west of Mt. Ruapehu, which have temporal seismic bursts of activity between 1994 and 2023. DBSCAN identified the seismic swarm that preceded the 1995/1996 major eruption, along with one other similar cluster in the same region, which did not coincide with any documented magmatic unrest, suggesting distal seismic swarms at Mt. Ruapehu may not serve as a reliable eruption precursor when observed in isolation. We instead found that earthquake swarms are relatively common at Mt. Ruapehu and the temporal evolution of the earthquake clusters west of Mt. Ruapehu share similar characteristics to seismic swarms identified in other settings related to fluid migration, typical of fault-valve models