Internationaal privaatrecht—het geheel van regels dat zoekt naar wat recht is in gevallen met een internationaal kantje—is in de oren van Nederlandse juristen een bekende klank. Experts zijn weinig talrijk, maar iedere jurist heeft er wel enig begrip van of kan zich gemakkelijk enige kennis eigen maken.

The Conference which met at Lancaster House, London, from March 31 to April 6, 1966, from October 17 to 28, 1966, and from March 6 to 17, 1967, and which resulted in the establishment of a new “Convention on Conduct of Fishing Operations in the North Atlantic” was made necessary by the denunciation by the British Government in 1963 of the Hague “International Convention for regulating the Police of the North Sea Fisheries” which, since 1882, had governed the conduct of fishing operations and their policing between the coastal states of the North Sea. Formally the convening of this Conference was based on a resolution, adopted by the 1963/64 European Fisheries Conference on January 17, 1964, asking the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:

“To invite the Governments of all countries participating in the North-East Atlantic fisheries to send representatives to a technical conference to be held as soon as possible to prepare for the consideration of the governments concerned a draft Convention, on the general lines of the 1882 Convention for regulating the police of the North Sea Fisheries, embodying a modern code for the conduct of fishing operations and of related activities in the North-East Atlantic;

And to invite the Governments of the United States of America and Canada to send representatives to the Conference so that the extension of the provisions of any such Convention to the North-West Atlantic Fisheries may be considered.”

Foreign judgments are not, as a general rule, recognized in Norwegian law unless a basis for recognition is provided in a convention concluded with the country in question; see the Act of 13th August 1915 relating to judicial procedure in civil cases (The Dispute Act) § 167:

By agreement with a foreign state it may be decided that decisions which have been passed by its courts concerning civil claims and which have become res judicata, shall have binding effect also in this Kingdom.

Decisions of foreign courts cannot be recognized, however, in such suits as are mentioned in § 23, item (1), or if the recognition would be contrary to decency or Norwegian invariable rules of law.