The European Union (EU) and Ukraine Monday joined the Hague Judgements Convention. The Convention creates conditions for recognizing and enforcing judgements in both civil and commercial matters. It was created in 2019 to ensure that there was a legal avenue for assessing international court rulings on matters of trade. Prior to the Convention’s inception, legal uncertainty around international court rulings and their effects on business made multi-lateral trade challenging. The hope of the Convention is to ensure that this process becomes more transparent.

In a statement, the Hague Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders declared:

Today‘s accession is the culmination of years of intense efforts. By being the first to accede to the Convention together with Ukraine, the European Union paves the way for others to join soon. The wider the accession rate of States to the Hague Judgments Convention, the more powerful an instrument it will become for the benefit of more citizens, more companies, and wider international trade and investment

So far, only 6 states have joined the Convention, and none have ratified it. The EU is scheduled to be the first state to fully accede to the Convention. Once the EU ratifies the Convention, all EU member states (with the exception of Denmark, who does not take part in EU decisions of justice or security) will be bound to the Conventions terms.