ABSTRACT
The Brussels Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments 1968 ‘is not an island set apart from the vast continent of the law of European integration’. The Brussels Convention is, thus, designed to replace all pre-existing bilateral treaties, and to introduce a uniform expeditious process of recognition and enforcement. Member States may refer to the Jenard Report, an explanatory report accompanying the Brussels Convention, and the separate Reports accompanying each of the Accession Conventions, when interpreting and applying the provisions of the Convention. In order to promote uniformity in the application of the Brussels Convention, the six original Member States, in a Joint Declaration annexed to the 1968 Convention, expressed their willingness and intention to examine possible means of assigning questions of interpretation to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Questions of interpretation of the Lugano Convention, unlike those of the Brussels Convention, could not be entrusted to the ECJ.
