China Hearsay has an interesting piece discussing a recent China Daily/Xinhua story on the jurisdiction of divorce settlements between Chinese nationals and foreigners.
According to the China Daily article: "Chinese nationals married to foreigners will have to settle any marital conflicts according to the law of the country where they live most of the time under proposals that went before Chinese lawmakers Monday" — a motion that clears up (somewhat) a long-standing ambiguity about how divorce settlement laws are applied in these instances. Or, as ChinaHearsay puts it, "The point is that this sort of thing tends to be messy, and judges here do not like dealing with foreign-related family law issues."
Unfortunately, China Hearsay’s main conclusion is that while this law may served to clarify some questions on "which country’s law should be applied in a given case," it still begs questions on "a Chinese court’s ability to exercise jurisdiction over a foreign-related case" and whether or not "it would just provide more guidance on which law should be followed," making it perhaps even less likely a Chinese court will even hear such cases. In other words, this may once again be a case of legislation "looking good on paper," but proving meaningless in practice.
