But axiom admits of exceptions. Foreign legal rules are binding “insofar as they do not prejudice the power or rights of another state or its citizens.” Huber sets out his understanding of the exceptions; briefly as is appropriate for axioms. The exceptions are very restricted as is shown in his rather fuller treatment in is Heedendaegse Reschtsgeleertheyd .. ff. We can now restate Huber’s axiom, with the exceptions. An act or transaction in one state has no direct legal effect beyond the territory of the state, but a state is bound by the law of nations to act comiter, courteously, in order to give effect to foreign law in judging the effects of acts or transactions occurring in another state; subject to the sole exceptions that () local law will be applied if there has been a deliberate attempt to evade local jurisdiction by one subject to it, () local law will be applied where there is more than one act or transaction, one of which occurred locally, and where superiority of transaction depends on which law is applied. In addition -- not an exception, but vitally important --, an act valid where it was made (or a status valid by the domicile), but void by the law of nations, is void elsewhere. These, for Huber, are the sole qualifications to his axiom . Again I stress that for Huber the courts had no discretion whether to recognize the foreign law or not. A clinching argument for this proposition, if one were needed, is that nowhere in his discussion does Huber indicate a situation where a court might have a choice. That Huber could be misunderstood is apparent. Indeed, the earliest Dutch use of comitas andcomiter is by Paulus Voet (-), who has a different stance. Thus, in the section headings of his De statutis eorumque concursuhe denominates .. as “A territorial statute is often II
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