Divorce dans le Monde

On June 21, 2012, EU Regulation 1259/2010 of December 20, 2010 - better known as the Rome III Regulation - entered into force for Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.

Applicable law to divorce

This Regulation regulates the law applicable to divorce. The Netherlands does not participate in this EU Regulation because our divorce law is generally considerably more liberal than the divorce law in the countries around us. By participating in the Rome III Regulation, the situation could arise that Dutch courts would have to apply a less liberal law than Dutch law. The Dutch legislator considers this undesirable.

The Rome III Regulation allows spouses to choose the law applicable to divorce in any of the sixteen countries mentioned above. The Regulation has universal effect; spouses can also choose the law of a member state that does not participate in the Rome III Regulation. For this reason, it is important to also have some understanding of divorce law in other countries. The Dossier "Divorce dans le Monde" in the French trade journal Actualité Juridique Famille (AJ Famille) provides an overview of divorce law in 30 states selected by the editors.

The November 2015 edition published the divorce law of 14 states: Germany, England and Wales, China, China (Hong Kong), Scotland, United States of America (District of Columbia, Maryland and New York), Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Monaco and the Netherlands.

The chapter on Dutch divorce law was written by Sandra Verburgt.

The next edition will publish the divorce law of the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Spain, United States of America (California and Florida), Morocco, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.