Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Non-Monetary Judgments in China

Transboundary recognition and enforcement of judgments is of increasing practical significance and it draws a great deal of efforts at various levels. However, the efforts already made are predominantly in relation to cross-border movement of monetary judgments, leaving non-monetary judgments beyond recognizability. Investigation into China’s legislation and adjudication reveals that there is no distinction made between recognition of monetary and non-monetary judgments, and practice also ignores such a distinction. Following the trend of embracing non-monetary judgments within the scope of recognizablility, China’s standpoint seemingly appears to be desirable, although the long-standing non-differentiation of monetary and non-monetary judgments is not presumed to be originally out of promoting recognition and enforcement of foreign non-monetary judgments in China. It is submitted that for promoting recognition and enforcement of foreign non-monetary judgments, China shall introduce independent rules in order to facilitate the circulation of such judgments, which merits a special treatment. For parties to seek the recognition and enforcement of such judgments, prior to any overhauling of the current legal regime, they have to follow China’s persisting general legal regime and judicial practice regarding recognition and enforcement of all categories of foreign judgments, and a special call is made for particular attention to the reciprocity requirement and due service requirement.