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Caalita, Ma. Patricia T.

Hague Conference on Private International Law
The forum gives emphasis to the system of the Hague Conference. The
Secretary-General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, Dr. Cristophe
Bernasconi, pointed out what the Hague Conference is all about. He further mentioned
how it provides policies and principles which develop cross border relationships of
different states which recognize its authority. It was further highlighted that the
organization primarily aims the progressive unification of the Rules of Private
International Order.
The inter-governmental organization is said to have been focusing on three
areas, namely the International Family Law particularly the rights of children, the Cross
border Civil Procedural matters, and the Commercial and Finance law. Of these three
areas of discussion, International Family Law, particularly the childs rights, was the field
in which the Philippines has a very good track record on. That was according to Dr.
Bernasconi. The latter, just after some of the students posed their queries, raised an
important question himself to the audience. He asked how, in our own view, the Hague
convention may become an instrument of development to the Philippines. The
Philippines has been a member of the organization since 2010. It has participated in a
number of conventions the organization has and as mentioned, is very active with
regard to the enforcement of the childs rights and policies involving family relations.
The Philippines is a sovereign state however and one of the issues that were
raised in the forum was the readiness of the states to cooperate or at least sacrifice a
part of their sovereignty so as to achieve the goal of progressive unification of the rules
of private international order. In the forum, one of the students raised that the intergovernmental organizations like the Hague Conference, shall respect diversity of
cultures in all countries. The Philippines has its unique culture and policy system that
must be considered by international organizations in the application of the latters
principles.
This is now how the Hague Conference relates to local governance. The
question is how may an international policy system intervene to the affairs of each state
without breaking local autonomy? Using the top-down approach, the whole system may
be viewed from the wide scope of the inter-governmental organization going down to
the national governments of each state, then to the local government units. Dr.
Bernasconi on the other hand speaks of the bottom-up approach, which I think is a
better process for effective policy making and implementation in the global arena. Truly,
determination of problematic areas in the society must start from the smallest units

going up to the largest group which cater the needs of the people in the global
community. It is only logical to think that one may not formulate policies and principles
or solutions to problems if one does not have any idea what the problems are; these
problems however may only be determined by the small units (local governments)
which are more accessible to people who actually experience the situations that seek to
be addressed by global integration.