references/foreign-law.md

# Foreign and international law in French litigation

Why it matters: nationality, filiation, civil status, family and
personal-status disputes are routinely governed by foreign law under
French conflict-of-laws rules, and residence litigation by bilateral
accords. The court applies the foreign or treaty rule — the brief
that quotes it exactly, dated and sourced, wins the point.

## Working the corpus

- **Find a country's texts**: `search_legal_texts` with
  `jurisdiction` set to the ISO code (`SN`, `DZ`, `MA`, `CM`, `CD`…),
  descriptive French query. Slugs carry a country suffix
  (`code-de-la-famille-sen`). 59 countries are covered — strongest on
  family, nationality and civil-status law of francophone Africa and
  the Maghreb, plus BE/CH/DE/LU codes from their official publishers.
- **Find a treaty**: `jurisdiction: "INTL"` plus a descriptive query,
  or the exact official name in `code`. Bilateral accords often live
  under the décret that published them — searching « décret portant
  publication accord [pays] [matière] » in the query text works.
  Amended accords (avenants) carry the amendments as versions: pass
  `date` to get the state applicable to your case.
- **From a decision**: French decisions applying foreign law usually
  quote or reproduce it; the decision text carries inline `/texte/`
  links when the cited text is in the corpus. The reverse chain finds
  the case law applying a foreign provision:
  `search_decisions` + `legal_instrument: ["code-de-la-famille-sen"]`
  or `legal_article: ["…|40"]`.

## When the corpus does not have the text

Do not improvise from memory. In order:

1. Search the decisions: courts ruling on the point often reproduce
   the foreign provision in their motifs — quote it as « tel que cité
   par [decision, linked] », which is also how the court will receive
   it.
2. Go outside: the vetted external sources, their reflex chain and
   their own pitfalls are in
   [external-sources.md](external-sources.md). Say plainly that the
   text comes from outside the referential and from which source.

## How the French judge receives foreign law

Points of method the answer should reflect (and verify in current
case law with the recherche-jurisprudence skill before building on a
formulation):

- Since the twin arrêts of 28 June 2005, the French judge who
  declares a foreign law applicable
  must seek its content — of their own motion or at a party's request
  — with the parties' cooperation and personally if needed, and give
  the dispute a solution conforming to the foreign positive law. A
  claim can no longer be dismissed just because a party failed to
  prove the foreign law. Where the content genuinely cannot be
  established, French law applies subsidiarily.
- The Cour de cassation controls only dénaturation of the foreign
  law, not its interpretation — which makes the *documents* placed
  before the judge decisive.
- The **certificat de coutume** (a written consultation on the
  foreign rule by any qualified jurist — no authority holds a
  monopoly) is private evidence, weighed freely; competing
  certificats de complaisance are common. A dated, sourced quotation of the foreign text is often
  stronger — and it is exactly what this corpus or the external
  sources give you.
- For foreign **civil-status acts**, article 47 of the Code civil
  presumes their probative force — rebuttable when other documents,
  external data or the act itself establish irregularity,
  falsification or untruth. The foreign law governing the act's form
  (what a birth certificate must state, in which delay) is precisely
  what the corpus's foreign civil-status codes give you. Add the
  formal layer: légalisation or apostille conditions the act's effect
  in France, and an act drawn under a foreign judgment (jugement
  supplétif) is inseparable from that judgment, whose international
  regularity is controlled. The case law on which defects are
  « substantial » lives in the recherche-jurisprudence skill.

## Hierarchy and lex specialis

- A bilateral accord derogates from the general statute in its scope:
  the accord franco-algérien du 27 décembre 1968 governs Algerian
  nationals' residence — CESEDA provisions apply to them only where
  the accord is silent or refers back. Check the accord first, the
  code second.
- EU law primes national law in its field; the Convention de
  sauvegarde primes statute. When quoting a national provision in a
  field occupied by EU law, fetch the directive or regulation too.
- Older bilateral conventions (établissement, circulation,
  sécurité sociale) still bite: when the person is a national of a
  country with a post-independence convention with France, search
  INTL for that country before concluding from the code alone.