The Problem of Service of Process on the Defendant Foreign State

Development summary

Zeynep Çalişkan considers the need for proper service where a foreign state is the defendant in a dispute arising from private-law relations. The article discusses the application of Article 49(2) of the Turkish Private International and Procedural Law Act, which permits service on a foreign state’s diplomatic representatives, in the light of the 1965 Hague Service Convention, customary international law and state practice; it also addresses the rules in Annex 9 to Circular No. 63/3 of 2011 and a sixty-day period for responding from the date of service, drawing on examples from the United Kingdom, the United States and Pakistan.