The Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Nigeria: Scope and Conflict of Laws Questions

Abstract

It is a generally acceptable principle of Conflict of Laws that the powers of the courts are limited by their territorial boundaries (i.e. territorial jurisdiction). Thus a judgment (inclusive of a commercial arbitral award), pronounced by the court of one jurisdiction, may have no force or effect beyond its own territory save for situations where other jurisdictions or states have agreed to allow reciprocal enforceability within their own territories of judgments of Nigerian courts. There is no specific bilateral agreement of reciprocity signed by Nigeria with any foreign country at present. The Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Ordinance,1958 (‘the 1958 Ordinance’) only extends the reciprocity treatment to the judgments from the courts in Britain and other Her Majesty’s territories within the British Commonwealth. While the Foreign Judgment (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act, 2004 (‘the 2004 Act’) specifically empowers the Nigerian Minister of Justice to extend the reciprocal treatment to any foreign country with substantial reciprocity of treatment with respect to the enforcement of foreign judgments. To date, the Minister of Justice is yet to act as provided under the 2004 Act. The foregoing statutes are the enabling laws and they form the bedrock of the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Nigeria with grave internal conflicts of the application of both laws in the Nigerian courts. However, Nigerian courts seem to enforce foreign judgments, especially foreign arbitral awards, of states that are made in any contracting state to both the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards ∗ Yomi Olukolu, LLM, MPhil, lecturer, Department of Jurisprudence & International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria. kolyom@yahoo.com 1 I. O. Agbede, Themes on Conflicts of Law, Shaneson (1989). 2 CAP 175, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria and Lagos, 1958 (a colonial statute in Nigeria which was originally enacted as LN 8, of 1922 and is still in force as an enabling statute). 3 See section 1, 1958 Ordinance. 4 CAP F35, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 (originally enacted as LN 56 in 1961). 5 See section 3, 2004 Act. 6 New York, 10 June 158.