International marriages are crumbling with the global economy, revealing unseen pitfalls in cross-border divorce law. Good news for lawyers
无数跨国婚姻因全球经济危机而面临解体，这突显了跨境离婚法的种种隐患，对离婚律师来说却不失为好消息。
MARRIAGES that thrive on money may wither with thrift. That is a depressing lesson from the world economic crisis, which has brought a surge in business for divorce lawyers in former boomtowns such as London and New York. When one or both spouses is from a foreign country, divorce is not just sad but complicated too—especially when most assets may be in a third country, a pension in a fourth, and offspring in a fifth.
以金钱为养分的婚姻之花会随着家计的萧条而凋谢，这是全球经济危机给我们上的一堂挫折教训课。在跨国婚姻的新兴都市，如伦敦和纽约，离婚律师们的业务猛增。倘若夫妻一方或双方均来自国外，那么离婚便是个既难过又复杂的事情，尤其是当大部分资产、养老金和子女散布于世界各地。
Globalisation has made binational marriages, once exotic, much more common among high-earning, highly mobile families. When they stop being high-earning, life gets tricky. Louise Spitz of Manches, a London law firm, has observed an “exceptional” period since September. “With the redundancies in the City there has been a concomitant wave of marital upheaval,” she says. “Families used to living on huge bonus income are unable to continue with the commitments they have taken on—housing and school fees and the cost of living the high life.” Manches has taken on eight more divorce lawyers to cope with the extra work. A high proportion, Ms Spitz and other lawyers reckon, of the once-rich couples now breaking up include at least one foreign spouse.
全球一体化成就了无数异国姻缘，尤其在在收入较高且流动性较强的家庭中更为普遍。当这些家庭不再拥有高收入，生活便艰难起来。伦敦律师事务所曼切斯（Manches）的路易斯．皮茨（Louise Spitz）提到一段从9月开始的“非常时期”。“金融城连连裁员，一波离婚热潮也随之而来。”她说：“曾以奖金收入为主的家庭无以维持他们已经签下的承诺——房贷、子女学费和高档生活开支。因为业务增加，曼切斯新招了八个离婚律师。皮茨及其它律师都认为，曾经生活美满现在面临分手的夫妻至少一方来自国外。
So who sues whom for divorce and where? How much money will be awarded to whom? Will it be collected? And how? The answers are far trickier than most non-lawyers would imagine. Take, for example, this lightly disguised but real-life example: a wealthy philandering Texan banker with a French wife. Formerly resident in New York, with a recently-lost good job and rented house in London, he now plans to move back to Texas. His wife, newly suspicious and with no money of her own, wants to take the children home to France. She needs her family, she says. What she actually needs is urgent, specialist legal advice.
那么谁申请离婚、在那儿离婚、给对方多少钱、对方能否拿到、怎么拿到？这一系列问题的复杂程度是一般人难以想象的。举个真实的例子（稍作改动），男方来自美国德克萨斯州，是一位花心阔气的银行家，女方是法国人。最初居住在纽约，最近在伦敦丢了工作和租房，丈夫现在打算回德州。而他的妻子，最近总是疑神疑鬼，自己没什么积蓄，想带着孩子回法国老家。她说需要家人，其实她真正迫切需要的是专业的法律建议。
A London divorce settlement might give her many millions: a house, school fees and maintenance until the children are adults, or even indefinitely. An English court may well disregard a prenuptial agreement, particularly if one of the parties did not have independent legal advice. And it will tend to care more about immediate needs than about whether assets were acquired during the course of the marriage, or predate it, or are the result of an inheritance. All assets are likely to be divided. If the wife is lucky, she may even be able to collect her share.
一纸伦敦的离婚协议或许会让她获得数百万的补偿金，包括房子、孩子的学费、孩子成人前甚至终生的抚养费。英国法庭可能根本无视婚前协议，尤其当夫妻一方没有独立法律支持的时候，他们更多的考虑当前需求，不管是婚前财产、婚后财产乃至遗产，都有可能被分割。幸运的妻子甚至能切实拿到分割的财产。
In the wife’s native France, things will look very different. In her favour is that conduct counts—so adulterous spouses will be penalised. In most other Western countries, divorce courts have given up attributing blame. Even domestic violence is often ignored, though it still counts heavily in some jurisdictions, such as Florida.
但在女方的祖国法国，情况将大不一样。在法国法庭，行为对判决的影响很大，过错方将会受到严厉处罚，这点对女方很有利。大多数西方国家的离婚法庭停止归咎责任，有时甚至忽视家庭暴力，虽然这点仍在某些司法管辖区会影响判决，如弗罗里达州。
But in the typical French divorce, any alimony (also called maintenance) will be less and for eight years at most; any prenuptial agreement will be binding. Only assets acquired during the marriage are up for grabs. If, in our example, the American husband moves to France, he will be expected to play an equal part in bringing up the children—a requirement that would delight some fathers, but by no means all.
但就典型法国式离婚而言，赡养费很少（亦称抚养费）且最多只有八年，任何形式的婚前协议都具有约束力，而且仅要求对婚后财产进行分割。在我们所举的例子中，如果美籍丈夫去法国申请离婚，他将与妻子共同承担子女的赡养费，这可能会让某些父亲喜出望外，但决非所有父亲都会如此走运。
If the errant husband has the divorce filed in Texas, the tables are turned even more dramatically. The wife risks being left penniless. In Texas state law, alimony is usually minimal and temporary—though child support, thankfully, is a federal matter. In America, the law varies hugely between states. Most exclude from the settlement assets acquired before the marriage (but Michigan and Colorado don’t). Most exclude inherited property (but Massachusetts and Oregon don’t). In most states, judges will enforce prenuptial agreements (but they often won’t in Alaska).
如果出轨的丈夫在德州申请离婚的话，那局面会发生更大的转变，女方会面临净身出户的危险。根据德州法律，赡养费通常很少而且是暂时的，不过庆幸的是联邦政府会负责儿童的赡养。美国各州法律千差万别，大多数州都不分割婚前财产（除了密西根和科罗拉多）和继承财产（除了马赛诸塞州和俄勒冈），而且大多数州的法官都会执行婚前协议（但阿拉斯加的法官例外）。
If the Texan husband decides to file in New York, however, he may find the outcome startlingly expensive. As in some English court rulings, New York courts may award one party a share of a spouse’s future earnings—assuming that they are based on a qualification, such as an MBA or medical degree, that was earned thanks to a joint effort in happier times. Yet New York law has one big catch: unless the parties have signed a formal separation agreement it requires proof of cruelty, adultery or abandonment, whereas other states allow “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for a divorce. So binational couples in New York who want to end their marriage may find themselves unable to do it there, and squabbling about alternatives. Rules differ, too, on what constitutes residency in a particular jurisdiction. In hedonistic Las Vegas, six weeks is enough.
若德州丈夫想在纽约离婚，那他会发现代价会大的惊人。和一些英国法庭规则一样，纽约法庭会将夫妻一方的部分未来收入判给对方，倘若其取得的资历，如MBA或医学资质，归功于婚后双方共同努力。然而纽约的法律有个很大的特点：除非夫妻双方签订正式的分居协议，否则申诉离婚要求提供暴力、通奸或遗弃的证据，而其他州允许将“不可调和的矛盾”作为离婚的理由。所以，纽约的跨国夫妇发现想在纽约离婚根本就是痴心妄想，然后争吵着到其它地方申请离婚。获得某一特定司法管辖区居住权的法规也不尽相同，在声色纵情的拉斯维加斯只需6个星期。
According to Jeremy Morley, an international divorce lawyer based in New York, hiding assets from a spouse is also much easier in some countries than in others. California, at one extreme, requires complete disclosure of assets. At the other extreme, Austria, Japan and many other countries require very little disclosure. A California court recently ordered a husband to pay $390,000 in costs and penalties to his wife because he did not disclose some significant financial information. In another jurisdiction, the assets could have stayed hidden.
据纽约国际离婚律师杰里米．莫雷（Jeremy Morley）表示，在某些国家藏匿资产要相对容易。一个极端是加利福尼亚州要求完全公开资产，而另一个极端如奥地利、日本和其它许多国家基本不需要公布资产。加州法庭最近判决一个丈夫向妻子支付39万美元的资产和罚金，只因他未公布某些重要财务信息。若在另外一个地方，这些资产可能不会被发现。
Who gets the children? 孩子归谁？
Cash and kids may pull in different directions. Countries that are “man-friendly” (shorthand for favouring the richer, usually male, partner) when it comes to money may be “mum-friendly” when it comes to custody. Japan, for example, is quick and cheap for a rich man—unless he wants to keep seeing his children. English courts are ferocious in dividing up assets, even when they have been cunningly squirrelled away offshore. But compared with other jurisdictions, they are keen to keep both divorced parents in touch with the children.
各国法律对待财产和子女的态度往往相悖。有些国家在财产分割上倾向男方（对经济实力较强的一方有利，通常是男方）但在孩子监护权上则倾向母亲。例如在日本，对有钱的男人来说，离婚不仅“方便快捷”而且“经济实惠”，但如果他想以后探视孩子则另当别论。英国法庭对财产分割比较彻底，即便有些资产被藏匿到国外也会被分割，但是与其它司法管辖区相比，他们希望让离异父母双方都有权探视孩子。
The children’s fate, even more than family finances, can be the source of the hottest legal tussles. The American State Department unit dealing with child abduction has seen its caseload swell from an average in recent years of 1,100 open cases to 1,500 now. In Britain, the figures rose from 157 in 2006 to 183 in 2007, according to Nigel Lowe of Cardiff Law School.
相比家庭经济而言，孩子的命运更能成为最热门的法律争论焦点。美国国务院儿童诱拐案件受理单位发现此类案件从几年前平均1100起上升到目前的1500起。在英国，据卡迪夫法律学校的奈杰．洛（Nigel Lowe）表示，这个数据从2006年的157上升到2007年的183。
Of the cases reported worldwide, mothers are the main abductors when a marriage breaks down. They are cited in 68% of cases. Ann Thomas, a partner with the International Family Law Group, a London law firm, says child abduction has increased “dramatically” in the past three years or so. A big reason is freedom of movement within the European Union, which has enabled millions of people from the new member states to live and work legally in the richer part of the continent. That inevitably leads to a boom in binational relationships, and in turn more children of mixed marriages. Ms Thomas notes that when a relationship between a foreign mother and an English father breaks down, the mother often assumes that she can automatically return to her homeland without the father’s permission. That may be a costly legal mistake.
全世界上报的儿童诱拐案件中，大部分是母亲在婚姻破裂后诱拐子女，这种情况占总案例的68%。安．托马斯（Ann Thomas）是伦敦国际家庭法律集团（International Family Law Group）的合伙人，她说，过去三年以来儿童诱拐案件“大幅”增加。一个主要原因是欧盟之间的自由往来，使成千上万的人从欧盟新成员国能够到其他富足的成员国工作生活。这不可避免导致跨国婚姻，进而产生更多复杂家庭背景的孩子。托马斯提到，当一个外国母亲和英国父亲的婚姻破裂时，母亲通常认为她可以不经过孩子父亲的同意自动返回到祖国，而这是可能导致代价高昂的法律失误。
Most advanced industrialised countries, plus most of Latin America and a sprinkling of others, are signatories to the 1980 Hague Convention, a treaty which requires countries to send abducted children back to the jurisdiction where they have been living previously. That is fine in theory: it means that legal battles have to be fought first, before a child is moved. It is a great deal better than a fait accompli which leaves one parent in possession, while the other is trying to fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle in a faraway country.
大部分工业发达国家以及多数拉丁美洲和其它一些国家都是1980年《海牙公约》的缔约国，《海牙公约》要求将被诱拐儿童交回到他们以前生活的管辖区内。这也就意味着在把孩子带走前必须先解决法律问题，这理论上是美好的，总比孩子被父母一方诱拐成为既定事实，而另一方不得不远在他国进行长期和昂贵的法庭斗争要好。
But in practice things are very different. Views on the desirability of children being brought up by “foreigners” vary hugely by country; so do traditions about the relative roles of fathers and mothers in bringing up their children after divorce. In most Muslim countries, for example, the assumption is that children over seven will be brought up by the father, not the mother, though that is trumped by a preference for a local Muslim parent. So the chances of a foreign mother recovering abducted children from a Muslim father are slim. Apart from secular Turkey and Bosnia, no Muslim countries have signed the Hague Convention, though a handful have struck bilateral deals, such as Pakistan with Britain, and Egypt and Lebanon with America.
但往往事与愿违。各国对外国配偶抚养孩子的观点大相径庭，对父母亲离婚后谁抚养孩子的习俗也不尽相同。比如大多数穆斯林国家都认为7岁以上的孩子应由父亲抚养，所以外国母亲想从穆斯林父亲手中重新获得被诱拐的孩子基本不可能。除了土耳其和波斯尼亚，其他穆斯林国家都未签署《海牙公约》，虽然有很多国家已经开始双边贸易，如巴基斯坦和英国，印度以及黎巴嫩和美国。
Japan has not signed it either—the only member of the rich-country G7 not to have done so. Canada and America are leading an international effort to change that. Foreign fathers, in particular, find the Japanese court system highly resistant to attempts even to establish regular contact with abducted and unlawfully retained children, let alone to dealing with requests for their return. Such requests are met with incomprehension by Japanese courts, complains an American official dealing with the issue. “They ask, ‘Why would a father care that much?’” Countries edging towards signing the Hague Convention include India, Russia and mainland China. But parents whose ex-spouses have taken children to Japan should not hold their breath: as Ms Thomas notes, even if Japan eventually adopts the Hague Convention, it will not apply it retrospectively.
日本亦未签署《海牙公约》，是迄今为止西方七国集团（G7）中唯一没有签署这一公约的国家。加拿大和美国的带领下一些国际力量努力改变这一点。外国父亲发现尤其是日本的法庭系统极端反对即使只是与被诱拐和非法滞留的孩子保持定期的联系，更别提解决孩子的了。处理这类问题的一位美国官员抱怨道，日本法庭根本不理解这种要求。“他们会问‘父亲怎么会关心这么多？’”。即将签署《海牙公约》的国家包括印度、俄罗斯和中国大陆。但对于前妻/前夫将孩子带到日本的人不必对此翘首以盼：正如托马斯提到的，即使日本最终接受了《海牙公约》，但也不会有追溯效力的运用。
Games with different rules 规则不同的游戏
Moreover, even signatory countries may be bad at abiding by the convention, especially when it means enforcing the return of children to a parent alleged to have been abusive. The annual State Department report to Congress on observance of the Hague Convention lists Honduras as “non-compliant” and nine other countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Poland and Venezuela) as showing “patterns of non-compliance”. Anyone in a wobbly marriage with a citizen of these countries might bear that in mind before agreeing to let the children go on holiday there.
此外，即使是缔约国也会违反公约，尤其在执行将孩子遣送到被判有虐待倾向的一方的时候。向美国国会提交的关于《海牙公约》遵守情况汇总的年度国务院报告中列出了“不合作”的宏都拉斯和其他九个国家（巴西、保加利亚、智利、厄瓜多尔、德国、希腊、墨西哥、波兰、委内瑞拉等）。与上述国家的人结婚并面临婚姻危机的人一定要将这些国名牢记在心，不要轻易让孩子让这些国家度假。
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But America is not blameless either, particularly if parents try to recover their children through state rather than federal courts, where judges may be unaware of the Hague Convention’s requirements. “Except in Florida, New York, California and Texas, a judge may only hear one Hague case in his career,” says a State Department official. Judges who get it wrong can be overruled on appeal, but it takes time and money: the Hague Convention aims to make proceedings quick and cheap, thus making abduction less likely. Whereas Britain offers automatic legal aid to the foreign parent trying to recover the children, in America they must rely on their own resources or a pro bono lawyer.
美国在这方面也并非无可厚非，尤其当父母通过州法庭而不是联邦法庭重新获得孩子的时候，州法庭的法官会无视《海牙公约》的要求。“除了在弗罗里达、纽约、加州和德州，法官终其一生也可能只听过一两次海牙案件。”可对判决有误的法官上诉进行否决，但这即耗时又费钱：而《海牙公约》的目的正是将程序简单化。在英国，对于想重新获得孩子的异国父母，英国会主动提供法律援助，而在美国，父母只能靠自己的关系或公益律师。
Making wily choices about possible jurisdictions is often criticised as “forum shopping”. But the stakes are high: ending up in the wrong legal system, or with the wrong approach, may mean not just poverty but misery. Mr Morley says the differences between one divorce jurisdiction and another are far more than, say, playing a sporting fixture at home or away. As the table shows, totally different rules apply.
投机选择可能的司法管辖区通常被称为“挑选法院”，但这样做风险很大：一旦选择错误的法律体系或使用错误的方法来终结婚姻不仅会掏空你的口袋，而且会让你痛苦不堪。莫雷说各司法管辖区离婚法律的差别远远超过，比如，主客场比赛之间的差别。正如上表所列，各地采用的规则截然不同。
So it is understandable that a disillusioned spouse, and his or her lawyer, will try hard to get the most favourable jurisdiction. Yet that can all too easily lead to each party starting, or even finishing, a divorce in a different country. Sorting out these cross-border legal wrangles can be colossally expensive. A tussle between jurisdictions usually starts in six figures, in dollars, euros or pounds; when all four legal bills, of both sides’ costs in both countries, are totted up, it easily shoots into seven figures. And it is hugely time-consuming. The children involved may reach adulthood before the final verdicts are given.
可以理解对婚姻不再抱有幻想的离婚当事人及其律师极尽手段选择对其最有利于的司法管辖区，然而这会容易导致在不同的国家开始乃至结束离婚。解决这类跨国法律纠纷的花费非常巨大。不同司法管辖区的法庭斗争花费起价都是六位数，而且单位是美元、欧元或英镑。若夫妻双方分别在两个不同的国家会有四个法律账单，总费用会轻易突破7位数。而且非常耗时，经常是孩子都长大成人了判决书还没有下来。
International attempts to tidy up the law have made some things better, but not all. The European Union (where 875,000 divorces take place each year, a fifth of them binational) introduced a reform in 2001 called Brussels II. This has largely stopped “forum shopping”, with a rule that the first court to be approached decides the divorce.
国际社会在法律方面作出的努力使这种情况有所改善，但无法完全改观。欧盟每年有87.5万对夫妇离婚，其中1/5属跨国婚姻。欧盟在2001年进行了一次名为“布鲁塞尔二号(Brussels II)”的改革，规定离婚必须由诉讼送达的首个法院来判决，这在很大程度上阻止了“挑选法院”的行为。
The problem with this rule is that it encourages those in troubled marriages to end them, not mend them. Even if a marriage is doomed, the trend in family law is to resolve the dispute out of court, typically through mediation. A race to issue proceedings makes it much more likely that matters will get nasty, as well as lengthy and costly. David Hodson, an international family law specialist, notes sadly that “This law works against reconciliations and resolutions out of court. Cases can be won and lost by one spouse issuing a divorce a matter of minutes before the other spouse. That must be wrong.”
该法规的弊端在于鼓励面临婚姻危机的夫妇早早劳燕分飞，而不是让他们破镜重圆。而从家庭法的角度来说，即使婚姻已经毫无意义，仍倾向庭外解决争议，典型的方法是庭外调解。提起诉讼的比赛会使事情变得很糟，很且时间长、费用高。国际家庭法专家大卫．霍德森（David Hodson）难过的表示：“该法规有悖于庭外和解原则。夫妻一方可能因为比另一方早几分钟提起离婚申请就会打赢官司，而晚几分钟就会全盘皆输，这是不合情理的。”
The law of dirty tricks 法律之不公
Brussels II also encourages some less scrupulous lawyers to behave badly, urging their clients to act fast and dirtily. A London divorce lawyer recalls a case where a husband from an overseas country had acquired his wife’s European nationality by marriage, living briefly in her continental home country before moving to London. Five years and two children later, the marriage was on the rocks, with the husband away working in East Asia. Without his wife’s knowledge, he filed for divorce in her country, one of the stingiest jurisdictions in Europe (from her point of view). His only connection with it was his marriage to the wife he was trying to dump cheaply. Had the case been heard in London, where both parties had much stronger links and had owned a home for years, she would have done far better.
布鲁塞尔二号还会促使不甚诚实的律师行为不当，他们催促客户尽快行动并采取卑劣手段。一位伦敦离婚律师回忆了一个案例，丈夫来自他国家并通过婚姻取得了妻子所居住的欧洲国籍，只在妻子的祖国短暂的生活了一段时间就搬到了伦敦。五年后，两人有了两个孩子，随着丈夫远到东亚地区工作，两人的婚姻岌岌可危。丈夫没有告诉妻子就在妻子的祖国申请解除婚约，该国是欧洲最苛刻的国家之一。他当时和这个国家唯一的联系就是为了与妻子尽快结束这段婚姻。其实双方与伦敦的联系都更紧密，而且在那儿有一所房子，如果此案在伦敦受理，那她所得的结果会好一些。
To avoid such cases, a further EU measure, Rome III, tried to stipulate that a marriage should be ended only by the law that has governed it originally. That works fine in similar countries where divorce rules are highly codified, precedents do not matter and judges’ discretion is limited. It already applies in some northern European countries, so that Dutch courts, for example, will apply French law when dealing with a French couple whose marriage has ended during a posting in The Hague.
为了避免类似案件的发生，欧盟又推出了“罗马三号(Rome III)”措施，该措施规定判决离婚应运用夫妻当初登记结婚的管辖区的法律。这在离婚法相似的国家还行得通，既不参照先例，而且法官的裁量权有限。这已经在北欧一些国家实行，如荷兰法庭在处理一对法国夫妻的离婚案件时应用法国法律。
But such a rule works much less well when other systems are involved. English law is much more complex, and is based on intricate precedents and judges’ discretion that cannot simply be looked up and applied. Even greater difficulties arise when couples come from more distant countries. Would a Swedish court want to apply sharia law to a divorcing couple recently arrived from Saudi Arabia? Many Swedes flinched at that. Mr Hodson complains that it would mean that “the essence of a country’s community life found in its family laws is removed and replaced by the laws of another country.” In the United Kingdom, he says, it would be “entirely against [national] law and policy.”
但在涉及其它法律体系的国家，这个措施就不怎么灵验了。英国法律复杂多了，而且还基于错综复杂的先例和法官的自由裁量权，这是无法照本宣科、死搬硬套的。如果夫妻来自他国，问题就更复杂了。瑞士法庭受理一对刚从沙特阿拉伯来的离婚夫妇时会愿意运用伊斯兰法律吗？很多瑞典人都对此嗤之以鼻。霍德森（Hodson）抱怨道，这可能意味着“本国国民发现自己的家庭法律没有了，取而代之的是其它国家的法律。在英国，他说这可能“完全违反了（国家）法律和政策。”
For richer, for poorer为了强者，为了弱者
Now that Rome III has been stymied, a group of nine countries, led by Spain and France, is going ahead under a provision in EU law known as “enhanced co-operation”. This allows like-minded countries to work together, leaving the unwilling behind. And still more international tidying-up operations are in the works. Another Hague Convention tries to harmonise arrangements on cross-border child-support payments—an area that tends to be a bit less contentious than divorce, where views of what is fair differ wildly.
虽然罗马三号已经陷入泥潭，一个由西班牙和法国率领的九国集团却的在名为“加强合作”的欧盟规章下义无反顾的前行。志同道合的国家一起并肩前行，不用理会不愿合作的国家。而且有更多的国际组织在不懈努力。另一个海牙公约试图协调跨国夫妻抚养孩子的费用问题，虽然该领域的争议要比跨国离婚要少，但观点却是一样的千差万别。
Perhaps the biggest weakness of the system is the advantage that it gives to the richer partner when an international marriage breaks up. Experienced lawyers can operate, if necessary, with high speed to help the poorer spouse—for example, by putting the first hefty legal bill on the husband’s credit card before he is aware of what his wife is up to. In England, that may be followed by a swift move to initiate divorce proceedings, and then an emergency maintenance application that includes provision for legal costs. When the richer party has assets in that jurisdiction, a fair fight is possible. But Kerstin Beyer, a German-British divorce lawyer at the International Family Law Chambers in London, says the tables are often stacked against the poorer (and usually less knowledgable) spouse. Some husbands file for divorce abroad and simply fail to turn up at the English court, hoping that the cost and delay of enforcing the judgment abroad will lead their ex-wife to give up. A client of hers trying to gain the assets she had been awarded in Colorado was faced with a demand for a $15,000 upfront payment from a lawyer there: an impossible expense for someone of her means. Another has been pursuing, expensively and so far fruitlessly, assets in Luxembourg and Germany awarded by a London court. Pensions are particularly tricky. Some countries split them between divorcing couples as a matter of course; others regard such requests from foreign courts coldly.
也许该体系最大的弱点就是，当跨国婚姻破裂时，它会给经济实力较强的一方提供有利条件。其实，有经验的律师可快速操作以帮助经济实力较弱的配偶，例如在丈夫还未完全明白妻子的想法时，将第一笔高额法律账单打入丈夫的信用卡。在英国，接下来将是很快提起离婚程序，随之便是一张紧急抚养费申请单，当然包括法律费用。如果强者有资产在申诉地，那离婚战争才可能公平。但是伦敦国际家庭法律商会的德英离婚律师科斯汀．贝尔（Kerstin Beyer）说，情况往往会对弱者不利（通常在其不知情的情况下）。有些丈夫在国外申请离婚，而且根本不在英国法庭现身，指望高额法律费用和国外延期执行判决使其前期主动放弃。贝尔的一名客户想拿到判决的在科罗拉多的资产，却面临当地高达一万五千美元的律师收费，这对像她这种过活的人来说是天文数字。另外一位客户在以高昂的代价索取由英国法庭裁决的在卢森堡和德国的资产，到目前为止还毫无结果。退休金尤其棘手，有些国家会理所当然的进行分割，而有些国家这认为这是来自外国法庭的无礼要求。
More fundamentally, divorce arrangements in countries with English-style common law are still liable to be influenced by highly atypical fights between the super-rich, who can afford to take cases to the highest courts. In most marriages there is barely enough money to support one family in one country, notes Ms Spitz. Spreading that between two sides is a stretch, even without an expensive legal fight. As house prices plunge and savings shrivel, divorcing couples are fighting over a shrinking cake.
更根本的问题是，在英美法系国家，离婚裁决仍然受超级富豪之间非常典型的斗争的影响，这些超级富豪付得起在最高法院的费用。皮茨提到，但大多数婚姻都只能基本维持在一个国家安一个家。横亘着两边的是很大的差距，甚至没有高额的法律斗争。随着房价跳水、积蓄萎缩，离婚夫妇现在争夺的蛋糕正在变小。
注：
“Forum shopping”是英美法上的一个术语，系指利用国际民事管辖权的积极冲突，从众多有管辖权的法院中选择一个最能满足自己诉讼请求的法院去起诉的行为。对于“Forum shopping”，我国学者中有“挑选法院”、“选购法院”、“择地行诉”和“竞择法院”等不同译法。对其具体含义，我国学者的普遍理解是“当事人选择于己有利的法院起诉，从而使对方蒙受不利”。当事人在不同国家（法域）提起诉讼，由于各国（法域）政治、文化、经济、法律传统方面的差异，冲突规范存在差别，其指引的实体法会有所不同，各国（法域）法院对于同一涉外民商事案件，就可能会作出不同的判决，因此，当事人为维护自己的利益，总是希望选择一个对自己最为有利的法院进行诉讼，当事人这种选择法院的行为与在集市上进行商品买卖时挑选物品极为相似，故称之为“挑选法院”更为恰当。
无数跨国婚姻因全球经济危机而面临解体，这突显了跨境离婚法的种种隐患，对离婚律师来说却不失为好消息。
MARRIAGES that thrive on money may wither with thrift. That is a depressing lesson from the world economic crisis, which has brought a surge in business for divorce lawyers in former boomtowns such as London and New York. When one or both spouses is from a foreign country, divorce is not just sad but complicated too—especially when most assets may be in a third country, a pension in a fourth, and offspring in a fifth.
以金钱为养分的婚姻之花会随着家计的萧条而凋谢，这是全球经济危机给我们上的一堂挫折教训课。在跨国婚姻的新兴都市，如伦敦和纽约，离婚律师们的业务猛增。倘若夫妻一方或双方均来自国外，那么离婚便是个既难过又复杂的事情，尤其是当大部分资产、养老金和子女散布于世界各地。
Globalisation has made binational marriages, once exotic, much more common among high-earning, highly mobile families. When they stop being high-earning, life gets tricky. Louise Spitz of Manches, a London law firm, has observed an “exceptional” period since September. “With the redundancies in the City there has been a concomitant wave of marital upheaval,” she says. “Families used to living on huge bonus income are unable to continue with the commitments they have taken on—housing and school fees and the cost of living the high life.” Manches has taken on eight more divorce lawyers to cope with the extra work. A high proportion, Ms Spitz and other lawyers reckon, of the once-rich couples now breaking up include at least one foreign spouse.
全球一体化成就了无数异国姻缘，尤其在在收入较高且流动性较强的家庭中更为普遍。当这些家庭不再拥有高收入，生活便艰难起来。伦敦律师事务所曼切斯（Manches）的路易斯．皮茨（Louise Spitz）提到一段从9月开始的“非常时期”。“金融城连连裁员，一波离婚热潮也随之而来。”她说：“曾以奖金收入为主的家庭无以维持他们已经签下的承诺——房贷、子女学费和高档生活开支。因为业务增加，曼切斯新招了八个离婚律师。皮茨及其它律师都认为，曾经生活美满现在面临分手的夫妻至少一方来自国外。
So who sues whom for divorce and where? How much money will be awarded to whom? Will it be collected? And how? The answers are far trickier than most non-lawyers would imagine. Take, for example, this lightly disguised but real-life example: a wealthy philandering Texan banker with a French wife. Formerly resident in New York, with a recently-lost good job and rented house in London, he now plans to move back to Texas. His wife, newly suspicious and with no money of her own, wants to take the children home to France. She needs her family, she says. What she actually needs is urgent, specialist legal advice.
那么谁申请离婚、在那儿离婚、给对方多少钱、对方能否拿到、怎么拿到？这一系列问题的复杂程度是一般人难以想象的。举个真实的例子（稍作改动），男方来自美国德克萨斯州，是一位花心阔气的银行家，女方是法国人。最初居住在纽约，最近在伦敦丢了工作和租房，丈夫现在打算回德州。而他的妻子，最近总是疑神疑鬼，自己没什么积蓄，想带着孩子回法国老家。她说需要家人，其实她真正迫切需要的是专业的法律建议。
A London divorce settlement might give her many millions: a house, school fees and maintenance until the children are adults, or even indefinitely. An English court may well disregard a prenuptial agreement, particularly if one of the parties did not have independent legal advice. And it will tend to care more about immediate needs than about whether assets were acquired during the course of the marriage, or predate it, or are the result of an inheritance. All assets are likely to be divided. If the wife is lucky, she may even be able to collect her share.
一纸伦敦的离婚协议或许会让她获得数百万的补偿金，包括房子、孩子的学费、孩子成人前甚至终生的抚养费。英国法庭可能根本无视婚前协议，尤其当夫妻一方没有独立法律支持的时候，他们更多的考虑当前需求，不管是婚前财产、婚后财产乃至遗产，都有可能被分割。幸运的妻子甚至能切实拿到分割的财产。
In the wife’s native France, things will look very different. In her favour is that conduct counts—so adulterous spouses will be penalised. In most other Western countries, divorce courts have given up attributing blame. Even domestic violence is often ignored, though it still counts heavily in some jurisdictions, such as Florida.
但在女方的祖国法国，情况将大不一样。在法国法庭，行为对判决的影响很大，过错方将会受到严厉处罚，这点对女方很有利。大多数西方国家的离婚法庭停止归咎责任，有时甚至忽视家庭暴力，虽然这点仍在某些司法管辖区会影响判决，如弗罗里达州。
But in the typical French divorce, any alimony (also called maintenance) will be less and for eight years at most; any prenuptial agreement will be binding. Only assets acquired during the marriage are up for grabs. If, in our example, the American husband moves to France, he will be expected to play an equal part in bringing up the children—a requirement that would delight some fathers, but by no means all.
但就典型法国式离婚而言，赡养费很少（亦称抚养费）且最多只有八年，任何形式的婚前协议都具有约束力，而且仅要求对婚后财产进行分割。在我们所举的例子中，如果美籍丈夫去法国申请离婚，他将与妻子共同承担子女的赡养费，这可能会让某些父亲喜出望外，但决非所有父亲都会如此走运。
If the errant husband has the divorce filed in Texas, the tables are turned even more dramatically. The wife risks being left penniless. In Texas state law, alimony is usually minimal and temporary—though child support, thankfully, is a federal matter. In America, the law varies hugely between states. Most exclude from the settlement assets acquired before the marriage (but Michigan and Colorado don’t). Most exclude inherited property (but Massachusetts and Oregon don’t). In most states, judges will enforce prenuptial agreements (but they often won’t in Alaska).
如果出轨的丈夫在德州申请离婚的话，那局面会发生更大的转变，女方会面临净身出户的危险。根据德州法律，赡养费通常很少而且是暂时的，不过庆幸的是联邦政府会负责儿童的赡养。美国各州法律千差万别，大多数州都不分割婚前财产（除了密西根和科罗拉多）和继承财产（除了马赛诸塞州和俄勒冈），而且大多数州的法官都会执行婚前协议（但阿拉斯加的法官例外）。
If the Texan husband decides to file in New York, however, he may find the outcome startlingly expensive. As in some English court rulings, New York courts may award one party a share of a spouse’s future earnings—assuming that they are based on a qualification, such as an MBA or medical degree, that was earned thanks to a joint effort in happier times. Yet New York law has one big catch: unless the parties have signed a formal separation agreement it requires proof of cruelty, adultery or abandonment, whereas other states allow “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for a divorce. So binational couples in New York who want to end their marriage may find themselves unable to do it there, and squabbling about alternatives. Rules differ, too, on what constitutes residency in a particular jurisdiction. In hedonistic Las Vegas, six weeks is enough.
若德州丈夫想在纽约离婚，那他会发现代价会大的惊人。和一些英国法庭规则一样，纽约法庭会将夫妻一方的部分未来收入判给对方，倘若其取得的资历，如MBA或医学资质，归功于婚后双方共同努力。然而纽约的法律有个很大的特点：除非夫妻双方签订正式的分居协议，否则申诉离婚要求提供暴力、通奸或遗弃的证据，而其他州允许将“不可调和的矛盾”作为离婚的理由。所以，纽约的跨国夫妇发现想在纽约离婚根本就是痴心妄想，然后争吵着到其它地方申请离婚。获得某一特定司法管辖区居住权的法规也不尽相同，在声色纵情的拉斯维加斯只需6个星期。
According to Jeremy Morley, an international divorce lawyer based in New York, hiding assets from a spouse is also much easier in some countries than in others. California, at one extreme, requires complete disclosure of assets. At the other extreme, Austria, Japan and many other countries require very little disclosure. A California court recently ordered a husband to pay $390,000 in costs and penalties to his wife because he did not disclose some significant financial information. In another jurisdiction, the assets could have stayed hidden.
据纽约国际离婚律师杰里米．莫雷（Jeremy Morley）表示，在某些国家藏匿资产要相对容易。一个极端是加利福尼亚州要求完全公开资产，而另一个极端如奥地利、日本和其它许多国家基本不需要公布资产。加州法庭最近判决一个丈夫向妻子支付39万美元的资产和罚金，只因他未公布某些重要财务信息。若在另外一个地方，这些资产可能不会被发现。
Who gets the children? 孩子归谁？
Cash and kids may pull in different directions. Countries that are “man-friendly” (shorthand for favouring the richer, usually male, partner) when it comes to money may be “mum-friendly” when it comes to custody. Japan, for example, is quick and cheap for a rich man—unless he wants to keep seeing his children. English courts are ferocious in dividing up assets, even when they have been cunningly squirrelled away offshore. But compared with other jurisdictions, they are keen to keep both divorced parents in touch with the children.
各国法律对待财产和子女的态度往往相悖。有些国家在财产分割上倾向男方（对经济实力较强的一方有利，通常是男方）但在孩子监护权上则倾向母亲。例如在日本，对有钱的男人来说，离婚不仅“方便快捷”而且“经济实惠”，但如果他想以后探视孩子则另当别论。英国法庭对财产分割比较彻底，即便有些资产被藏匿到国外也会被分割，但是与其它司法管辖区相比，他们希望让离异父母双方都有权探视孩子。
The children’s fate, even more than family finances, can be the source of the hottest legal tussles. The American State Department unit dealing with child abduction has seen its caseload swell from an average in recent years of 1,100 open cases to 1,500 now. In Britain, the figures rose from 157 in 2006 to 183 in 2007, according to Nigel Lowe of Cardiff Law School.
相比家庭经济而言，孩子的命运更能成为最热门的法律争论焦点。美国国务院儿童诱拐案件受理单位发现此类案件从几年前平均1100起上升到目前的1500起。在英国，据卡迪夫法律学校的奈杰．洛（Nigel Lowe）表示，这个数据从2006年的157上升到2007年的183。
Of the cases reported worldwide, mothers are the main abductors when a marriage breaks down. They are cited in 68% of cases. Ann Thomas, a partner with the International Family Law Group, a London law firm, says child abduction has increased “dramatically” in the past three years or so. A big reason is freedom of movement within the European Union, which has enabled millions of people from the new member states to live and work legally in the richer part of the continent. That inevitably leads to a boom in binational relationships, and in turn more children of mixed marriages. Ms Thomas notes that when a relationship between a foreign mother and an English father breaks down, the mother often assumes that she can automatically return to her homeland without the father’s permission. That may be a costly legal mistake.
全世界上报的儿童诱拐案件中，大部分是母亲在婚姻破裂后诱拐子女，这种情况占总案例的68%。安．托马斯（Ann Thomas）是伦敦国际家庭法律集团（International Family Law Group）的合伙人，她说，过去三年以来儿童诱拐案件“大幅”增加。一个主要原因是欧盟之间的自由往来，使成千上万的人从欧盟新成员国能够到其他富足的成员国工作生活。这不可避免导致跨国婚姻，进而产生更多复杂家庭背景的孩子。托马斯提到，当一个外国母亲和英国父亲的婚姻破裂时，母亲通常认为她可以不经过孩子父亲的同意自动返回到祖国，而这是可能导致代价高昂的法律失误。
Most advanced industrialised countries, plus most of Latin America and a sprinkling of others, are signatories to the 1980 Hague Convention, a treaty which requires countries to send abducted children back to the jurisdiction where they have been living previously. That is fine in theory: it means that legal battles have to be fought first, before a child is moved. It is a great deal better than a fait accompli which leaves one parent in possession, while the other is trying to fight a lengthy and expensive legal battle in a faraway country.
大部分工业发达国家以及多数拉丁美洲和其它一些国家都是1980年《海牙公约》的缔约国，《海牙公约》要求将被诱拐儿童交回到他们以前生活的管辖区内。这也就意味着在把孩子带走前必须先解决法律问题，这理论上是美好的，总比孩子被父母一方诱拐成为既定事实，而另一方不得不远在他国进行长期和昂贵的法庭斗争要好。
But in practice things are very different. Views on the desirability of children being brought up by “foreigners” vary hugely by country; so do traditions about the relative roles of fathers and mothers in bringing up their children after divorce. In most Muslim countries, for example, the assumption is that children over seven will be brought up by the father, not the mother, though that is trumped by a preference for a local Muslim parent. So the chances of a foreign mother recovering abducted children from a Muslim father are slim. Apart from secular Turkey and Bosnia, no Muslim countries have signed the Hague Convention, though a handful have struck bilateral deals, such as Pakistan with Britain, and Egypt and Lebanon with America.
但往往事与愿违。各国对外国配偶抚养孩子的观点大相径庭，对父母亲离婚后谁抚养孩子的习俗也不尽相同。比如大多数穆斯林国家都认为7岁以上的孩子应由父亲抚养，所以外国母亲想从穆斯林父亲手中重新获得被诱拐的孩子基本不可能。除了土耳其和波斯尼亚，其他穆斯林国家都未签署《海牙公约》，虽然有很多国家已经开始双边贸易，如巴基斯坦和英国，印度以及黎巴嫩和美国。
Japan has not signed it either—the only member of the rich-country G7 not to have done so. Canada and America are leading an international effort to change that. Foreign fathers, in particular, find the Japanese court system highly resistant to attempts even to establish regular contact with abducted and unlawfully retained children, let alone to dealing with requests for their return. Such requests are met with incomprehension by Japanese courts, complains an American official dealing with the issue. “They ask, ‘Why would a father care that much?’” Countries edging towards signing the Hague Convention include India, Russia and mainland China. But parents whose ex-spouses have taken children to Japan should not hold their breath: as Ms Thomas notes, even if Japan eventually adopts the Hague Convention, it will not apply it retrospectively.
日本亦未签署《海牙公约》，是迄今为止西方七国集团（G7）中唯一没有签署这一公约的国家。加拿大和美国的带领下一些国际力量努力改变这一点。外国父亲发现尤其是日本的法庭系统极端反对即使只是与被诱拐和非法滞留的孩子保持定期的联系，更别提解决孩子的了。处理这类问题的一位美国官员抱怨道，日本法庭根本不理解这种要求。“他们会问‘父亲怎么会关心这么多？’”。即将签署《海牙公约》的国家包括印度、俄罗斯和中国大陆。但对于前妻/前夫将孩子带到日本的人不必对此翘首以盼：正如托马斯提到的，即使日本最终接受了《海牙公约》，但也不会有追溯效力的运用。
Games with different rules 规则不同的游戏
Moreover, even signatory countries may be bad at abiding by the convention, especially when it means enforcing the return of children to a parent alleged to have been abusive. The annual State Department report to Congress on observance of the Hague Convention lists Honduras as “non-compliant” and nine other countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Ecuador, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Poland and Venezuela) as showing “patterns of non-compliance”. Anyone in a wobbly marriage with a citizen of these countries might bear that in mind before agreeing to let the children go on holiday there.
此外，即使是缔约国也会违反公约，尤其在执行将孩子遣送到被判有虐待倾向的一方的时候。向美国国会提交的关于《海牙公约》遵守情况汇总的年度国务院报告中列出了“不合作”的宏都拉斯和其他九个国家（巴西、保加利亚、智利、厄瓜多尔、德国、希腊、墨西哥、波兰、委内瑞拉等）。与上述国家的人结婚并面临婚姻危机的人一定要将这些国名牢记在心，不要轻易让孩子让这些国家度假。
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But America is not blameless either, particularly if parents try to recover their children through state rather than federal courts, where judges may be unaware of the Hague Convention’s requirements. “Except in Florida, New York, California and Texas, a judge may only hear one Hague case in his career,” says a State Department official. Judges who get it wrong can be overruled on appeal, but it takes time and money: the Hague Convention aims to make proceedings quick and cheap, thus making abduction less likely. Whereas Britain offers automatic legal aid to the foreign parent trying to recover the children, in America they must rely on their own resources or a pro bono lawyer.
美国在这方面也并非无可厚非，尤其当父母通过州法庭而不是联邦法庭重新获得孩子的时候，州法庭的法官会无视《海牙公约》的要求。“除了在弗罗里达、纽约、加州和德州，法官终其一生也可能只听过一两次海牙案件。”可对判决有误的法官上诉进行否决，但这即耗时又费钱：而《海牙公约》的目的正是将程序简单化。在英国，对于想重新获得孩子的异国父母，英国会主动提供法律援助，而在美国，父母只能靠自己的关系或公益律师。
Making wily choices about possible jurisdictions is often criticised as “forum shopping”. But the stakes are high: ending up in the wrong legal system, or with the wrong approach, may mean not just poverty but misery. Mr Morley says the differences between one divorce jurisdiction and another are far more than, say, playing a sporting fixture at home or away. As the table shows, totally different rules apply.
投机选择可能的司法管辖区通常被称为“挑选法院”，但这样做风险很大：一旦选择错误的法律体系或使用错误的方法来终结婚姻不仅会掏空你的口袋，而且会让你痛苦不堪。莫雷说各司法管辖区离婚法律的差别远远超过，比如，主客场比赛之间的差别。正如上表所列，各地采用的规则截然不同。
So it is understandable that a disillusioned spouse, and his or her lawyer, will try hard to get the most favourable jurisdiction. Yet that can all too easily lead to each party starting, or even finishing, a divorce in a different country. Sorting out these cross-border legal wrangles can be colossally expensive. A tussle between jurisdictions usually starts in six figures, in dollars, euros or pounds; when all four legal bills, of both sides’ costs in both countries, are totted up, it easily shoots into seven figures. And it is hugely time-consuming. The children involved may reach adulthood before the final verdicts are given.
可以理解对婚姻不再抱有幻想的离婚当事人及其律师极尽手段选择对其最有利于的司法管辖区，然而这会容易导致在不同的国家开始乃至结束离婚。解决这类跨国法律纠纷的花费非常巨大。不同司法管辖区的法庭斗争花费起价都是六位数，而且单位是美元、欧元或英镑。若夫妻双方分别在两个不同的国家会有四个法律账单，总费用会轻易突破7位数。而且非常耗时，经常是孩子都长大成人了判决书还没有下来。
International attempts to tidy up the law have made some things better, but not all. The European Union (where 875,000 divorces take place each year, a fifth of them binational) introduced a reform in 2001 called Brussels II. This has largely stopped “forum shopping”, with a rule that the first court to be approached decides the divorce.
国际社会在法律方面作出的努力使这种情况有所改善，但无法完全改观。欧盟每年有87.5万对夫妇离婚，其中1/5属跨国婚姻。欧盟在2001年进行了一次名为“布鲁塞尔二号(Brussels II)”的改革，规定离婚必须由诉讼送达的首个法院来判决，这在很大程度上阻止了“挑选法院”的行为。
The problem with this rule is that it encourages those in troubled marriages to end them, not mend them. Even if a marriage is doomed, the trend in family law is to resolve the dispute out of court, typically through mediation. A race to issue proceedings makes it much more likely that matters will get nasty, as well as lengthy and costly. David Hodson, an international family law specialist, notes sadly that “This law works against reconciliations and resolutions out of court. Cases can be won and lost by one spouse issuing a divorce a matter of minutes before the other spouse. That must be wrong.”
该法规的弊端在于鼓励面临婚姻危机的夫妇早早劳燕分飞，而不是让他们破镜重圆。而从家庭法的角度来说，即使婚姻已经毫无意义，仍倾向庭外解决争议，典型的方法是庭外调解。提起诉讼的比赛会使事情变得很糟，很且时间长、费用高。国际家庭法专家大卫．霍德森（David Hodson）难过的表示：“该法规有悖于庭外和解原则。夫妻一方可能因为比另一方早几分钟提起离婚申请就会打赢官司，而晚几分钟就会全盘皆输，这是不合情理的。”
The law of dirty tricks 法律之不公
Brussels II also encourages some less scrupulous lawyers to behave badly, urging their clients to act fast and dirtily. A London divorce lawyer recalls a case where a husband from an overseas country had acquired his wife’s European nationality by marriage, living briefly in her continental home country before moving to London. Five years and two children later, the marriage was on the rocks, with the husband away working in East Asia. Without his wife’s knowledge, he filed for divorce in her country, one of the stingiest jurisdictions in Europe (from her point of view). His only connection with it was his marriage to the wife he was trying to dump cheaply. Had the case been heard in London, where both parties had much stronger links and had owned a home for years, she would have done far better.
布鲁塞尔二号还会促使不甚诚实的律师行为不当，他们催促客户尽快行动并采取卑劣手段。一位伦敦离婚律师回忆了一个案例，丈夫来自他国家并通过婚姻取得了妻子所居住的欧洲国籍，只在妻子的祖国短暂的生活了一段时间就搬到了伦敦。五年后，两人有了两个孩子，随着丈夫远到东亚地区工作，两人的婚姻岌岌可危。丈夫没有告诉妻子就在妻子的祖国申请解除婚约，该国是欧洲最苛刻的国家之一。他当时和这个国家唯一的联系就是为了与妻子尽快结束这段婚姻。其实双方与伦敦的联系都更紧密，而且在那儿有一所房子，如果此案在伦敦受理，那她所得的结果会好一些。
To avoid such cases, a further EU measure, Rome III, tried to stipulate that a marriage should be ended only by the law that has governed it originally. That works fine in similar countries where divorce rules are highly codified, precedents do not matter and judges’ discretion is limited. It already applies in some northern European countries, so that Dutch courts, for example, will apply French law when dealing with a French couple whose marriage has ended during a posting in The Hague.
为了避免类似案件的发生，欧盟又推出了“罗马三号(Rome III)”措施，该措施规定判决离婚应运用夫妻当初登记结婚的管辖区的法律。这在离婚法相似的国家还行得通，既不参照先例，而且法官的裁量权有限。这已经在北欧一些国家实行，如荷兰法庭在处理一对法国夫妻的离婚案件时应用法国法律。
But such a rule works much less well when other systems are involved. English law is much more complex, and is based on intricate precedents and judges’ discretion that cannot simply be looked up and applied. Even greater difficulties arise when couples come from more distant countries. Would a Swedish court want to apply sharia law to a divorcing couple recently arrived from Saudi Arabia? Many Swedes flinched at that. Mr Hodson complains that it would mean that “the essence of a country’s community life found in its family laws is removed and replaced by the laws of another country.” In the United Kingdom, he says, it would be “entirely against [national] law and policy.”
但在涉及其它法律体系的国家，这个措施就不怎么灵验了。英国法律复杂多了，而且还基于错综复杂的先例和法官的自由裁量权，这是无法照本宣科、死搬硬套的。如果夫妻来自他国，问题就更复杂了。瑞士法庭受理一对刚从沙特阿拉伯来的离婚夫妇时会愿意运用伊斯兰法律吗？很多瑞典人都对此嗤之以鼻。霍德森（Hodson）抱怨道，这可能意味着“本国国民发现自己的家庭法律没有了，取而代之的是其它国家的法律。在英国，他说这可能“完全违反了（国家）法律和政策。”
For richer, for poorer为了强者，为了弱者
Now that Rome III has been stymied, a group of nine countries, led by Spain and France, is going ahead under a provision in EU law known as “enhanced co-operation”. This allows like-minded countries to work together, leaving the unwilling behind. And still more international tidying-up operations are in the works. Another Hague Convention tries to harmonise arrangements on cross-border child-support payments—an area that tends to be a bit less contentious than divorce, where views of what is fair differ wildly.
虽然罗马三号已经陷入泥潭，一个由西班牙和法国率领的九国集团却的在名为“加强合作”的欧盟规章下义无反顾的前行。志同道合的国家一起并肩前行，不用理会不愿合作的国家。而且有更多的国际组织在不懈努力。另一个海牙公约试图协调跨国夫妻抚养孩子的费用问题，虽然该领域的争议要比跨国离婚要少，但观点却是一样的千差万别。
Perhaps the biggest weakness of the system is the advantage that it gives to the richer partner when an international marriage breaks up. Experienced lawyers can operate, if necessary, with high speed to help the poorer spouse—for example, by putting the first hefty legal bill on the husband’s credit card before he is aware of what his wife is up to. In England, that may be followed by a swift move to initiate divorce proceedings, and then an emergency maintenance application that includes provision for legal costs. When the richer party has assets in that jurisdiction, a fair fight is possible. But Kerstin Beyer, a German-British divorce lawyer at the International Family Law Chambers in London, says the tables are often stacked against the poorer (and usually less knowledgable) spouse. Some husbands file for divorce abroad and simply fail to turn up at the English court, hoping that the cost and delay of enforcing the judgment abroad will lead their ex-wife to give up. A client of hers trying to gain the assets she had been awarded in Colorado was faced with a demand for a $15,000 upfront payment from a lawyer there: an impossible expense for someone of her means. Another has been pursuing, expensively and so far fruitlessly, assets in Luxembourg and Germany awarded by a London court. Pensions are particularly tricky. Some countries split them between divorcing couples as a matter of course; others regard such requests from foreign courts coldly.
也许该体系最大的弱点就是，当跨国婚姻破裂时，它会给经济实力较强的一方提供有利条件。其实，有经验的律师可快速操作以帮助经济实力较弱的配偶，例如在丈夫还未完全明白妻子的想法时，将第一笔高额法律账单打入丈夫的信用卡。在英国，接下来将是很快提起离婚程序，随之便是一张紧急抚养费申请单，当然包括法律费用。如果强者有资产在申诉地，那离婚战争才可能公平。但是伦敦国际家庭法律商会的德英离婚律师科斯汀．贝尔（Kerstin Beyer）说，情况往往会对弱者不利（通常在其不知情的情况下）。有些丈夫在国外申请离婚，而且根本不在英国法庭现身，指望高额法律费用和国外延期执行判决使其前期主动放弃。贝尔的一名客户想拿到判决的在科罗拉多的资产，却面临当地高达一万五千美元的律师收费，这对像她这种过活的人来说是天文数字。另外一位客户在以高昂的代价索取由英国法庭裁决的在卢森堡和德国的资产，到目前为止还毫无结果。退休金尤其棘手，有些国家会理所当然的进行分割，而有些国家这认为这是来自外国法庭的无礼要求。
More fundamentally, divorce arrangements in countries with English-style common law are still liable to be influenced by highly atypical fights between the super-rich, who can afford to take cases to the highest courts. In most marriages there is barely enough money to support one family in one country, notes Ms Spitz. Spreading that between two sides is a stretch, even without an expensive legal fight. As house prices plunge and savings shrivel, divorcing couples are fighting over a shrinking cake.
更根本的问题是，在英美法系国家，离婚裁决仍然受超级富豪之间非常典型的斗争的影响，这些超级富豪付得起在最高法院的费用。皮茨提到，但大多数婚姻都只能基本维持在一个国家安一个家。横亘着两边的是很大的差距，甚至没有高额的法律斗争。随着房价跳水、积蓄萎缩，离婚夫妇现在争夺的蛋糕正在变小。
注：
“Forum shopping”是英美法上的一个术语，系指利用国际民事管辖权的积极冲突，从众多有管辖权的法院中选择一个最能满足自己诉讼请求的法院去起诉的行为。对于“Forum shopping”，我国学者中有“挑选法院”、“选购法院”、“择地行诉”和“竞择法院”等不同译法。对其具体含义，我国学者的普遍理解是“当事人选择于己有利的法院起诉，从而使对方蒙受不利”。当事人在不同国家（法域）提起诉讼，由于各国（法域）政治、文化、经济、法律传统方面的差异，冲突规范存在差别，其指引的实体法会有所不同，各国（法域）法院对于同一涉外民商事案件，就可能会作出不同的判决，因此，当事人为维护自己的利益，总是希望选择一个对自己最为有利的法院进行诉讼，当事人这种选择法院的行为与在集市上进行商品买卖时挑选物品极为相似，故称之为“挑选法院”更为恰当。