## Facts

- Twenty Arab states and Palestine created the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) by the Arab Monetary Fund Agreement to support economic and monetary cooperation among its members.
- The Agreement stated that the AMF would have juridical personality, including power to contract, acquire and dispose of property, and sue and be sued.
- The AMF’s headquarters were established in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
- The UAE ratified the Agreement and, as host state, recognised the AMF’s legal status under UAE law.
- The AMF appointed Dr. Jawad Hashim as its director-general.
- During his tenure, Hashim allegedly embezzled about US$50 million from the AMF.
- The AMF brought civil proceedings in the United Kingdom against Hashim and members of his family to recover the alleged misappropriated funds.
- Hashim applied to strike out the claim, arguing that the AMF lacked capacity to sue in England because it was created by an international agreement to which the UK was not a party and which was not part of UK domestic law.
- The trial court refused to strike out the claim, but the Court of Appeal reversed and dismissed the action for want of capacity.
- The AMF appealed to the House of Lords on the preliminary question of its legal personality and capacity to sue in England.

## Issues

1. Whether the Arab Monetary Fund had legal personality and capacity to sue in English courts, given that it was established by an international agreement not incorporated into UK law and to which the UK was not a party.
2. Whether English law could recognise the AMF as a juridical person by reference to the law of the UAE (the host state) that recognised the AMF’s legal status.
3. Whether recognising the AMF’s capacity would amount to an English court adjudicating upon or enforcing an unincorporated treaty.

## Decision

- The House of Lords allowed the AMF’s appeal.
- The House of Lords held that the AMF had capacity to sue in England and that the action should not have been struck out.
- The House of Lords reasoned that English courts could recognise the AMF as a juridical person because UAE law (as the law of the place where the AMF was established and recognised) treated the AMF as having legal personality.
- The House of Lords rejected the argument that this required the English courts to enforce the AMF Agreement as a treaty in domestic law; the relevant basis for capacity was the AMF’s status under UAE law, with the treaty serving as background to that status.

## Legal Principles

- Treaties do not form part of UK domestic law unless incorporated by legislation, but the existence and content of a treaty may be treated as facts where relevant to issues properly before the court.
- Under private international law, English courts may recognise the legal personality of a foreign juridical entity if it is validly constituted and recognised under the law of the state where it has that status.
- An entity established by international agreement may still be capable of being treated, for English procedural purposes, as a legal person if its personality is recognised under a foreign municipal law that English courts can acknowledge.
- Recognising a foreign entity’s capacity to sue does not necessarily involve enforcing the treaty that created it; the court may instead give effect to the entity’s status as conferred by foreign law.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords held that the Arab Monetary Fund could sue in England because it was recognised as a juridical person under UAE law, and English law could acknowledge that status through ordinary rules for recognising foreign legal persons without treating the Fund’s founding agreement as directly enforceable in UK domestic law.


Arab Monetary Fund v. Hashim and Others, [1991] UKHL J0221-1 (1991)