I participated in the Conference on “The World of the Trust” / La fiducie dans tous ses tats” in Montreal, Canada, from September 23 to 25, 2010. Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law, McGill University organized the event.
Not only researchers of typical Anglo-American Trust such as UK and US but also researchers who belong to the field of mixed legal system such as Scotland and South Africa as well as researchers from the countries that have recently adopted trust such as France, Switzerland, and China, were gathering to the conference to discuss the essence of trust and the differences of trust system among countries. Also, five Japanese academics including me joined the conference from different universities. The diversity made the conference quite interesting. Having a strong influence of French law historically, the province of Quebec in which Montreal is located also adopted trust and established a unique trust system, so-called “Quebec Trust”. The fact that about one third of the speeches were made in French also reflects geographical characteristics. Researchers had various kinds of background and some of them who belong to universities in UK, US or Canada are originally from other continental Europe countries etc. Various kinds of comparative law research were conducted at the discussion.
Speakers and commentators included the world-class big names and the up-and-coming younger researchers from different countries. All the speeches were very fruitful and suggestive. It was a real pleasure and honor for me to have a chance to join such an excellent conference.
This special article in the Quarterly Review of Corporation Law and Society Vol26, planned and edited at a time close to when the conference was held, is entitled, Trusts Without Equity. It addresses the issues concerning the recognition and introduction of trusts in the civil law jurisdictions where the legal theory of equity does not exist.