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This article examines the structural tension between common law discovery/disclosure and the procedural sovereignty of civil law States in the post- GDPR landscape. Building on a comparative reconstruction of evidentiary models of civil law countries (legal systems) and common law systems, it analyses how U.S. and English courts project discovery and disclosure orders extraterritorially, often treating the 1970 Hague Evidence Convention and, within the EU, Regulation (EU) 2020/1783 as optional channels. The study then explores responses from the law of civil law countries (legal systems) through blocking statutes and data protection law, focusing on the French Loi de blocage, the Christopher X judgment and the emerging role of the GDPR—particularly Article 48—as a sectoral loi de blocage in cases such as Kashef v BNP Paribas. It argues that compatibility is only partial and context-dependent, and outlines the conditions for a “civil-law friendly discovery” grounded in comity, proportionality, court-to-court cooperation and the fundamental-rights architecture of EU law.
