Law Commons^™

Evading Legislative Jurisdiction, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the last few years, and mostly unnoticed, courts have adopted a radically different approach to issues of legislative jurisdiction. Instead of grappling with the difficult question of whether Congress intended a law to reach beyond U.S. borders, courts have side-stepped it entirely. Courts have done so by redefining the definition of extraterritoriality. Significant and contentious decisions in the Ninth and D.C. Circuits paved the way by holding that not all regulation of overseas foreign conduct is extraterritorial. And then suddenly, last term, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed life into the practice. In its landmark Morrison v. National Australia Bank …

Duplicative Foreign Litigation, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What should a court do when a lawsuit involving the same parties and the same issues is already pending in the court of another country? With the growth of transnational litigation, the issue of reactive, duplicative proceedings - and the waste inherent in such duplication - becomes a more common problem. The future does not promise change. In a modern, globalized world, litigants are increasingly tempted to forum shop among countries to find courts and law more favorably inclined to them than their opponents.

The federal courts, however, do not yet have a coherent response to the problem. They apply …