Law Commons^™

Constitutional Law: A Contemporary Approach, Gregory E. Maggs, Peter J. Smith

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Constitutional Law: A Contemporary Approach (2d ed. 2011) is a textbook written by Professors Gregory E. Maggs and Peter J. Smith (both of the George Washington University Law School) and published by West (ISBN-13: 9780314273550).

The second edition of the textbook, which is suitable either for a one- or two-semester course, strives to make constitutional law easily teachable and readily accessible for students. The authors have selected the cases very carefully and provided fuller versions of the opinions so that students get a good sense of the Court's reasoning. Text boxes call the students' attention to important aspects of each …

The Alien Tort Statute And The Law Of Nations, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Courts and scholars have struggled to identify the original meaning of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). As enacted in 1789, the ATS provided "[t]hat the district courts... shall... have cognizance... of all causes where an alien sues for a tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." The statute was rarely invoked for almost two centuries until, in the 1980s, lower federal courts began reading the statute expansively to allow foreign citizens to sue other foreign citizens for violations of modern customary international law that occurred outside the United States. In 2004 …