Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Jurisdiction Over Non-Eu Defendants: The Brussels I Article 79 Review, Ronald A. Brand

Book Chapters

When the original EU Brussels I Regulation on Jurisdiction and the Recognition of Judgments was “recast” in 2011, the Commission recommended that the application of its direct jurisdiction rules apply to all defendants in Member State courts, and not just to defendants from other Member States. This approach was not adopted, but set for reconsideration through Article 79 of the Brussels I (Recast) Regulation, which requires that the European Commission report in 2022 on the possible application of the direct jurisdiction rules of the Regulation to all defendants. Without such a change, the Recast Regulation continues to allow each Member …

M/S Bremen V Zapata Off -Shore Company: Us Common Law Affirmation Of Party Autonomy, Ronald A. Brand

Book Chapters

In the 1972 decision in M/S Bremen v Zapata Off -Shore Company, the U.S. Supreme Court brought together the development of doctrines dealing with party autonomy in choice of court and forum non conveniens. Especially when considered alongside developments favoring arbitration clauses in U.S. courts, the case provides a rich study of conflicts of laws jurisprudence in the twentieth century. This chapter begins with a discussion of fundamental elements of the development of party autonomy in U.S. law and the historical context of the law prior to The Bremen. A brief mention of how one prominent political family …

The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations (Ngos) In Improving Human Rights In Iraq, Naser A. Yahya

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Iraq has had a long history of human rights violations since its inception as a modern state in 1921. This is true especially under the personalistic dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Under his regime, the Iraqi people suffered a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including political imprisonment, torture, and summary and arbitrary executions. This regime used a variety of mechanisms to squelch political dissent, including house-to-house searches; arbitrary arrests, often in large numbers; surveillance; harassment and questioning of family members; detention of targeted individuals, such as those returning to Iraq pursuant to amnesties, at unknown locations; …

L’Utilité Du Droit Comparé (The Utility Of Comparative Law), Vivian Grosswald Curran

Book Chapters

French Abstract: Cette contribution était le discours d’ouverture à la Conférence des 100 ans de l’Institut Édouard Lambert à l’Université de Lyon. Elle discute de l’utilité du droit comparé dans le monde actuel d’une perspective technique dans le cadre d’une situation aux États-Unis et d’une perspective plus politique dans le cadre d’un arrêt de la CJUE.

English Abstract: This essay was delivered as a keynote address to the conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Institut Édouard Lambert at the University of Lyon. It argues for the usefulness of comparative law in today’s world from a technical angle in …

Federal Rule 44.1: Foreign Law In U.S. Courts Today, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

This article presents an in-depth analysis of the latent methodological issues that are as much a cause of U.S. federal court avoidance of foreign law as are judicial difficulties in obtaining foreign legal materials and difficulties in understanding foreign legal orders and languages. It explores Rule 44.1’s inadvertent introduction of a civil-law method into a common-law framework, and the results that have ensued, including an incomplete transition of foreign law from being an issue of fact to becoming an issue of law. It addresses the ways in which courts obtain information about foreign law today, suggesting among others the methodological …

Access To Justice: Theory And Practice From A Comparative Perspective, Colin Crawford, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Publications

The papers gathered in this volume analyze access to justice in Latin America, Europe, and North America from a philosophical, legal, and sociological perspective. In these three regions of the world, as in the rest of the globe, liberal democracies face a troubling gap between the normative and the descriptive: the access to justice promises made by the legal and political system are not fully realized in practice. The studies collected here, therefore, share two baseline assumptions. First, the right of access to justice is fundamental in a liberal state. Access to justice ensures that citizens are able to defend …

Smoke Screens: An Initial Analysis Of The Coronavirus Lawsuits In The United States Against China And The World Health Organization, Ana Santos Rutschman, Robert Gatter

All Faculty Scholarship

In this short essay we provide a preliminary analysis of the lawsuits filed by Missouri against China, and New York against the World Health Organization over the COVID-19 pandemic. We also situate the lawsuits against the expanding coronavirus-related misinformation “epidemic.”

Indecency Regulation Of The Fcc And Censorship Law In Republic Korea: Comparison And Contrasts, Min-Soo "Minee" Roh

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

Regulating music on radio or television is not a straightforward process, as the music is comprised of lyrics of words. On top of the lyrics, any music performance has an additional layer of choreography and dress code. If any individual elements or combined elements is obscene or indecent, the government attempts to regulate broadcasting both music and performance. This leads to regulating general speech on communications and it requires this paper to look into regulation of broadcasting in general and specific examples of music broadcasting regulation on radio and television, particularly, in the United States (“States”) and in Republic of …

Redefining The Rico Statute: Potential Avenues For Improvement, David Scouten

Senior Honors Theses

The civil application of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) has been misapplied by the lower courts, but the statute can be improved by incorporating elements that will make the statute a better tool for justice. It is evident from examining the procedural limitations of the statute and important case law that the securities fraud gap, terrorism financing, and difficulties for indirect victims are three critical subjects that need to be addressed by enhancing RICO. Flaws and shortcomings of the RICO statute have led to inconsistencies in court rulings. The expansive language of RICO can be limited to …

Substantive Equality And Sexual Orientation: Twenty Years Of Gay And Lesbian Rights Adjudication Under The South African Constitution, Eric C. Christiansen

Publications

Examining the historical achievements and failures of the South African Constitution’s sexual orientation protections highlights larger lessons from the last twenty years of constitutionalism in South Africa. In this Article, I use the drafting history, Constitutional Court adjudication, and the practical insufficiencies of the Constitution’s inclusion of sexual orientation-based protections to highlight three categories of insights. These lessons include an encouraging insight regarding the inclusion of novel and progressive elements when drafting modern constitutions; some modest claims about the capacity of courts to combat inequality based on sexual orientation despite the limitations of purely legal victories; and a hopeful affirmation …

U.S. Discovery And Foreign Blocking Statutes, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

What is the reality between U.S. discovery and the foreign blocking statutes that impede it in France and other civil law states? How should we understand their interface at a time when companies are multinational in composition as well as in their areas of commerce? U.S. courts grapple with the challenge of understanding why they should adhere to strictures that seem to compromise constitutional or quasi-constitutional rights of American plaintiffs, while French and German lawyers and judges struggle with the challenges U.S. discovery poses to values of privacy and fair trial procedure in their legal systems. This article seeks to …

Section 702 And The Collection Of International Telephone And Internet Content, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the NSA to collect the electronic communications of non-U.S. targets located overseas. Recent media reports and declassified documents reveal a more extensive program than publicly understood. The article begins by considering the origins of the current programs and the relevant authorities, particularly the transfer of part of the post-9/11 President’s Surveillance Program to FISA. It outlines the contours of the 2007 Protect America Act, before its replacement in 2008 by the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The section ends with a brief discussion of the current state of foreign intelligence collection …

Fisa Reform, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Congress and the Executive Branch are poised to take up the issue of FISA reform in 2014. What has been missing from the discussion is a comprehensive view of ways in which reform could be given effect—i.e., a taxonomy of potential options. This article seeks to fill the gap. The aim is to deepen the conversation about abeyant approaches to foreign intelligence gathering, to allow fuller discussion of what a comprehensive package could contain, and to place initiatives that are currently under consideration within a broader, over-arching framework. The article begins by considering the legal underpinnings and challenges to the …

Mass Torts And Universal Jurisdiction, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

The technologies of the present era mean that injuries have become more massive in dimension. Mass torts affect greater numbers of people and larger geographical areas. Consequently, they can cross borders, affecting the populations of multiple countries. One of the two mechanisms in tort law for remedying mass catastrophes. restricted to cases involving jus cogens violations (namely, violations of human rights so grave as to be against international customary law, or the "law of nations"), is universal jurisdiction pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).

Despite the distinctive official restriction of universal jurisdiction to the criminal law domain in civilian …

Vertical Dimensions In The Quality Of Law, Bartram Brown

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Civilizing American Civil Justice: International Insights, James Maxeiner, Gyooho Lee, Armin Weber

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1776, when Americans declared independence from Britain, they also declared their rights. Their declarations of rights count “open courts” as among the best means for constitutional development. Open courts should secure to every man, without regard to wealth, a just remedy for every wrong suffered, according to the law of the land, by fair and speedy procedure.

Since 1776 Americans have invested heavily in creating open courts. They have been disappointed by returns that fall “far short of perfection” (Maurice Rosenberg). They have found reform to be an “unending effort to perfect the imperfect” (Jay Tidmarsh).

That Americans have …

A Common Lawyer’S Perspective On The European Perspective On Punitive Damages, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Punitive damages are generally available in common law jurisdictions, but are disfavored in civil law systems. This paper argues that the main reasons for the difference are historical and cultural. Roman law and the French Revolution heavily influenced the civil law. Civilians were taught that legal development comes from the top down. They learned to treat law as a system of general principles and to resist anomalies. They found it relatively easy to reject the intrusion of criminal themes into private law. The common law developed one case at a time, with no particular emphasis on systematic coherence. It was …

U.S. Class Actions And The "Global Class", George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Robert Casad's articles on comparative civil procedure were among the first comparative law pieces that caught my eye when, as a freshly-minted associate at a leading New York law firm, I found myself leafing through comparative law journals, rather than amassing billable hours. I had no idea then that comparative law could be as fascinating as I have come to find it, certainly not in a field like civil procedure where the dividends of comparative law work were by no means obvious to me. (Comparative law was not even taught in any guise at Yale Law School in the late …

Jurisdictions And Causes Of Action: Commercial Considerations In Dealing With Bullying, Stress And Harassment Cases-Part Ii, Niall Neligan

Articles

In the concluding part of this two part article, the author will
examine how the courts have developed rules for dealing with
tortious claims for psychiatric injuries arising out of bullying, stress
and harassment cases. The article will examine whether it is
desirable to consolidate and codify employment rights law in order
to provide clarity to prospective litigants. Finally, the author will
argue that if codification is required, then this will necessitate a
change in the nature of present jurisdictions for bringing claims
involving bullying, stress and harassment in the workplace.

Examining A Comparative Law Myth: Two Hundred Years Of Riparian Misconception, Andrea B. Carroll

Journal Articles

This article is a first step in an effort to critically examine - and to debunk - some of the myths that persist about the degree to which the common and civil law systems differ. Specifically, the article questions the validity of recent scholarly commentary suggesting that the primary differences between the systems can be found in their substantive legal rules or in their respective "spirits." A relatively narrow issue of riparian access perfectly highlights the problem. Nearly all of the high courts in the United States that have examined this particular riparian issue have chosen to adopt either the …

Like Migratory Birds- Latin American Claimants In U.S. Courts And The Ford-Firestone Rollover Litigation, Manuel A. Gómez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Two Valuable Treatises On Civil Procedure, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Comparative Legal Cultures: The Civil Law And The Common Law On Evidence And Judgment (Oral Presentation Of The Book By Antoine Garapon & Ioannis Papadopoulos, Juger En Amerique Et En France : Culture Judiciaire Française Et Common Law, Ioannis Papadopoulos

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

This book is the fruit of a basic idea, namely that comparative law is meaningless if it is regarded as the sole study of juxtaposed legal systems, regardless of their cultural dimension. The book’s main aim is to identify and analyze the basic cultural differences between the two great legal traditions of the West, the Continental and the Anglo-American one, through a thorough examination of the trial, and of judicial institutions more widely, as these are organized in France and the United States. For that purpose, after an introduction to the concept of legal culture and the basic notions of …

The Battle To Establish An Adversarial Trial System In Italy, William T. Pizzi, Mariangela Montagna

Publications

No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Conflict And Jurisdictional Equilibration: Paths To A Via Media, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Comparative View Of Standards Of Proof, Kevin M. Clermont, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In common-law systems, the standard of proof for ordinary civil cases requires the party who bears the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the facts alleged are true. In contrast, the prevailing standard of proof for civil cases in civil-law systems is indistinguishable from the standard for criminal cases: the judge must be firmly convinced that the facts alleged are true. This striking difference in common-law and civil-law procedures has received very little attention from either civilian or comparative scholars.

The preponderance standard applied in common-law systems is openly probabilistic and produces, on average, …

A Proposal For Comparative Responsibility Analysis In Comparative Negligence Jurisdictions, Joel Leslie Terwilliger

LLM Theses and Essays

Part II of this thesis discusses the common law background of the assumption of risk and how it fits into the scheme of negligence principles as an affirmative defense. Part II also examines the background of assumption of risk and parallels its development with contributory negligence principles. Part III looks at how the assumption of risk has been redefined and narrowed in its application as comparative fault principles gained favor. It includes an examination of statutory erosion and in modern judicial activism. Next, Part IV examines how the assumption of risk, particularly the secondary form, conflicts with comparative fault and …

Nationality, Domicile And Habitual Residence - Does The New German Citizenship Law Call For A Change Of A Principal Connecting Factor In Private International Law ?, Marc Cziesielsky

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of the new citizenship law which was proposed by the new German federal government was to give legal aliens living in Germany a choice to become German citizens without having to give up the nationality which was conferred on them by their parentage or descent. This thesis will question whether this rigid concept should be completely abolished after an assessment of both the constitutionality and the exact implications of the new citizenship law. In the light of the conclusions, the comparative part of this thesis will then focus on a more general approach and will compare the concepts …

The United States' Approach To International Civil Litigation: Recent Developments In Forum Selection, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Liability Of The Automobile And Motorcycle Manufacturers And Their Suppliers For Defective Products In The United States Compared To Germany, Daniel Karl Robyn

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis deals with the lability of automobile and motorcycle manufacturers, as well as their suppliers, in situations where a defective product causes a harmful event. Specifically, it compares the product liability laws of the Federal Republic of Germany to those of the United States of America. Before entering into the details of legal doctrine, the introductory note provides background information on the social and economic aspects of automobile use in those two countries. Next, Chapter I describes the liability regime governing claims against German motor vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers. Chapter II focuses on the comparable law in the …