Jurisdiction Commons^™

Doe V. Nestle, S.A.: Chocolate And The Prohibition On Child Slavery, Megan M. Coppa

Pace International Law Review

West Africa is presently home to approximately 1.5 million acres of cocoa farmland, which subsequently produces 70% of the world’s current chocolate supply. Côte d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, is one of the largest cocoa producing countries within West Africa.

The increase of farmland and the need to control the deteriorating conditions have always created a demand for farm workers. Regrettably, more than 1.5 million cocoa farm workers in West Africa are currently children. These child workers are exposed to hazardous dust, flames, smoke, and chemicals, are required to utilize dangerous tools that they are not properly trained …

Circuit Board Jurisdiction: Electronic Payments And The Presumption Against Extraterritoriality, Samuel L. Hatcher

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Terra Firma As Open Seas: Interpreting Kiobel In The Failed State Context, Drew F. Waldbeser

Indiana Law Journal

This Note will ultimately argue that, despite the expansive language in Kiobel, the Court’s reasoning does not necessarily foreclose all “foreign-cubed” claims. Suits alleging human rights violations originating from conduct that took place in failed states avoid the concerns the Court emphasized in Kiobel. The Court should allow jurisdiction for human rights offenses in failed states, despite their “foreign-cubed” nature, because the already existing rationale for allowing jurisdiction for international piracy offenses is highly analogous.

Part I of this Note explores the ATS jurisprudence leading up to and including Kiobel. Besides exploring the tensions and policy interests courts are grappling …

Extraterritorial Application Of The Alien Tort Statute After Kiobel, Ranon Altman

University of Miami Business Law Review

This article explores when corporations can be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute for human rights abuses that are committed outside of the United States. The Alien Tort Statute grants the United States district courts jurisdiction for torts committed against foreigners in violation of the law of nations. While the Alien Tort Statute concerns international law, it does not indicate whether the district courts have jurisdiction over disputes that involve conduct outside of the United States.

In this article, I focus my analysis on the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. That case …

Jurisdiction - Aliens, Federal Courts And The Law Of Nations, Jeff Ballew

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Filartiga V. Pena-Irala: A Contribution To The Development Of Customary International Law By A Domestic Court, C. Donald Johnson Jr.

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Filartiga V. Pena-Irala: International Justice In A Modern American Court?, Josef Rohlik

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Three C'S Of Jurisdiction Over Human Rights Claims In U.S. Courts, Chimène I. Keitner

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

The legal aftermath of the Holocaust continues to unfold in U.S. courts. Most recently, the Seventh Circuit dismissed claims against the Hungarian national railway and Hungarian national bank for World War II-era crimes against Hungarian Jews on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not exhausted available local remedies in Hungary or provided a “legally compelling” reason for not doing so. More broadly, heated debates about the role of U.S. courts in enforcing international human rights law have not abated since the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., which restricted but did not eliminate federal …

Filartiga V. Pena-Irala After Ten Years: Major Breakthrough Or Legal Oddity?, Karen E. Holt

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Federal Jurisdiction Over U.S. Citizens' Claims For Violations Of The Law Of Nations In Light Of Sosa, Gwynne Skinner

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Kiobel And The Law Of Nations, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Since 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) has provided federal court jurisdiction for tort suits by aliens for violations of the law of nations. Though debate certainly exists about the method by which ATS-appropriate torts are identified, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the substantive content of ATS causes of action is derived from the law of nations. In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Supreme Court justices addressed not the substance of ATS cases but the reach of that statute.

At least at the time of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the law of nations included not only …

Through Our Glass Darkly: Does Comparative Law Counsel The Use Of Foreign Law In U.S. Constitutional Adjudication?, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This (35 pp.) essay appears as a contribution to a law review symposium on the work of Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon in comparative law. The essay begins by asking what comparative law as a scholarly discipline might suggest about the use of foreign (or unratified or nationally "unaccepted" international law) by US courts in US constitutional adjudication. The trend seemed to be gathering steam in US courts between the early-1990s and mid-2000s, but by the late-2000s, it appeared to be stalled as a practice, notwithstanding the intense scholarly interest throughout this period.

Practical politics within the US …

Rethinking Legal Globalization: The Case Of Transnational Personal Jurisdiction, Donald Earl Childress Iii

William & Mary Law Review

Under what circumstances may a United States court exercise personal jurisdiction over alien defendants? Courts and commentators have yet to offer a coherent response to this question. That is surprising given that scholars have been calling for the globalization of U.S. law since the late 1980s as part of a transnational litigation narrative.

Through doctrinal and empirical analysis, this Article argues that a U.S. court should have power to exercise personal jurisdiction over an alien defendant not served with process within a state’s borders when (1) the defendant has received constitutionally adequate notice, (2) the state has a constitutionally sufficient …

Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum: The Alien Tort Statute's Jurisdictional Universalism In Retreat, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell), a long-running Alien Tort Statute (ATS) case brought by Nigerian plaintiffs alleging aiding and abetting liability against various multinational oil companies for human rights violations of the Nigerian government in the 1990s, including a non-US Shell corporation, first came before the US Supreme Court in the 2011-2012 term, following a sweeping Second Circuit holding that there was no "liability for corporations" under the ATS. In oral argument, however, several Justices asked a different question from corporate liability: noting that the case involved foreign plaintiffs, foreign defendants, and conduct taking place entirely on foreign sovereign …

Or A Treaty Of The United States: Treaties And The Alien Tort Statute After Kiobel, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

The decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. left open a number of questions about the scope of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). One such question is the extent to which Kiobel ’s holding on extraterritoriality applies to the oft-neglected final words of the ATS: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” What if one such treaty obliged the United States to provide a civil forum for litigation ofhumanrights violations that occurred abroad …

Kiobel: Muddling The Distinction Between Prescriptive And Adjudicative Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Colangelo

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Extraterritoriality, Universal Jurisdiction, And The Challenge Of Kiobel V.Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Vivian Grosswald Curran

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Kiobel, Unilateralism, And The Retreat From Extraterritoriality, Austen L. Parrish

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum: A Practitioner's Viewpoint, Marco Simons

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Kiobel, Extraterritoriality, And The "Global War On Terror", Craig Martin

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

A New Paradigm For The Alien Tort Statute Under Extraterritoriality And The Universality Principle, Jason Jarvis

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tort Statute, With Aliens And Pirates, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

The pirates of the Caribbean are back. Not in another fantastical film but in the litigation over the reach of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). For the first time since they dealt with the legal issues raised by a wave of maritime predation in the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, Supreme Court justices are seriously discussing piracy. This crime has emerged as the test case for evaluating the major controversies about the reach of the statute -- namely, extraterritorial application and the existence of corporate liability. At oral argument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, justices of all persuasions …

Discretion, Delegation, And Defining In The Constitution's Law Of Nations Clause, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

Never in the nation's history has the scope and meaning of Congress's power to "Define and Punish. . . Offenses Against the Law of Nations" mattered as much. The once obscure power has in recent years been exercised in broad and controversial ways, ranging from civil human rights litigation under the Alien Tort Statue (ATS) to military commissions trials in Guantanamo Bay. Yet it has not yet been recognized that these issues both involve the Offenses Clauses, and indeed raise common constitutional questions.First, can Congress only "Define" offenses that clearly already exist in international law, or does it have discretion …

Remarks On The Gjil Symposium On Corporate Responsibility And The Alien Tort Statute, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

The following essay is a summary of remarks I delivered at the symposium on corporate responsibility and the Alien Tort Statute held at Georgetown Law School after the first Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. Supreme Court oral argument. My remarks addressed the importance of considering foreign national law when judging the meaning of universal civil jurisdiction, and, implicitly, the inextricability of domestic from international law matters.

A Realist Defense Of The Alien Tort Statute, Robert Knowles

Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers a new justification for modern litigation under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a provision from the 1789 Judiciary Act that permits victims of human rights violations anywhere in the world to sue tortfeasors in U.S. courts. The ATS, moribund for nearly 200 years, has recently emerged as an important but controversial tool for the enforcement of human rights norms. “Realist” critics contend that ATS litigation exasperates U.S. allies and rivals, weakens efforts to combat terrorism, and threatens U.S. sovereignty by importing into our jurisprudence undemocratic international law norms. Defenders of the statute, largely because they do not …

Boyakasha, Fist To Fist: Respect And The Philosophical Link With Reciprocity In International Law And Human Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Law Of Nations In Cyberspace: Fashioning A Cause Of Action For The Supression Of Human Rights Reports On The Internet , Thomas Cochrane

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

For nearly two decades, two U.S. statutes have provided redress to victims of human rights abuses: the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. A handful of plaintiffs have recovered under these laws against foreign perpetrators of a narrow range of human rights violations. The growth and proliferation of communications technology raises important questions about how these statutes will be used in the future. Human rights activists have discovered that they can instantly communicate over the Internet with supporters and news media anywhere in the world. Repressive regimes have responded by attempting to restrict such communications. Could cutting …