Conflict of Laws Commons^™

Habitual Residence V. Domicile: A Challenge Facing American Conflicts Of Laws, Mo Zhang

Maine Law Review

Habitual residence has now become an internationally accepted connecting factor in conflict of laws and is widely being used as an alternative to, or replacement of, domicile. This concept, however, remains remote to American conflict of laws. Although the use of habitual residence in the U.S. courts is mandated by the codification of the Hague Child Abduction Convention, there is still a lack of general acceptance in American conflict of law literature. The Article argues that habitual residence should be adopted as a conflict of law connecting factor in American conflict of laws, and it would be unwise for ...

Things Invisible To See: State Action & Private Property, Joseph William Singer, Isaac Saidel-Goley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article revisits the state action doctrine, a judicial invention that shields “private” or “non-governmental” discrimination from constitutional scrutiny. Traditionally, this doctrine has applied to discrimination even in places of public accommodation, like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Born of overt racial discrimination, the doctrine has inflicted substantial injustice throughout its inglorious history, and courts have continuously struggled in vain to coherently apply the doctrine. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has not fully insulated “private” or “horizontal” relations among persons from constitutional scrutiny. The cases in which it has applied constitutional norms to non-governmental actors should be celebrated rather ...

Standing In The Way Of Our Goals: How The Best Interest Of The Child (Whatever That Means) Is Never Reached In Texas Due To Lack Of Standing For Third-Party Parents, Jessica Nation Holtman

Texas A&M Law Review

Currently in Texas, standing options for third-party nonparents seeking to file suits affecting the parent-child relationship (“SAPCRs”) are extremely limited. And, even though the standing options are codified, the evidence necessary to meet the threshold elements may be drastically different depending on the case’s location. These third parties, who have previously exercised parental responsibilities, must make showings to the court that most divorced parents could not make; and this is just for a chance to bring a claim in court. While this seems unfair, and Texas should absolutely resolve the split among its appellate courts, there is one extremely ...

China's Anti-Corruption Crackdown And The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Daniel C.K. Chow

Texas A&M Law Review

China’s highly publicized crackdown on corruption may affect the type and number of cases in China that arise under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), but it should not be assumed that the crackdown will necessarily lead to fewer FCPA prosecutions. Although there is some overlap of the goals of China’s corruption crackdown and the goals of the FCPA, China’s crackdown also serves important goals of the ruling Communist Party. The main goal of the current crackdown is to reinforce the Party’s power by targeting enemies and rivals of the current leadership. The crackdown is not ...

The Blurring Of The Public/Private Distinction Or The Collapse Of A Category? The Story Of Investment Arbitration, Guillermo Garcia Sanchez

Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Navajo Nation V. Department Of The Interior, Jaclyn R. Van Natta

Public Land and Resources Law Review

In Navajo Nation v. Department of the Interior, the Navajo Nation challenged the Department of the Interior’s 2001 and 2008 water allocation guidelines and asserted that under NEPA and the APA the guidelines violated the Navajo Nation’s water rights. The Navajo Nation also asserted a breach of trust claim against the United States. After nearly a decade of attempted settlement negotiations, the Navajo Nation reasserted its complaints. The District Court for the District of Arizona denied the Navajo Nation’s motions, and the Navajo Nation appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined the Navajo Nation ...

The Face-Off Between Data Privacy And Discovery: Why U.S. Courts Should Respect Eu Data Privacy Law When Considering The Production Of Protected Information, Samantha Cutler

Boston College Law Review

When foreign parties involved in U.S. litigation are ordered to produce information that is protected by EU data privacy law, they are caught in an unfortunate “Catch-22.” Historically, U.S. courts have pointed to the unlikelihood of sanctions for data privacy law violations to justify these orders. EU data privacy law, however, has recently undergone several shifts in favor of tougher rules and significantly increased sanctions. Additionally, EU regulators are now more vigilant and active in enforcing these laws. These developments, combined with the benefits of international judicial respect and the intrinsic value of privacy, mean that U.S ...

Sentencing Enhancement For Aggravating Role: The Need For The Numerosity Test As The Legal Standard For The "Otherwise Extensive" Criminal Activity Determination, Nicole Borczyk

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

International Mother Of Mystery: Protecting Surrogate Mothers’ Participation In International Commercial Surrogacy Contracts, Jamie Cooperman

Golden Gate University Law Review

The lack of uniform international laws regarding surrogacy exposes all parties involved in surrogacy arrangements to a variety of problems. Challenges include determining the status of children, the rights of intended parents, and the protection of surrogates. Issues regarding the citizenship of babies born to surrogacy agreements tend arise when the child leaves the birth country and enters the intended country of citizenship.

Overall, international surrogacy arrangements present three central problems: (1) the citizenship of children, (2) the rights of intended parents, and (3) the rights and protection of women who serve as surrogates. This Comment focuses on the third ...

Competing Sovereignty And Laws’ Domains, Paul B. Stephan

Pepperdine Law Review

We live in a world of multiple sovereignties. Many think of nation-states as the principal sovereign actors, but sovereign substates and international institutions created by states also hold sway. Each claims a domain, an area (spatial, temporal, conceptual) over which it rules. Ruling includes adopting and applying law. When domains overlap, laws can clash. Competition among sovereigns over legal domains poses a challenge to people who take law into account as they live their lives and plan their futures. What makes these issues immediately important is the growth of the international-law enterprise over the last quarter-century. Both the ambitions and ...

Full Faith And Credit, Choice Of Laws, And Extraterritorial Regulation Of Corporate Transactions, Gregory S. Sergienko

Greg Sergienko

In a federal system in which each state may enact laws providing for the chartering and governance of corporations and in which corporations can and do conduct business in more than one state, several states may claim an interest in regulating the conduct of a given corporation. The enactment of state laws that are intended to restrict hostile corporate takeovers and that purport to extend to foreign corporations is one example of this phenomenon. "Typically, any of a number of jurisdictional links might trigger the application of such an anti-takeover statute: the target's being incorporated in the state, its ...

Punishment But Not A Penalty? Punitive Damages Are Impermissible Under Foreign Substantive Law, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review

It is a well-established principle that no court applies the penal laws of another sovereign. But what exactly is a penal law? According to Judge Cardozo, a penal law effects “vindication of the public justice” rather than “reparation to one aggrieved.” Although courts have historically treated punitive damages as a purely civil remedy, that attitude has shifted over time. Modern American punitive damages serve not to compensate the plaintiff but to punish the defendant on behalf of the whole community. Therefore, when courts rely on foreign substantive law to impose punitive damages, they arguably violate the well-established principle that no ...

Choice Of Law In Ohio: Two Steps Routinely Missed, Richard S. Walinski

Akron Law Review

At last tally, courts in fewer than half of the states look to the Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws for any part of their choice-of-law rules. Ohio, however, is in the minority that does. In fact, Ohio has endorsed the Restatement (Second) with surprising enthusiasm. The Supreme Court of Ohio took the unusual step of announcing in 1984 and again in 2007 that it has “adopted” the Restatement (Second) “in its entirety” for resolution of all conflict-of-law questions that arise in this state.

Despite the court’s wholesale endorsement of the Restatement (Second), the courts of Ohio—including the supreme ...

Treaty Exit And Intra-Branch Conflict At The Interface Of International And Domestic Law, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter, forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law, considers two important and unresolved issues raised by unilateral withdrawal from or denunciation of treaties. The first issue concerns whether treaty obligations end in both international and domestic law after a state leaves a treaty. Exit often produces the same effects in both legal systems, but some withdrawals bifurcate a treaty’s status, ending its obligations in domestic law but continuing to bind the state internationally, or vice versa. The second issue concerns denunciations initiated by different branches of government. The decision to withdraw from a treaty is ...

International Comity And The Non-State Actor, Microsoft: Why Law Enforcement Access To Data Stored Abroad Act (Leads Act) Promotes International Comity, Sabah Siddiqui

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Currently large email service providers, such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are refusing to comply with warrants issued under the Secured Communications Act (“SCA”) because in many instances, the requested information may be stored in servers located abroad. In the dismissed Supreme Court case, In re Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled & Maintained by Microsoft Corporation, the Supreme Court should have addressed whether an internet service provider must comply with a warrant issued under the SCA when the requested information is stored in a foreign country and whether enforcement of these warrants would be an impermissible extraterritorial application ...

Crossing Troubled Waters: Joining Non-Signatories In Maritime Arbitration - The Co-Optation And Containment Of Consent In United States And British Law, Glenys P. Spence

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Reach Of States: The Dormant Commerce Clause, Extraterritorial State Regulation, And The Concerns Of Federalism, Peter C. Felmly

Maine Law Review

The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution provides that “[t]he Congress shall have Power ... [t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Interpreting this explicit grant of power to Congress, the Supreme Court has long recognized the existence of an implied limitation on the power of a state to legislate in areas of interstate commerce when Congress has remained silent. Under what is referred to as the negative or “dormant” Commerce Clause, the federal courts have thus scrutinized state legislation for well over one hundred years. In the past ...

Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments In Asia, Adeline Chong

Research Collection School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Smith V. Town Of Pittston: Municipal Home Rule's Narrow Escape From The Morass Of Implicit Preemption, Shane Wright

Maine Law Review

In Smith v. Town of Pittston, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, upheld a municipal ordinance adopted by the town of Pittston that prohibited the spreading of septage within Pittston. The majority held that Pittston's ordinance did not violate the Maine Hazardous Waste, Septage and Solid Waste Management Act (Solid Waste Management Act), which “govern[s] the disposal of garbage, sludge, septage and other waste.” The majority interpreted the “home rule” statute as granting sufficient authority to Pittston, as a municipal corporation, to enact the ordinance at issue. The dissent, on the other hand, would ...

New Hampshire Motor Transport Association V. Rowe: Federal Preemption Of Maine's Attempt To Regulate Internet Sales Of Tobacco To Minors, Nathaniel D. Bryans

Maine Law Review

In New Hampshire Motor Transport Ass'n v. Rowe, trade associations sought a declaratory judgment that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) preempts a Maine law enacted to facilitate collection of state taxes and restrict the delivery of tobacco products to minors (the Tobacco Delivery Law). The district court granted the plaintiffs' second motion for summary judgment in part, finding that a single provision of little independent consequence escaped preemption, and enjoined enforcement of the preempted provisions. The state appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which held that most of Maine ...