Law Commons^™

Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law Review

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.

To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …

What’S In The Contract?: Rockefeller, The Hague Service Convention, And Serving Process Abroad, Thomas G. Vanderbeek

Vanderbilt Law Review

Today’s global economy relies on transnational commerce. The Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (“Hague Service Convention”), implemented in 1965, encouraged transnational commerce by establishing a streamlined mechanism for serving foreign parties with process. More reliable international service methods helped ensure parties that they could resolve disputes with foreign parties through the courts. The Hague Service Convention thus created a bridge between civil and common law procedures on service while reducing some of the risks of engaging in business with foreign parties.

At the same time, the Hague Service Convention frequently …

A Litigator’S Guide To The Galaxy: A Look At The Pragmatic Questions For Adjudicating Future Outer Space Disputes, Michael J. Listner, Joshua T. Smith

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Since the beginnings of the space age, outer space activities have been the realm of government with ancillary involvement by non-governmental actors. The international legal framework for outer space contemplated the involvement of non-governmental actors, but in creating dispute resolution mechanisms the role of non-governmental entities was not considered ripe. The surge of direct non-governmental involvement in outer space activities in recent years again raises the issue of dispute resolution and exemplifies the lack of dispute resolution mechanisms designed to address differences between sovereign states. As the pace of non-governmental activity increases, so does the likelihood of disputes arising between …

An Empirical Study Of Dispute Resolution Clauses In International Supply Contracts, John F. Coyle, Christopher R. Drahozal

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International transactions present unique legal risks. When a contract touches several different nations, a party may not know where it will be called upon to defend a lawsuit or, alternatively, which nation's law will be applied to resolve that dispute. To mitigate these risks, parties will often write dispute resolution provisions into their contracts. Arbitration clauses and forum selection clauses help to reduce uncertainty relating to the forum. Choice-of-law clauses help to reduce uncertainty as to the governing law. Over the past few decades, such provisions have become commonplace in international contracting. And yet there exist vanishingly few empirical studies …

When Immediate Responses Fail, Shai Dothan

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Tit-for-tat is a strategy of immediate and proportional responses. Game theorists showed that this strategy often leads to fruitful cooperation. Indeed, many legal regimes resemble a tit-for-tat strategy and benefit from its ability to avoid unnecessary conflicts. But in situations of uncertainty--when actors cannot be sure about the actions of their adversaries--a tit-for-tat strategy would destroy cooperation and lead to continuous clashes. Because tit-for-tat responds immediately, a single mistake about the intentions of the adversary can lead to retaliation and start an endless string of counterstrikes. When uncertainty prevails, a strategy of many-tits-for-many-tats is optimal. Actors applying this strategy study …

The Right To Regulate In Investor-State Arbitration: Slicing And Dicing Regulatory Carve-Outs, Vera Korzun

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines the "right to regulate" as the power of a sovereign state to adopt and maintain government measures for public welfare objectives. It explores how claims by foreign investors in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) may interfere with the state's ability to regulate, and how the state can protect its right in international investment agreements. The Article first explains the structure of modern international investment law and dispute resolution. It next turns to the right to regulate and explores why regulatory disputes represent a major challenge for ISDS. It continues by analyzing how exceptions, exclusions, and other safeguard provisions …

The Future Of Sharia Law In American Arbitration, Erin Sisson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A rising tide of Islamophobia in the United States has led, in recent years, to state-level efforts to prohibit the application of Sharia law in American courts. While these bans have been largely unsuccessful as legislation--the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has even declared one such ban unconstitutional--the growing uneasiness among Americans regarding the application of Sharia law persists. Similar tensions have been addressed in Canada and the United Kingdom through reform of the application of Sharia law in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms. By taking a critical look at the American ADR system through the lens of Canadian …

Sticky Arbitration Clauses - The Use Of Arbitration Clauses After Concepcion And Amex, Peter B. Rutledge, Christopher R. Drahozal

Vanderbilt Law Review

We present the results of the first empirical study of the extent to which businesses have switched to arbitration after AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion led commentators to predict that every business soon would use an arbitration clause, coupled with a class arbitration waiver, in their standard form contracts to avoid the risk of class actions. We examine two samples of franchise agreements: one sample in which we track changes in arbitration clauses since 1999, and a broader sample focusing on changes since 2011, immediately before Concepcion was decided. Our central finding is consistent …

Restituting Nazi-Looted Art: Domestic, Legislative, And Binding Intervention To Balance The Interests Of Victims And Museums, Katharine N. Skinner

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Nazis engaged in widespread art looting from Holocaust victims, either taking the artwork outright or using legal formalities to effect a transfer of title under duress. Years later, US museums acquired some of these pieces on a good-faith basis. Now, however, they face lawsuits by the heirs of Holocaust victims, who seek to have the museums return the artwork. Though good title cannot pass to the owner of stolen property under US law, unfavorable statutes of limitations, high financial hurdles, or discovery problems, among other obstacles, bar many of these claimants from seeking recovery. Though some museums have amicably …

Constraining Targeting In Noninternational Armed Conflicts, Peter Margulies

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

An American drone pilot thousands of miles away from Afghanistan sees a tempting target on his computer screen. Thanks to the Predator drone's video capabilities,' the pilot is treated to the spectacle of a known Taliban commander and over a dozen other armed men greeting a dozen tribesmen, who are also armed to the teeth. Everyone depicted on-screen has a gun. The pilot fires the Predator's missile. Shortly thereafter, he confirms the deaths of thirty Taliban fighters and associated forces.

While the facts above, particularly the presence of the known Taliban commander, tend to show that the strike was consistent …

Implementing An Online Dispute Resolution Scheme: Using Domain Name Registration Contracts To Create A Workable Framework, Michael G. Bowers

Vanderbilt Law Review

Online businesses have grown tremendously in the past decade. As a larger percentage of the U.S. economy moves onto the Internet, a larger percentage of people doing business online will find themselves disagreeing with each other. How those disputes are resolved presents an ongoing challenge in a world where traditional ordering mechanisms, like geographical boundaries, become increasingly antiquated. As contracts are formed across state and national lines, dispute resolution systems built around spatial locations become ever more unwieldy. The complications and costs of securing a favorable decision from a far-off decisionmaking body make reliance on geographic-based systems exceedingly difficult. Out …

Order At The End Of Life: Establishing A Clear And Fair Mechanism For The Resolution Of Futility Disputes, Ashley Bassel

Vanderbilt Law Review

On January 22, 2008, Ruben Betancourt was admitted to Trinitas Regional Medical Center in New Jersey for surgery for malignant thymoma, a cancer of the thymus gland (a small organ underneath the breastbone).' Following surgery, the patient developed brain damage due to lack of oxygen and, as a result, lapsed into unconsciousness. For the next five months, Mr. Betancourt was admitted to various medical facilities and readmitted finally to Trinitas in July 2008 for renal failure. For six more months, the unconscious patient remained in the hospital on an artificial ventilator, receiving renal dialysis and nutrition through tube feeding.

The …

The Circle Of Assent: How "Agreement" Can Save Mandatory Arbitration In Long-Term Care Contracts, Lauren Gaffney

Vanderbilt Law Review

On September 28, 1997, a resident at the Comanche Trail Nursing Center physically attacked his eighty-one-year-old roommate, Tranquilino Mendoza. As a result of the attack, Mr. Mendoza suffered a concussion and brain damage. His daughter claimed that her father was never the same after the attack and filed a lawsuit against the long-term care facility alleging negligence. In 2006, a jury awarded Mr. Mendoza $160 million.

Similarly, on April 26, 2003, a resident of the Heritage House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center allegedly attacked Carolyn Mason, another resident at the same facility. Mrs. Mason suffered a broken hip.6 Like Mr. Mendoza, …

A Theory Of Wto Adjudication: From Empirical Analysis To Biased Rule Development, Juscelino F. Colares

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The positive theory of litigation predicts that, under certain conditions, plaintiffs and defendants achieve an unremarkable and roughly equivalent share of litigation success. This Article, grounded in an empirical analysis of WTO adjudication from 1995 through 2007, reveals a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates: Complainants win roughly ninety percent of the disputes. This disparity transcends Case Type, Party Identity, Income Level, and other litigant-specific characteristics. After analyzing and discarding standard empirical and theoretical alternative explanations for the systematic disparity in success rates, this study demonstrates, through an examination of patterns in WTO adjudicators' notorious decisions, that biased …

Arbitration And Article Iii, Peter B. Rutledge

Vanderbilt Law Review

Arbitration implicates serious constitutional concerns that have not received adequate attention in case law or commentary. Recent litigation in the D.C. Circuit over the constitutionality of the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") represents the most recent, high-profile example. A centerpiece of NAFTA and its implementing legislation is an arbitration mechanism that divests Article III courts of virtually all jurisdiction over countervailing duty and anti-dumping claims and invests that authority in panels of Associate Professor of Law, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America. Arbitration implicates serious constitutional concerns that have not received adequate attention in case law or …

Equitable Estoppel And The Compulsion Of Arbitration, Alexandra A. Hui

Vanderbilt Law Review

Freedom of contract is a longstanding principle deeply rooted in American jurisprudence, protected by the Contract Clause and by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.' Because of the legal system's high regard for freedom of contract, parties are free to negotiate virtually all issues, thus creating rights and limiting duties and obligations to one another.

In exercising this freedom to contract, parties often negotiate an arbitration clause. These clauses, also referred to as "predispute arbitration agreements," are contractual provisions agreed to in advance of any dispute that require a party to submit any and all future …

Arbitration Costs And Contingent Fee Contracts, Christopher R. Drahozal

Vanderbilt Law Review

A common criticism of arbitration is that its upfront costs (arbitrators' fees and administrative costs) may preclude consumers and employees from asserting their claims. Some commentators have argued further that arbitration costs undercut the benefits to consumers and employees of contingent fee contracts, which permit the claimants to defer payment of attorneys' fees and litigation expenses until they prevail in the case (and if they do not prevail, avoid such costs altogether). This paper argues that this criticism has it exactly backwards. Rather than arbitration costs interfering with the workings of contingent fee contracts, the contingent fee mechanism provides a …

Investor-State Dispute Settlement Between Developed Countries, William S. Dodge

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Free trade agreements between developed countries now frequently contain provisions on investor protection, but the resolution of disputes remains problematic. Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allows investors to bring direct claims against a host state before an international tribunal without exhausting domestic remedies. This has resulted in a number of claims against the United States by Canadian investors and against Canada by U.S.investors. Chapter 11 of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) does not permit direct claims, relying instead on a state-to-state dispute resolution mechanism.

This Article reviews the evolution of investment-dispute resolution from …

The Specificity Of International Arbitration: The Case For Faa Reform, William W. Park

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Arbitration by its nature is polycentric: one might more accurately speak of arbitrations in the plural. A wide variety of disputes are included in one category, implicating differences related to the sophistication of the parties, the character of the disputes, and the public interests at stake. The current legal framework for arbitration conducted in the United States attempts to squeeze all types of arbitration into the Procrustean bed of a single set of standards for judicial review.

The United States should seriously consider eliminating judicial discretion to review the substantive merits of awards in international cases. The domestically nourished doctrine …

The Exercise Of Contract Freedom In The Making Of Arbitration Agreements, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The privatization and contractualization of arbitration, while they empower parties and unburden public institutions, should not eliminate completely the basis for the public regulation of the process. The string of "one-off' arbitrations, gathered together, has consequences upon the public interest in the orderly administration of adjudicative relations in both domestic and international law. The use of arbitration does have a bearing upon the substantive content of legal rights. Judicial vigilance should not only ward off the flagrant abuses of process and procedure in arbitration, but it should also establish an "interests of justice" limitation upon the operation of the process …

The Problem With Arbitration Agreements, Stephen J. Choi

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Arbitration procedures today have become highly standardized. Institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), and the American Arbitration Association Center for International Dispute Resolution (AAA) each have detailed provisions for administering arbitration proceedings (often involving parties of different nationalities). Parties entering into arbitration can expect to have limited discovery, a hearing, and the ability to bring attorneys to the proceedings. While typically providing less process than formal court proceedings, the standardized nature of arbitration can lead parties to view arbitration much like court proceedings--a fixed, pre-determined process to settle disputes. Thomas …

Globalization Of Arbitral Procedure, Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Imagine attending hearings in three different arbitrations: one in Geneva, one in New York, and one in Hong Kong. All three hearings will likely involve the same hotel conference rooms, the same court reporters, the same language--English, the same types of oral submissions, witness examinations, expert presentations, and procedural arguments, and often even the same people. Does this mean that arbitral procedure is globalized '--that an arbitration is conducted in a uniform manner wherever it takes place, whatever national law governs? Does national law govern at all? This paper will discuss these issues.

Renegotiation And Adaptation Of International Investment Contracts, Klaus P. Berger

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In modern-day international investment practice, especially in connection with the exploitation of natural resources, Production Sharing Agreements have come to take over the role of the classic concession agreement. Like their predecessors, these contracts are particularly vulnerable to disturbances in the commercial balance agreed to, or assumed by, the parties at the conclusion of the contract. This vulnerability has three primary causes.

First, these are classic examples of long term contracts. In the petroleum industry, the commitment of significant capital for exploration, particularly in development, and the assumption of considerable risk, particularly in exploration, require contracts covering up to and …

The End Of The Affair? Anti-Dueling Laws And Social Norms In Antebellum America, C.A. Harwell Wells

Vanderbilt Law Review

Jonathan Cilley and William Graves fought their duel in the early afternoon of February 23, 1838. The two faced off near the Anacostia River bridge leading out of Washington, D.C., having agreed in advance to duel with rifles at a distance of eighty paces. Shortly before three o'clock, they stood opposite one another, and at the signal, they exchanged shots, Cilley firing first. Both men missed. The men who accompanied them to the duel-their seconds-tried to work out the disagreement that led the men to the dueling-ground, but to no avail. For a second time, both stood and exchanged fire; …

Setting Arbitrators' Fees: An International Survey, John Y. Gotanda

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines the compensation policies of international arbitrators. Specifically, the Article details the results of a survey of individuals who practice in the area of international arbitration.

Initially, the Article describes the different methods of calculating the fees of the arbitral tribunal, discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of each method. The study concludes that most arbitrators calculate their fees using a time-based method, except when the arbitral institution requires that their fees be determined under the ad valorem method.

Next, the Article examines arbitrators' policies regarding cancellation and commitment fees. Survey results highlighted confusion about whether arbitrators were …

Where's The Beef? Mad Cows And The Blight Of The Sps Agreement, Ryan D. Thomas

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note will first outline the SPS Agreement itself--specifically, Part II attempts to present the relevant articles in a manner providing the necessary background for understanding the WTO dispute panel and Appellate Body decisions. Next, Part III discuss and critique, the dispute panel and Appellate Body decisions, specifically, noting the shortcomings of these decisions in the context of the SPS Agreement and its utility as a precedent of international dispute resolution in the area of international regulation of drugs and feedstuffs. Next, I will addresses the likely effect of these decisions upon a possible WTO resolution of the SRM dispute …

Introduction: Current Issues In Arbitration, Shannon E. Pinkston

Vanderbilt Law Review

"[An incompetent attorney can delay a case for years, while a competent attorney can delay it for even longer."'

This oft-repeated joke illustrates the public perception of the delays and expense that accompany courtroom litigation. Indeed, growing frustration with crowded courts and exorbitant legal costs fuels the widespread Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") movement. Notwithstanding the dramatic increase in its use, ADR, defined as "procedures for settling disputes by means other than litigation," is not a novel idea. In fact, ADR was present in America as early as the seventeenth century. In certain parts of colonial America, voluntary arbitration was a …

Peace And The Press: Media Rules During U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, Jennffer Lee

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In recent years, U.N. peacekeeping operations have become an increasing focus of international military action and media coverage. While the military and the media have maintained a precarious balance in the United States between the military's objective of operational success and the media's call for uncensored reporting, the evolution and growing importance of U.N. peacekeeping offers new considerations to this balance. This Note examines the ability of the United Nations to affect the balance between the military and the media through the implementation of U.N. media rules during peacekeeping operations. This Note begins by reviewing the history of media coverage …

The Limits Of Economic Power: Section 301 And The World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement System, C. O'Neal Taylor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Since World War 1I, the United States has sought trade liberalization through the use of multilateral and unilateral actions under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, respectively. Unilateralism by the United States has involved the forceful opening of foreign markets by the threat of sanctions, such as blocking access to the U.S. market. Such unilateral actions led the world trading system into the most recent multilateral negotiations, the Uruguay Round. As a result, the United States conceded to an effort to achieve trade liberalization through the expansion of GATT …

American Conflicts Scholarship And The New Law Merchant, Friedrich K. Juenger

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Juenger argues that both the unilateralist and the multilateralist schools of thought share a fixation on the idea that law must emanate from the power of a sovereign state. The author points out that such a view of law is a historic; that, in the past, merchants relied on a substantive body of supranational rules that transcended national borders. This Article discusses the contemporary significance of the law merchant for law professors, law students, and practitioners.

The author explains how the practices of contemporary transnational commercial enterprises, as well as the opinions of contemporary scholars , support the idea …