Law Commons^™

Immigration Separation Of Powers And The President's Power To Preempt, Catherine Y. Kim

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article explores the unique separation of powers issues raised in the immigration context, focusing on the respective powers of Congress and the President to preempt state law. Pursuant to traditional understanding, Congress and only Congress is constitutionally vested with the authority to displace conflicting state laws. Outside of the immigration context, the Supreme Court nonetheless has invoked competing theories of executive power to justify extending preemptive effect to administrative decisions. At the same time, however, it has imposed significant doctrinal restrictions on its exercise. In its recent decision in Arizona v. United States, the Court departed from these existing …

Labor In Faith: A Comparative Analysis Of Hosanna-Tabor V. Eeoc Through The European Court Of Human Rights' Religious Employer Jurisprudence, Francesca M. Genova

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note uses the European Court of Human Rights’ framework to analyze the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which recognizes a “ministerial exception” for religious organizations as a defense to certain employment claims. It argues that the unanimous Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor examines factors similar to those of its European counterpart, but protects religious liberties more robustly by avoiding some of the European Court’s preoccupations. Yet, the European Court’s assessment anticipates the difficulties of applying the “ministerial exception” in future cases.

The Curious History Of The Alien Tort Statute, Beth Stephens

Notre Dame Law Review

The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) has provoked extensive, passionate debate, despite the relatively modest practical import of ATS cases. The outsized controversy surrounding the statute reflects its role in a longstanding struggle for control over the interpretation and enforcement of international law, and over whether that law will serve as a meaningful restraint on the actions of states, state officials, and corporations. As a result, the history of the ATS offers a unique window into the modern history of international law.

Suing Americans For Human Rights Torts Overseas: The Supreme Court Leaves The Door Open, Doug Cassel

Notre Dame Law Review

In this author’s view, the concurring Justices are correct in allowing ATS suits against Americans for foreign torts. And contrary to narrow readings by some lower courts, even the majority’s rationale allows space for ATS causes of action for torts committed by Americans overseas. Kiobel was a suit by foreign plaintiffs, against foreign defendants, for foreign conduct. In that “foreign-cubed” case, the limited American jurisdictional interests at stake—mainly to afford redress for heinous international torts—were not enough to persuade the majority to overcome its presumption against extraterritorial application. Nor were they enough to convince the four Justices concurring in the …

Resisting Rulemaking: Challenging The Montana Settlement's Title Ix Sexual Harassment Blueprint, Katie Jo Baumgardner

Notre Dame Law Review

Every university and college across the nation—with the exception of three—accepts federal financial assistance. Consequently, in the world of higher education, the impact of administrative regulation and compliance that accompanies federal funding cannot be overstated. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities operated by recipients of federal financial assistance. The text of Title IX states that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program …

Alien Tort Litigation: The Road Not Taken, William S. Dodge

Notre Dame Law Review

When the Second Circuit decided in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) provided a federal forum for international human rights claims, no one would have predicted that thirty-three years later in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. the Supreme Court would use the presumption against extraterritoriality to limit those claims. This Essay recounts some of the doctrinal developments in alien tort litigation during the intervening thirty-three years.

The Future Of Human Rights Litigation After Kiobel, Roger P. Alford

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article begins from the premise that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) no longer serves a useful purpose in litigating human rights claims. As others have argued in this issue, that premise may not be correct. Assuming it is, however, one should anticipate that human rights lawyers will pursue alternative avenues for relief.

The Ats Cause Of Action Is Sui Generis, William R. Casto

Notre Dame Law Review

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Court considered the extraterritorial reach of the tort action for violations of customary international law. Kiobel was a “foreign-cubed” case in which a foreign plaintiff sued a foreign defendant for damages arising from conduct in a foreign country. The Justices wrote four different opinions, but they were unanimous in refusing to create a federal common law tort remedy in a foreign-cubed case. At least they were unanimous in holding that a remedy is not available in a case like Kiobel. Some, including the present author, are disappointed in the Court’s decision. But …

Things We Do With Presumptions: Reflections On Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum, Carlos M. Vazquez

Notre Dame Law Review

The Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. relied on the presumption against extraterritoriality in declining to recognize a federal cause of action for the defendants’ alleged breaches of customary international law. The bulk of Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion for the Court defended the applicability of the presumption to the claims brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). As Justice Alito’s concurring opinion noted, however, the Chief Justice’s opinion adopted a “narrow approach” that “[left] much unanswered.” Similarly, Justice Kennedy’s concurrence observed that the Chief Justice’s opinion properly “[left] open a number of significant questions.” In determining what exactly …

Overhauling Esa Private Land Provisions In Light Of The Renewable Energy Boom On Federal Public Lands, Blair M. Warner

Notre Dame Law Review

Many of us are familiar with the recent rise in renewable energy development in the United States. What we are not as familiar with, however, is the story of the Mojave desert tortoise and how it succeeded in shutting down for three months what remains the largest solar energy project in the world. Taking a step back, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), now forty years old, has plodded along at a slow and steady pace, with Congress slowly chipping away at the ESA until it was transformed from “prohibitive to permissive.” While the ESA has had the benefit of a …

Determining Which Human Rights Claims "Touch And Concern" The United States: Justice Kennedy's Filartiga, Ralph G. Steinhardt

Notre Dame Law Review

If statutes were zombies, the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 (ATS) would lead the undead who walk among us. By one conventional narrative, the statute arose from the misty eighteenth-century murk, then lay moribund for nearly two centuries until 1980, when the Second Circuit breathed a strange new life into it with Filartiga v. Pena-Irala. That decision then remained a "monstrous" curiosity--generative more academic conferences than cases and more awards of tenure than damages--until 1984, when the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic. The three-way split among the panel …

Two Myths About The Alien Tort Statute, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Notre Dame Law Review

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Supreme Court applied the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. law to hold that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) did not encompass a claim between aliens for misconduct that occurred in another nation. Without much elaboration, the Court stated that the ATS only encompasses claims that “touch and concern the territory of the United States . . . with sufficient force to displace the presumption.” As it did in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Kiobel Court purported to rest its decision on the original public meaning of the ATS when enacted in 1789. …

Kiobel Surprise: Unexpected By Scholars But Consistent With International Trends, Eugene Kontorovich

Notre Dame Law Review

A primary function of legal scholarship is to incubate ideas to inform the bench and bar. Yet several Supreme Court Justices have recently spoken out publicly about what they consider the growing irrelevance of academic legal scholarship (though empirical findings suggest the continued utility of law reviews to judges). The legal academy sometimes entirely misses what turn out to be major and decisive legal issues in prominent areas, not recognizing them at an early stage and dismissing their importance later on. For example, the great majority of professors dismissed the notion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) …

Suing Americans For Human Rights Torts Overseas: The Supreme Court Leaves The Door Open, Douglass Cassell

Journal Articles

If American citizens or corporations commit gross violations of human rights against foreign victims on foreign shores, can the victims sue the Americans for damages in United States federal courts? Until recently the answer was clearly yes. However, following the diverse opinions in the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the question has divided lower courts to date.

This Article argues that, as a matter of both domestic and international law, and under both the majority and minority rationales in Kiobel, federal courts can and should hear tort suits against American nationals for human rights …

Two Myths About The Alien Tort Statute, Anthony J. Bellia, Bradford R. Clark

Journal Articles

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Supreme Court applied the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. law to hold that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) did not encompass a claim between aliens for misconduct that occurred in another nation. Without much elaboration, the Court stated that the ATS only encompasses claims that “touch and concern the territory of the United States . . . with sufficient force to displace the presumption.” As it did in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Kiobel Court purported to rest its decision on the original public meaning of the ATS when enacted in 1789. …

The Three Lives Of The Alien Tort Statute: The Evolving Role Of The Judiciary In U.S. Foreign Relations, Thomas H. Lee

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article explains how the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) began in the late eighteenth century as a national security statute that the First Congress and early federal district judges saw as a way to afford damages remedies to British merchants, creditors, and other subjects whose persons or property were injured under circumstances in which treaties or the law of nations assigned responsibility to the United States. Torts committed within the United States by private American citizens were the most likely such circumstances. The ultimate aims of the statute were to avoid renewed war with Great Britain and the other European …

No Excuse: The Failure Of The Icc’S Article 31 “Duress” Definition, Benjamin J. Risacher

Notre Dame Law Review

This Note proceeds in four Parts. Part I traces the historical development of “duress” through the common and civil law systems, World War II cases, the Model Penal Code (MPC) and, finally, through an in-depth analysis of the Erdemovic case before the ICTY Appeals Chamber discussed in the introduction. Part II then discusses “duress” under Article 31 of the Rome Statute and includes a survey of the Article’s drafting history, a statutory analysis of Article 31, and an application of the ICC definition of “duress” to the Erdemovic set of facts. This Part highlights the unjust result that inevitably occurs …

Mary Ellen O’Connell Delivers The 2014 Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture At The University Of Cambridge’S Lauterpacht Centre For International Law On February 17, 2014, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Faculty Lectures and Presentations

Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell delivers the 2014 Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture at the University of Cambridge’s Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in Cambridge, England. Her three-part lecture on “The Art of Peace” will take place over three days, beginning February 17, 2014.

The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture series commemorates the contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. The lecture is given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law, and a revised and expanded version of the lecture is usually published in the Hersch Lauterpacht Lecture Series by Cambridge University Press.

At …

Revisiting The Tax Treatment Of Citizens Abroad: Reconciling Principle And Practice, Michael Kirsch

Journal Articles

In an increasingly mobile world, the taxation of citizens living abroad has taken on increased importance. Recent international administrative developments — most notably, the weakening of foreign bank secrecy and expansion of global information sharing norms — have further raised the profile of this issue. While U.S. law traditionally has taxed U.S. citizens living abroad in the same general manner as citizens living in the United States, a number of scholars have proposed abandoning the use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis to tax. In its place, they would apply residence-based principles — i.e., exercising full taxing rights over U.S. …

Nigeria And Mali: The Case For Repatriation And Protection Of Cultural Heritage In Post-Colonial Africa, Elizabeth A. Klesmith

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

Writing in early 2013, Elizabeth A. Klesmith explores the challenges of African nations in protecting their cultural heritage in the post-colonization era. She identifies two major challenges to the preservation of African cultural heritage: the multi-billion dollar global trade in illicit heritage and, in certain parts of Africa, the threat of destruction of cultural treasures during bouts of sectarian violence. Klesmith discusses these challenges utilizing case studies concerning the cultural treasures of Nigeria and Mali. In the case of Nigeria, the country is striving to reacquire artifacts looted from the Benin Kingdom in the late nineteenth century and recently purchased …

Multiculturalism And Constitutionalism In Latin America, José Antonio Aguilar Rivera

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

José Antonio Aguilar Rivera discusses recent reforms to the constitutions of several Latin American states. According to Aguilar Rivera, these reforms tend to recognize and protect the multiethnic and multicultural nature of Latin American socieites. While acknowledging that some have lauded these changes as progressive moves towards a more developed form of democracy, Aguilar Rivera reaches the opposite conclusion. He argues that these trends in Latin American constitutionalism represent an "authoritarian regression" rather than an enhancement of democracy. Aguilar Rivera begins by discussing and critiquing prevalent Western theories of multiculturalism, particularly the versions set forth by Canadian theorists Charles Taylor, …

Letter From The Conference Organizer, Pier Pigozzi

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

Pier Pigozzi writes to introduce the Spring 2013 conference, "New Trends in Latin American Constitutionalism."

New Trends In Latin American Constitutionalism: An Overview, Santiago Legarre

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

In this introduction to the issue on New Trends in Latin American Constitutionalism, Santiago Legarre offers his remarks at the opening of the conference on New Trends in Latin American Constitutionalism held at Notre Dame Law School in 2013. After briefly recounting the origins of the conference, Legarre summarizes some of the key modern challenges in Latin America and the role of constitutionalism in addressing these challenges. Legarre pays particular attention to the rapid growth of income inequality in the region. He ultimately concludes that some of the major challenges to the region are rooted in a lack of consensus …

Latin American Constitutionalism: Social Rights And The “Engine Room” Of The Constitution, Roberto Gargarella

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

Roberto Gargarella surveys the landscape of Latin American Constitutionalism from 1810 to 2010, with particular emphasis on efforts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to enhance protections of multiculturalism and human rights. Gargarella begins by surveying the "founding period" of Latin American constitutionalism, a period marked by compromise between liberals and conservatives. He proceeds to discuss the increasing incorporation of social rights—primarily economic and labor rights—during the early twentieth century. Gargarella then discusses a final wave of reforms, which introduced increasing human rights protections in the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. …