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The Extraterritoriality Doctrine Of The Dormant Commerce Clause Is Not Dead, Susan Lorde Martin

Marquette Law Review

In 1895, the New York Court of Appeals, in refusing to enforce a Kansas statute, referred to “a principle of universal application, recognized in all civilized states, that the statutes of one state have . . . no force or effect in another.” In 1897, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky noted that “[t]he statute of another state has, of course, no extraterritorial force.” That old notion describes the extraterritoriality doctrine of the dormant Commerce Clause. In recent years, the doctrine has become problematic for several reasons. One, the line between intrastate and interstate business has become blurred with many …