Law Commons^™

Networking Customary Law, Scott Sullivan

Journal Articles

In United States v. Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether gathering four weeks of GPS information capturing a suspect’s movement on public roads constituted an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In two separate concurring opinions, Justices Alito and Sotomayor rejected the notion that all of a citizen’s movements in public were free from the Amendment’s protection. A unifying theme for both justices was the power of contemporary technology to aggregate isolated acts into a comprehensive knowledge of a person’s private life. Justice Alito writing on behalf of four Justices notes that, over time, the …

How Customary Is Customary International Law?, Emily Kadens, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And The Alien Tort Statute: Kiobel V. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., Ingrid W. Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Alien Tort Statute litigation has generated a growing number of questions about the the scope of statute, but in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. the Supreme Court finally answered one of them: the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to the statute. Going forward, courts may apply a robust version of the presumption, effectively ending ATS litigation as we currently know it. Or, they may not. The Court’s citations to Morrison v. Nat’l Austl. Bank Ltd. suggest the former; some language in the various opinions suggests the latter. This article explores these uncertainties and also discusses additional factors that may be …

General Law In Federal Court, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Conventional wisdom maintains that the Supreme Court banished general law from federal courts in 1938 in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins when the Court overruled Swift v. Tyson. The narrative asserts that Swift viewed the common law as a “brooding omnipresence,” and authorized federal courts to disregard state common law in favor of general common law of their own choosing. The narrative continues that Erie constrained such judicial lawmaking by banishing general law from federal courts. Contrary to this account, Swift and Erie represent compatible conceptions of federal judicial power when each decision is understood in historical context. At the …