Law Commons^™

Conflicting Federal And State Medical Marijuana Policies: A Threat To Cooperative Federalism, Todd Grabarsky

West Virginia Law Review

The legal status of medical marijuana in the United States is something of a paradox. On one hand, the federal government has placed a ban on the drug with no exceptions. On the other hand, forty percent of states have legal- ized its cultivation, distribution, and consumption for medical purposes. As such, medical marijuana activity is at the same time proscribed (by the federal government) and encouraged (by state governments through their systems of regulation and taxation). This Article seeks to shed light on this unprecedented, nebulous zone of legality in which an activity is both legal and illegal, what …

Jurisgenerative Constitutionalism: Procedural Principles For Managing Global Legal Pluralism, Paul Schiff Berman

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Global Legal Pluralism recognizes the inevitability (and sometimes even the desirability) of multiple legal and quasi-legal systems purporting to regulate the same act or actor. However, the resulting pluralism-just as inevitably-creates conflicts among norms that are potentially intractable. Thus, legal systems must address how best to respond to the realities of pluralism. This inquiry has constitutional dimensions because it goes to the constitutive character of communities and their relationships with other communities, be they international, transnational, national, subnational, or epistemic.

One response to pluralism is jurispathic: "kill off" all competing laws by declaring that one set of norms-and only one-shall …

The Law Applicable To A Derivative Action On Behalf Of A Foreign Corporation - Corporate Law In Conflict, Yaad Rotem

Cornell International Law Journal

In corporate law, the derivative action mechanism allows minority shareholders and, in certain jurisdictions, single directors or even creditors to file and litigate on behalf of the corporation a lawsuit against an insider or a third party whose action has allegedly injured the corporation. The derivative action is a mechanism that corporate law furnishes to tackle agency problems because the corporate insiders who should initiate such claims occasionally become caught in a conflict of interests. Obviously, each jurisdiction decides whether to employ a derivative action mechanism and on what terms. However, in a globalized world that offers many attractive places …

Enforceability Of Ad Hoc Arbitration Agreements In China: China’S Incomplete Ad Hoc Arbitration System, Tietie Zhang

Cornell International Law Journal

Today arbitration is the dominant method for resolving international commercial disputes. The international commercial arbitration system based on the New York Convention effectively facilitates resolution of cross-border disputes and contributes to the world's continuing economic development. Ad hoc arbitration has many advantages over institutional arbitration that make it a preferred way to resolve commercial disputes in many contexts. China, an emerging economic superpower, is also an active player in the field of arbitration. The People's Republic of China Arbitration Law (Law), however, requires that parties appoint an arbitration institution in their arbitration agreement. Otherwise, their ad hoc arbitration agreement is …

The Current State And Trajectory Of U.S. Conflict Of Laws, Marketa Trimble

Boyd Briefs / Road Scholars

Professor Marketa Trimble presented these materials to the Czech Society for International Law on March 28, 2013.

Understanding The Obstacles To The Recognition And Enforcement Of U.S. Judgments Abroad, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Questions of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments have entered center stage. Recent empirical work suggests that there has been a marked increase in the frequency with which U.S. courts are asked to recognize and enforce foreign judgments. The U.S. litigation surrounding a multibillion-dollar Ecuadoran judgment against Chevron indicates that the stakes in some of these cases can be high indeed. This rising importance of questions of judgments recognition has not been lost on lawmakers. In November of 2011, the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee held hearings on whether to …

Understanding The Obstacles To The Recognition And Enforcement Of U.S. Judgments Abroad, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Samuel P. Baumgartner

Questions of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments have entered center stage. Recent empirical work suggests that there has been a marked increase in the frequency with which U.S. courts are asked to recognize and enforce foreign judgments. The U.S. litigation surrounding a multibillion-dollar Ecuadoran judgment against Chevron indicates that the stakes in some of these cases can be high indeed. This rising importance of questions of judgments recognition has not been lost on lawmakers. In November of 2011, the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee held hearings on whether to …

Ending Judgment Arbitrage: Jurisdictional Competition And The Enforcement Of Foreign Money Judgments In The United States, Gregory Shill

Gregory Shill

Recent multi-billion-dollar damage awards issued by foreign courts against large American companies have focused attention on the once-obscure, patchwork system of enforcing foreign-country judgments in the United States. That system’s structural problems are even more serious than its critics have charged. However, the leading proposals for reform overlook the positive potential embedded in its design.

In the United States, no treaty or federal law controls the domestication of foreign judgments; the process is instead governed by state law. Although they are often conflated in practice, the procedure consists of two formally and conceptually distinct stages: foreign judgments must first be …

Personal Jurisdiction And Choice Of Law In The Cloud, Damon C. Andrews, John M. Newman

Articles

Cloud computing has revolutionized how society interacts with, and via, technology. Though some early detractors criticized the "cloud" as being nothing more than an empty industry buzzword, we contend that by dovetailing communications and calculating processes for the first time in history, cloud computing is--both practically and legally-a shift in prevailing paradigms. As a practical matter, the cloud brings with it a previously undreamt-of sense of location independence for both suppliers and consumers. And legally, the shift toward deploying computing ability as a service, rather than as a product, represents an evolution to a contractual foundation for interacting.

Already, substantive …

Globalization And Law: Law Beyond The State, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter provides an introduction into law and globalization for sociolegal studies. Instead of treating globalization as an external factor that impacts the law, globalization and law are here viewed as intertwined. I suggest that three types of globalization should be distinguished—globalization as empirical phenomenon, globalization as theory, and globalization as ideology. I go on to discuss one central theme of globalization, namely in what way society, and therefore law, move beyond the state. This is done along the three classical elements of the state—territory, population/citizenship, and government. The role of all of these elements is shifting, suggesting we need …

Challenges To Forum Non Conveniens, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This paper was originally prepared for a Panel on Regulating Forum Shopping: Courts’ Use of Forum Non Conveniens in Transnational Litigation at the 18th Annual Herbert Rubin and Justice Rose Luttan Rubin International Law Symposium: Tug of War: The Tension Between Regulation and International Cooperation, held at New York University School of Law, October 25, 2012. The doctrines of forum non conveniens and lis alibi pendens have marked a significant difference in approach to parallel litigation in the common law and civil law worlds, respectively. The forum non conveniens doctrine has recently taken a beating. This has come (1) in …

Federal Judicial Center International Litigation Guide: Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This publication was prepared for the U.S. Federal Judicial Center as a guide for Federal Judges on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. It covers applicable law in federal courts, the issues raised when a foreign judgments recognition case, grounds for non-recognition (and their sources in the law), and recent developments that may affect future adjustments in the rules. The law in those states that have adopted one of the Uniform Acts is covered, as is the law in states that remain under a common law system for recognition and enforcement of judgments. Also covered is the 2005 Hague …