Contracts Commons^™

Silencing Jorge Luis Borges The Wrongful Suppression Of The Di Giovanni Translations, Wes Henricksen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Who Thinks Treaties Are Like Contracts? Not John Marshall, David P. Stewart, Diana A. A. Reisman

American University International Law Review

Courts in the United States are fond of analogizing treaties to contracts. The U.S. Supreme Court has done so on numerous occasions, as have nearly all federal circuit courts. Indeed, the treaty-as-contract trope has permeated U.S. legal discourse since at least the early 1800s when Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Foster v. Neilson that “[a] treaty is in its nature a contract between two nations, not a legislative act.”

Provisional Measures In Aid Of Arbitration, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The success of the New York Convention has made arbitration a preferred means of dispute resolution for international commercial transactions. Success in arbitration often depends on the extent to which a party may secure assets, evidence, or the status quo between parties prior to the completion of the arbitration process. This makes the availability of provisional measures granted by either arbitral tribunals or by courts fundamental to the arbitration. In this Article, I consider the existing legal framework for provisional measures in aid of arbitration, with particular attention to the sources of the rules providing for such measures. Those sources …

Incomplete International Investment Law -- Applying The Incomplete Contract Theory, Tae Jung Park

University of Cincinnati Law Review

There is a puzzle in the field of international investment law: many negotiating countries fail to complete their International Investment Agreements (“IIA”) and postpone the renegotiations for completion as well. The literature on IIAs has neglected to consider the existence, causes, and solutions of this phenomenon. This study employs the incomplete contract theory to explain the causes and solutions surrounding this phenomenon.

Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments In American Courts And The Limits Of The Law Market Model, Michael E. Solimine

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The law market model posits that the most appropriate resolution of choice of law disputes in private international law is to permit individuals to choose ex ante the law that applies to them. This is contrasted to the public law model where courts choose law based on the perceived interests of, or the parties’ connections with, the states or nations involved. The law market model envisions that consumer choice will lead to a healthy competition among jurisdictions to supply the most efficient law. This model has been followed in several areas, most notably in the widespread enforcement, at least within …

The Vulnerable Sovereign, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The connection between sovereignty and law is fundamental for both domestic (internal sovereignty) and the international (external sovereignty) purposes. As the dominant forms of government have evolved over time, so has the way in which we think about sovereignty. Consideration of the historical evolution of the concept of sovereignty offers insight into how we think of sovereignty today. A term that was born to represent the relationship between the governor and the governed has become a term that is used to represent the relationships between and among states in the global legal order. This article traces the history of the …

The Rise Of Transnational Commercial Courts: The Astana International Financial Centre Court, Ilias Bantekas

Pace International Law Review

The proliferation of international commercial courts aims to boost income from legal services and serve as a catalyst for newly found rules of law and thus attract investor confidence. The latter is the underlying purpose for the creation of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and its Court. The Court’s legal framework is set out in the tradition of its competitors in the Gulf and similarly employs an impressive lineup of former senior judges from the United Kingdom. It is a unique experiment because it strives to create a balance between maintaining a judicial institution of the highest caliber while …

Online Dispute Resolution, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This chapter was prepared from a presentation given by the author at the 2019 Summer School in Transnational Commercial Law & Technology, jointly sponsored by the University of Verona School of Law and the Center for International Legal Education (CILE) of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In the paper, I review online dispute resolution (ODR) by considering the following five questions, which I believe help to develop a better understanding of both the concept and the legal framework surrounding it:

A. What is ODR?

B. Who does ODR?

C. What is the legal framework for ODR?

D. What …

The Cisg: Applicable Law And Applicable Forums, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Despite being in effect for over thirty years, a debate continues on whether the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has been a success. With 89 Contracting States, it clearly is widely accepted. At the same time, empirical studies show that private parties regularly opt out of its application. It has served as a model for domestic sales law, and as an important educational tool. But has it been a success? In this article I consider that question, and suggests that the scorecard is not yet complete; and that it will perhaps take significantly …

Laying Down The "Brics": Enhancing The Portability Of Awards In International Commercial Arbitration, Benjamin C. Mccarty

Benjamin C McCarty

The drafters of the 1958 New York Convention intended Article V(2)(b) to be interpreted narrowly, and while most pro-arbitration national courts do maintain narrowly defined areas of public policy that are sufficient for refusal of the recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award, this is not always the case. Developing states and jurisdictions that maintain corrupt or inefficient judicial systems have shown a greater willingness to invoke the public policy exception for a broader, amorphous variety of reasons. This phenomenon has created a sense of unpredictability among international investors, arbitrators, and business executives as to the amount of deference …

Using Occam’S Razor To Solve International Attorney-Client Privilege Choice Of Law Issues: An Old Solution To A New Problem, Nathan M. Crystal, Francesca Giannoni-Crystal

Nathan M. Crystal

The practice of law is increasingly becoming “delocalized.” Globalization and the use of technology are two important factors in this fundamental change in practice. Delocalization is affecting almost all areas of practice, including issues involving attorney-client privilege (ACP). To some extent the choice-of-law rules governing ACP are also – like other fields of the law - being “delocalized,” but in our view only partially. This paper discusses six approaches to choice of law issues governing ACP that are being used by the courts. Aside from the traditional lex loci approach (which simply applies the law of the forum to the …

Franchise And Contract Asymmetry: A Common Trans-Atlantic Agenda?, Tibor Tajti

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

Normative legal theories, no matter whether pluralist or monist, tend to formulate what the law should be. Based on what values, either on a purely theoretical plane, or based on a single or a few paradigm contracts – the contours of which seem to be most solidified according to common opinion – like sales contracts. They fail, however, to answer the query about what happens in cases of newer-generation contracts, such as franchise contracts, one of the quintessential features of which is information and strategic asymmetry. The basic premise of this article is that given the European popularity of business …

Private International Law Aspects Of Authors' Contracts: The Dutch And French Examples, Jane C. Ginsburg, Pierre Sirinelli

Faculty Scholarship

Copyright generally vests in the author, the human creator of the work. But because, at least until recently, most authors have been ill-equipped to commercialize and disseminate their works on their own, the author has granted rights to intermediaries to market her works. Since most authors are the weaker parties to publishing, production, or distribution contracts, the resulting deal may favor the interests of the intermediary to the detriment of the author’s interests. Many national copyright laws have introduced a variety of corrective measures, from the very first copyright act, the 1710 British Statute of Anne, which instituted the author’s …

Accountability For System Criminality, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

Not available.

Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. …

Towards A Convention For The International Sale Of Real Property: Challenges, Commonalities, And Possibilities, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

In a world that is increasingly global in scope, society has come to view the ever-growing body of international commercial laws as being exceptionally important. This is evidenced through the adoption of several high profile pieces of legislation over the past several decades: International Interest in Mobile Equipment - Study LXXI, the EU’s Draft Common Frame of Reference, the EU Directives on Consumer Protection, and, most noteworthy of all, the Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

As raised by Professors Sprankling, Coletta, and Mirow, what has been conspicuously absent from this growing body of laws is an international …

Comparative Study Of The Formation Of Electronic Contracts In American Law With References To International Law, Roberto Rosas

Faculty Articles

An understanding of the basic principles that regulate contract formation is of great importance when deciphering the most appropriate ways of fom1ing a new contract or when assessing the legality of an already existing contract. While the basic rules of contract formation are generally applicable to all types of contracts regardless of the method utilized in their creation, there are some juridical rules that apply specifically to electronically created contracts.

Self-Enforcing International Agreements And The Limits Of Coercion, Robert E. Scott, Paul B. Stephan

Faculty Scholarship

International law provides an ideal context for studying the effects of freedom from coercion on cooperative behavior. To be sure, almost all academic discussions on the subject begin by asking whether international law constitutes "law." But the category of all "international law" is too big and heterogeneous to permit useful analysis. Whether to regard, say, the rules governing the conduct of war or international humanitarian law as "law" presents radically different issues than analyzing the legal character of the Treaty of Rome (the constitutive instrument of the European Community), or the Warsaw Convention (the instrument governing contracts for the carriage …

The Sky Is Falling (Or Is It?): International Contracts And The Y2k Problem, Mark B. Baker

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Y2K problems at this point in time are reasonably foreseeable due to the amount of attention given the subject. Contracting parties should examine potential Y2K problems arising internally and address them before January 1, 2000. Yet the extent of Y2K problems, be they widespread or solitary occurrences, remains unforeseeable and unpredictable. Even those parties having adequately addressed internal Y2K problems can experience difficulties due to external parties having failed to become Y2K-compliant. This "second tier" of unforeseeability supports the use of excused performance, but the "first tier" foreseeability that Y2K problems potentially exist prevent viable use of the defense. In …

Intervention And Joinder As Of Right In International Arbitration, S. I. Strong

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

For the purpose of this Article, an existing party is said to have a claim to join a third party into an arbitration as of right when (1) in the third party's absence, complete relief cannot be accorded among those already parties to the arbitration or (2) the third party asserts an interest relating to the subject of the arbitration and is so situated that the disposition of the arbitration in the third party's absence may (a) as a practical matter impair or impede the third party's ability to protect that interest or (b) leave any of the persons already …

The Cisg Convention And Thomas Franck's Theory Of Legitimacy, Anthony S. Winer

Faculty Scholarship

The Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) Convention is one of the most talked-about, and written-about, aspects of international commercial law. Ss time progresses, it may become evident that significant numbers of commercial actors and significant numbers of courts and other adjudicatory bodies are simply choosing not to apply the Convention. In such event, the question as to why there should be such a reluctance to adopt the Convention will present itself. This Article finds helpful perspective on this question in the work of international legal scholar Thomas Franck. Specifically, guidance is drawn from the theory of international …

The Internationalization Of Contractual Conflicts Law, Patrick J. Borchers

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Professor Borchers maintains that United States conflict of laws rules regarding contracts have long had an international character. This Article reviews the development of contractual conflicts law and examines how, through Joseph Story's treatises, the United States law in this area assumed an international perspective.

These international influences have played and will increasingly play an important role in the development of U.S. contractual conflicts rules. This influence can be seen in both choice-of-forum and choice-of-law agreements. Both have been upheld by U.S. courts initially in international cases, which presented starker contrasts in choice of law or choice of forum. Once …

External Sovereignty And International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This essay addresses the need to redefine current notions of sovereignty. It returns to earlier concepts of subjects joining to receive the benefits of peace and security provided by the sovereign. It diverges from most contemporary commentary by avoiding what has become traditional second-tier social contract analysis. In place of a social contract of states, this redefinition of sovereignty recognizes that international law in the twentieth century has developed direct links between the individual and international law. The trend toward democracy as an international law norm further supports discarding notions of a two-tiered social contract relationship between the individual and …

Exchange Loss Damages And The Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act: The Emperor Hasn't All His Clothes, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In 1989, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws approved a new Uniform Foreign-Money Claims Act. This Act is designed to change and clarify the law regarding judgments on obligations denominated in a foreign currency. It does so by recognizing that old rules preventing judgment in a foreign currency - developed in times of a strong dollar - are inappropriate. Unfortunately, in seeking fairness for plaintiffs when the U.S. dollar is weak, the Act replaces rigid old rules with stiff new rules that fail to address the basic issue of appropriate damages for exchange rate losses. While the …

Agenda: Boundaries And Water: Allocation And Use Of A Shared Resource, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Boundaries and Water: Allocation and Use of a Shared Resource (Summer Conference, June 5-7)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Charles F. Wilkinson.

Boundaries and Water: Allocation and Use of a Shared Resource is the topic of the Center's annual summer program on water this June. Most of the major rivers in the western United States are shared between two or more states. Often tribal governments play an important role in water allocation and use decisions. International considerations also may be involved in some cases. These interjurisdictional issues extend to groundwater as well as surface water.

This conference will provide the …

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Books Received

CONTRACT LAW IN THE U.S.S.R. AND THE UNITED STATES, VOL. I: HISTORY AND GENERAL CONCEPT

By E. Allan Farnsworth and Viktor P. Mozolin

Washington, D.C.: International Law Institute, 1987. Pp.xiii, 340. $35.00

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FOREIGN RELATIONS AND NATIONAL SECURITY LAW: CASES, MATERIALS AND SIMULATIONS

By Thomas M. Franck and Michael J. Glennon

St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company, 1987. Pp.lxiv, 941

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THE GRAND STRATEGY OF THE UNITED STATES IN LATIN AMERICA

By Tom J. Farer

New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1988. Pp. xxxii, 294

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JUDGES

By David Pannick

New York: Oxford University Press,1987. Pp. vii, 255. …

Book Review, I. I. Kavass

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The legal aspects of international contracts for the sale of goods are intrinsically complex. First, the negotiation and performance of international contracts must frequently be conducted at a distance and with the assistance of many intermediaries. The rights and obligations of parties to an international sale are usually more manifold than those of a purely domestic sales transaction, and the effect and scope of these international rights and obligations must be determined by sophisticated mercantile rules which are not present in all legal systems. Second, because an international sales transaction extends beyond the boundaries of one country, it is invariably …

International Law And The Internationalized Contract, A. A. Fatouros

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Richard W. Edwards, Jr.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Studies in International Law is a collection of articles written by Dr. Mann between 1942 and 1972. All have previously appeared except "About the Proper Law of Contracts between States," which discusses the effect of a clause in a loan agreement between Denmark and Malawi providing that the agreement "shall be governed by Danish law." The largest piece, 139 pages, in this thick volume is a reprint of Mann's edited lectures on "The Doctrine of Jurisdiction in International Law" delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law in 1964.

All the articles relate to points of contact between public international …