Jurisdiction Commons^™

From Pirates To Corporations: The Evolving Battleground Of The Alien Tort Statute, Marin Larkin

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

International Law Duties Not To Recognize, Not To Assist, And To Cooperate Against Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) Violations,, Diane A. Desierto

Journal Articles

Peremptory norms (jus cogens) are the highest norms of international law. When these norms are violated, all States and international organizations have, at a minimum, three international legal duties to discharge while the violation is occurring: (1) the duty of non-recognition, where no State or international organization should recognize the situation caused by the violation; (2) the duty of non-assistance, where no State or international organization should render any aid or assistance to maintain this situation caused by the violation; and (3) the duty of cooperation, where all States and international organizations should cooperate to bring the violation to an …

Habeas Corpus And Void Judgments, David Kinnaird

Notre Dame Law Review

In a string of recent opinions, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Thomas have posited that postconviction relief upon a writ of habeas corpus was historically unavailable except where the judgment of conviction was issued by a court lacking jurisdiction. In light of this history, Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have argued for a reconsideration of the modern scope of the writ, which generally allows for relitigation of alleged constitutional error in the course of criminal trial.

This Article argues that Justices Gorsuch and Thomas have the history half right. They are correct to assert that a valid judgment of conviction was a …

The Purpose Of The Preliminary Injunction, Samuel Bray

Journal Articles

This Article explores a reshaping of the preliminary injunction that is occurring in the federal courts. A preliminary injunction is designed to be a "hold in place" order, blocking actions by the parties that would undermine the efficacy of the court's remedial options. But the preliminary injunction is becoming a device for accelerating the merits decision. Instead of a four-factor test for preliminary relief, increasingly there is one factor: the merits. This Article critiques this transformation, and it argues that the preliminary injunction should be recentered on the protection of the court's remedial options.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of Federal Courts Professor Derek T. Muller In Support Of Defendant-Appellant, Daniel F. Mummolo, Christopher G. Michel, Rachel G. Frank, Derek T. Muller

Court Briefs

No. 23-7173
David O'Connell v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia
1:20-cv-01365-JMC ∙ Honorable Jia M. Cobb

From the Introduction and Summary of Argument

The threshold question in this appeal is whether the Court has jurisdiction to hear it. The answer turns on the proper construction of 28 U.S.C. § 1291, which grants this Court jurisdiction over “appeals from all final decisions of the district courts.” In keeping with the provision’s text and history, both the Supreme Court and this Court have long understood Section 1291 to …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Federal Courts Scholars In Support Of Movants, Ryan J. Walsh, Derek T. Muller

Court Briefs

No. 158, Original
Alabama v. California

On Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint

From the Introduction and Summary of Argument

The resolution of state-against-state actions is a core function of this Court under our constitutional structure’s original design, which depends upon the peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts. The Framers assigned these suits to this Court precisely because they cannot be heard by state courts and because they raise serious matters of federal harmony.

This Court should grant the motion for leave to file a bill of complaint. Amici express no view on any other procedural or merits issues …

Does The Discourse On 303 Creative Portend A Standing Realignment?, Richard M. Re

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Perhaps the most surprising feature of the last Supreme Court Term was the extraordinary public discourse on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. According to many commentators, the Court decided what was really a “fake” or “made-up” case brought by someone who asserted standing merely because “she worries.” As a doctrinal matter, these criticisms are unfounded. But what makes this episode interesting is that the criticisms came from the legal Left, which has long been associated with expansive principles of standing. Doubts about standing in 303 Creative may therefore portend a broader standing realignment, in which liberal Justices become jurisdictionally hawkish. …

Debs And The Federal Equity Jurisdiction, Aditya Bamzai, Samuel L. Bray

Notre Dame Law Review

The United States can sue for equitable relief without statutory authorization. The leading case on this question is In re Debs, and how to understand that case is of both historical and contemporary importance. Debs was a monumental opinion that prompted responses in the political platforms of major parties, presidential addresses, and enormous academic commentary. In the early twentieth century, Congress enacted several pieces of labor legislation that reduced Debs’s importance in the specific context of strikes. But in other contexts, the question whether the United States can bring suit in equity remains disputed to this day. The …

Forum Selection Clauses, Non-Signatories, And Personal Jurisdiction, John F. Coyle, Robin J. Effron

Notre Dame Law Review

Who is bound by a forum selection clause? At first glance, the answer to this question may seem obvious. It is black letter law that a person cannot be bound to an agreement without her consent. In recent years, however, courts have not followed this rule with respect to forum selection clauses. Instead, they routinely enforce these clauses against individuals who never signed the contract containing the clause. Courts justify this practice on the grounds that it promotes litigation efficiency by bringing all of the litigants together in the chosen forum. There are, however, problems with enforcing forum selection clauses …

The Double Standard For Third-Party Standing: June Medical And The Continuation Of Disparate Standing Doctrine, Brandon L. Winchel

Notre Dame Law Review

No jurisdictional principle is more fundamental to the federal judiciary than the doctrine of standing. Before litigants may avail themselves of the tremendous power vested in the federal judiciary, plaintiffs must first establish that they are appropriately situated to assert a legal claim before a court. In analyzing whether a plaintiff possesses the requisite standing to maintain a legal challenge, the Supreme Court has stressed that a court’s analysis must be blind to the underlying dispute: “The fundamental aspect of standing is that it focuses on the party seeking to get his complaint before a federal court and not on …

The Judicial Reforms Of 1937, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

The literature on reform of the federal courts in 1937 understandably focuses on the history and consequences of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ill-fated proposal to increase the membership of the Supreme Court. A series of decisions declaring various components of the New Deal unconstitutional had persuaded Roosevelt and some of his advisors that the best way out of the impasse was to enlarge the number of justiceships and to appoint to the new positions jurists who would be “dependable” supporters of the Administration’s program. Yet Roosevelt and congressional Democrats also were deeply troubled by what they perceived as judicial obstruction …

Patent Litigators Playing Cowboys And Indians At The Ptab, Michael E. Benson

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

This Essay concerns a new frontier of crafty strategy to keep patents from review by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)—the invocation of tribal sovereign immunity to prevent the PTAB from obtaining (subject-matter) jurisdiction over the patent invalidity dispute.

Part I of this Essay provides background information about a current case in which the litigant has attempted to use tribal sovereign immunity in order to avoid an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding before the PTAB. Part II provides a brief summary of the current relevant law (tribal, patent, administrative, etc.) pertaining to tribal sovereign immunity in the context of …

The Parochial Uses Of Universal Jurisdiction, Eugene Kontorovich

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article presents a new account of the function served by universal jurisdiction (UJ). This doctrine—one of the most diplomatically controversial in modern international law— allows states to prosecute certain grave international crimes, even committed abroad, and with no connection to the prosecuting state.

This Article shows that, far from being used as a tool of global policing, the UJ doctrine is, in practice, used to protect the parochial domestic interests of the prosecuting state. In showing this, this Article reconciles several paradoxes related to UJ—its broad and longstanding normative acceptance by states contrasted with its extremely rare application; and …

Challenging Federalism: How The States’ Loud Constitutional Provocation Is Being Met With Silence, Jennifer M. Haidar

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

The Exceptional Role Of Courts In The Constitutional Order, N.W. Barber, Adrian Vermeule

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article looks at a rare part of the judicial role: those exceptional cases when the judge is called upon to pass judgment on the constitution itself. This arises in three groups of cases, roughly speaking. First, in exceptional cases the validity of the constitution and the legal order is thrown into dispute. Second, on some occasions the judge is asked to rule on the transition from one constitutional order to another. Third, there are some cases in which the health of the constitutional order requires the judge to act not merely beyond the law, as it were, but actually …

The Unsung Virtues Of Global Forum Shopping, Pamela K. Bookman

Notre Dame Law Review

Forum shopping gets a bad name. This is even more true in the context of transnational litigation. The term is associated with unprincipled gamesmanship and undeserved victories. Courts therefore often seek to thwart the practice. But in recent years, exaggerated perceptions of the “evils” of forum shopping among courts in different countries have led U.S. courts to impose high barriers to global forum shopping. These extreme measures prevent global forum shopping from serving three unappreciated functions: protecting access to justice, promoting private regulatory enforcement, and fostering legal reform.

This Article challenges common perceptions about global forum shopping that have supported …

Preclusion And Criminal Judgment, Lee Kovarsky

Notre Dame Law Review

The defining question in modern habeas corpus law involves the finality

of a state conviction: What preclusive effect does (and should) a criminal

judgment have? Res judicata and collateral estoppel —the famous preclusion

rules for civil judgments—accommodate basic legal interests in fairness,

certitude, and sovereignty. Legal institutions carefully calibrate the preclusive

effect of civil judgments because judicial resources are scarce, because

the reliability and legitimacy of prior process can vary, and because courts

wield the authority of a repeat-playing sovereign that will find its own civil

judgments attacked in foreign litigation. In stark contrast to the legal sophistication

lavished on …

An Incomplete Discussion Of "Arising Under" Jurisdiction, David L. Shapiro

Notre Dame Law Review

My purpose in this brief Essay is to expand on this theme as it played out in Dan Meltzer’s role as collaborator, friendly critic, and keen analyst, and to do so by exploring a problem that in some ways lies at the heart of our elaborate system of judicial federalism, even though (perhaps because it does not arise that often) it has received somewhat less attention than it deserves. That problem addresses the nature of federal judicial authority—and especially the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court—when a federal issue is embedded in, or when its determination may affect the resolution …

Revising Our “Common Intellectual Heritage”: Federal And State Courts In Our Federal System, Judith Resnik

Notre Dame Law Review

This Essay pays tribute to Daniel Meltzer’s insight that, to the extent “lawyers have a common intellectual heritage, the federal courts are its primary source.” I do so by analyzing how that heritage is made and remade, as political forces press Congress to deploy federal courts to protect a wide array of interests and state courts absorb the bulk of litigation. The heritage that Meltzer celebrated and to which he contributed was the outcome of twentieth-century social movements that focused on the federal courts as hospitable venues, serving as vivid sources of rights and remedies. A competing heritage has since …

Law Enforcement As Political Question, Zachary S. Price

Notre Dame Law Review

Across a range of contexts, federal courts have crafted doctrines that limit judicial secondguessing of executive nonenforcement decisions. Key case law, however, carries important ambiguities of scope and rationale. In particular, key decisions have combined rationales rooted in executive prerogative with concerns about nonenforcement’s “unsuitability” for judicial resolution. With one nonenforcement initiative now before the Supreme Court and other related issues percolating in lower courts, this Article makes the case for the latter rationale. Judicial review of nonenforcement, on this account, involves a form of political question, in the sense of the “political question doctrine”: while executive officials hold a …

Ilya Somin's The Grasping Hand: Kelo V. City Of New London & The Limits Of Eminent Domain (Book Review), James J. Kelly Jr.

Journal Articles

Ultimately, Somin’s single-minded dedication to a federal constitutional ban on economic development taking prevents the book from offering a full and fair consideration of alternative responses to eminent domain abuse. His survey of the various state legislative reforms enacted as a result of homeowner backlash to Kelo quite rightly points out the shortcomings of populist challenges to sophisticated vested interests. But his blatant aversion to engage with the substantial problems that public purpose land assembly faces without resort to eminent domain closes off any fair comparison of proposals that rival his own, particularly the position of fellow libertarian and ardent …

Erie’S Four Functions: Reframing Choice Of Law In Federal Courts, Allan Erbsen

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article seeks to mitigate decades of confusion about the Erie doctrine’s purposes, justifications, and content. The Article shows that “Erie” is a misleading label encompassing four distinct components. Jumbling these components under a single heading obscures their individual nuances. Analyzing each component separately helps to clarify questions and values that should animate judicial analysis. The Article thus reconceptualizes the Erie doctrine, offers a more precise account of how Erie operates, and provides a framework for rethinking several foundational aspects of Erie jurisprudence.

2013 marks Erie’s seventy-fifth anniversary. The years have not been kind to Erie and its progeny. Decades …

The Rule Of Law And The Judicial Function In The World Today, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain

Notre Dame Law Review

The world’s oldest written constitution still in effect has many inspiring lines, but perhaps the one that most stirs the souls of the patriotic appears in Article 30. Delineating a familiar separation of powers, that Article forbids the legislative, executive, and judicial branches from swapping or mixing functions. “[T]o that end”—and here’s the line—“it may be a government of laws and not of men.” John Adams, the author of that line and most of the rest of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, penned those words in 1779, eight years before the adoption of the second oldest written constitution …

Derivation Of Positive From Natural Law Revisited, Santiago Legarre

Journal Articles

Aquinas's account of the relationship of natural law to positive law has a general theory: every just human law is derived from the law of nature; and two, subordinate theorems: derivation is always either per modum conclusionis or per modum determinationis. I will call them sub-theorems. According to the first sub-theorem "something may be derived from the natural law . . . as a conclusion from premises." For example, "that one must not kill may be derived as a conclusion from the principle that one must do harm to no one." For one reason or another, the theory of derivation …

The Alien Tort Statute And The Law Of Nations, Bradford R. Clark, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

Journal Articles

Courts and scholars have struggled to identify the original meaning of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). As enacted in 1789, the ATS provided "[t]hat the district courts...shall...have cognizance...of all causes where an alien sues for tort only in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." The statute was rarely invoked for almost two centuries. In the 1980s, lower federal courts began reading the statute expansively to allow foreign citizens to sue other foreign citizens for all violations of modern customary international law that occurred outside the United States. In 2004, the Supreme Court took …

United States Opposition To The 1998 Rome Statute Establishing An International Criminal Court: Is The Court's Jurisdiction Truly Complementary To National Criminal Jurisdictions?, Jimmy Gurulé

Journal Articles

Although the United States supports the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), it opposes such a court as set forth in the 1998 Rome Statute because it leaves open the potential for United States military personnel and government officials to be prosecuted for unintended loss of civilian life. Can the United States formulate a legal argument to support its view that inadvertent civilian casualties should not be considered a war crime within the jurisdiction of the ICC? The article argues that it can because the ICC’s jurisdiction under the Rome Statute is not complementary to national prosecutions held …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner Goss International Corp., Salil Kumar Mehra, Jay Tidmarsh

Court Briefs

No. 07-618
Goss International Corp. v. Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho, Ltd.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

From the Introduction and Summary of Argument

This case presents issues of jurisdiction, equity, and international comity that require this Court’s resolution. As we understand the facts, in 2003 the petitioner, Goss International, obtained a judgment under the Antidumping Act of 1916, 15 U.S.C. § 72 (2000) (repealed 2004), against the respondents, which are a Japanese corporation and its wholly-owned American subsidiary. The consonance between the Antidumping Act and the obligations of the …

Taxing Citizens In A Global Economy, Michael S. Kirsch

Journal Articles

This Article addresses a fundamental issue underlying the U.S. tax system in the international context: the use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis for imposing income tax. As a general matter, the United States is the only economically developed country that taxes its citizens abroad on their foreign income.

Despite this broad general assertion of taxing jurisdiction, Congress allows citizens abroad to exclude a limited amount of their income earned from working outside the United States. Influential lobbying groups, including businesses that employ significant numbers of U.S. citizens abroad, argue that this exclusion is necessary in order to keep American …

The Origins Of Article Iii "Arising Under" Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Bellia Jr.

Journal Articles

Article III of the Constitution provides that the judicial Power of the United States extends to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. What the phrase arising under imports in Article III has long confounded courts and scholars. This Article examines the historical origins of Article III arising under jurisdiction. First, it describes English legal principles that governed the jurisdiction of courts of general and limited jurisdiction--principles that animated early American jurisprudence regarding the scope of arising under jurisdiction. Second, it explains how participants in the framing and ratification of the Constitution understood arising …

Universal Criminal Jurisdiction, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

Universal criminal jurisdiction is an important tool in the worldwide struggle to end impunity for serious international crimes.

Universal criminal jurisdiction is the principle of international law that permits any nation to prosecute certain serious international crimes, regardless of where they are committed, by whom or against whom, or any other unique tie to the prosecuting nation. The Recommendation applies whether or not an accused is in custody and does not address the separate topics of universal jurisdiction in civil cases or the immunities of senior government officials before foreign national courts.

Universal criminal jurisdiction developed over time as a …