Transnational Law Commons^™

“Spread Your Wings And Fly Away” – Reimagining Customary International Law Jurisdiction In Investor- State Disputes, Harshad Pathak

National Law School of India Review

A common assumption in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is that subject to the language of the arbitral provision invoked, an arbitration tribunal can only decide claims that allege a breach of the substantive obligations articulated in the instrument from which it derives jurisdiction. Over time, this assumption has come under challenge, including in cases where an ISDS tribunal derives jurisdiction from a municipal law source, such as an investment contract or legislation. The article addresses this issue by critiquing the Decision on Jurisdiction in Cambodia Power Company v. Cambodia, wherein an ICSID tribunal constituted pursuant to related investment contracts concluded …

Case Law On American Indians: October 2022 - August 2023, Thomas P. Schlosser

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Surprises In The Skies: Resolving The Circuit Split On How Courts Should Determine Whether An "Accident" Is "Unexpected Or Unusual" Under The Montreal Convention, Ashley Tang

Washington Law Review

Article 17 of both the Montreal Convention and its predecessor, the Warsaw Convention, imposes liability onto air carriers for certain injuries and damages from “accidents” incurred by passengers during international air carriage. However, neither Convention defines the term “accident.” While the United States Supreme Court opined that, for the purposes of Article 17, an air carrier’s liability “arises only if a passenger’s injury is caused by an unexpected or unusual event or happening that is external to the passenger,” it did not explain what standards lower courts should employ to discern whether an event is “unexpected or unusual.” In 2004, …

Facilitating Money Judgment Enforcement Between Canada And The United States, Paul George

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has attempted for years to create a more efficient enforcement regime for foreign-country judgments, both by treaty and statute. Long negotiations succeeded in July 2019, when the Hague Conference on Private International Law (with U.S. participants, including the Uniform Law Commission) promulgated the new Hague Judgments Convention which harmonizes judgment recognition standards but leaves the domestication process to the enforcing jurisdiction. In August 2019, the Uniform Law Commission took a significant step to fill that gap, though limited to Canadian judgments. The Uniform Registration of Canadian Money Judgments Act provides a registration process similar to that for …

Circuit Split On The Application Of The "Safety Valve" Provision As Applied To The Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act - Alexander And Mosquera-Murillo, Alexander D. Andruzzi

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

When the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided the case of United States v. Mosquera-Murillo, it created a circuit-split on whether individuals charged under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (codified as 46 U.S.C. § 705) are entitled to relief under the "Safety Valve" provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). The "Safety Valve" allows individuals who meet certain criteria to be sentenced according to the sentencing guidelines, regardless of any mandatory minimum sentences. This case note compares the holding of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to the Eleventh Circuit's holding in United States …

Cross-Border Evidence Gathering In Transnational Criminal Investigation: Is The Microsoft Ireland Case The 'Next Frontier'?, Robert Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A recent and prominent American appeals court case has revived a controversial international law question: can a state compel a person on its territory to obtain and produce material which the person owns or controls, but which is stored on the territory of a foreign state? The case involved, United States v. Microsoft, features electronic data stored offshore which was sought in the context of a criminal prosecution. It highlights the current legal complexity surrounding the cross-border gathering of electronic evidence, which has produced friction and divergent state practice. The author here contends that the problems involved are best understood—and …

Deepwater Port Act Of 1974: Some International And Environmental Implications, James H. Gnann Jr.

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Contemporary Soviet Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The General Principles And Major Institutions Of Post-1958 Soviet Criminal Law, Chris Osakwe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The United States Government As Defendant - One Example Of The Need For A Uniform Liability Regime To Govern Outer Space And Space-Related Activities, Joseph A. Bosco

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bargaining Practices: Negotiating The Kampala Compromise For The International Criminal Court, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

At the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Review Conference in 2010, the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) agreed upon a definition of the crime of aggression, jurisdictional conditions, and a mechanism for its entry into force (the "Kampala Compromise"). These amendments give the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute political and military leaders of states for planning, preparing, initiating, or executing illegal wars, beginning as early as January 2017.

This article explains the bargaining practices of the diplomats that gave rise to this historic development in international law. This article argues that the international-practices framework, as currently conceived, does not adequately capture …

The Alien Tort Statute As Transnational Law, Jaye Ellis

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Alien Tort Statute And The Law Of Nations In Kiobel And Beyond, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum the U.S. Supreme Court wrongly applied a presumption against extraterritoriality to claims authorized by the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). Even assuming such a presumption properly could extend to the ATS and claims authorized thereunder, the presumption is easily overcome by Congress’s unambiguous instruction that the statute encompasses violations of “the law of nations,” which includes both substantive and jurisdictional components — including principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction. Early 19th Century case law and congressional reaction thereto clearly demonstrate that Congress expressly invoked “the law of nations” to overturn the Court’s imposition of a limiting presumption …

Symposium Introduction – Beyond Borders: Extraterritoriality In American Law, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Morrison, The Effects Test, And The Presumption Against Extraterritoriality: A Reply To Professor Dodge, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Reason Behind The Rules: From Description To Normativity In International Criminal Procedure, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

As the International Criminal Court (ICC) continues to mature in its practices, it provokes discussion on whether the comfortable framework of adversarial and inquisitorial systems should be used to evaluate an institution that exists in a fundamentally different context from that of national criminal justice systems. In order to avoid entangling the ICC in rules that are not tailored to fit its specific goals and institutional context, the normative purposes underlying procedural rules derived from domestic institutions should be reexamined.

This article draws out basic principles that may be of use in reexamining the reasoning behind the rules of procedure …

Duplicative Foreign Litigation, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

What should a court do when a lawsuit involving the same parties and the same issues is already pending in the court of another country? With the growth of transnational litigation, the issue of reactive, duplicative proceedings - and the waste inherent in such duplication - becomes a more common problem. The future does not promise change. In a modern, globalized world, litigants are increasingly tempted to forum shop among countries to find courts and law more favorably inclined to them than their opponents.

The federal courts, however, do not yet have a coherent response to the problem. They apply …

Prosecuting Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

The Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court will soon have its first opportunity to revise the Rome Statute and activate the latent crime of aggression, which awaits a definition of its elements and conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The working group charged with drafting a provision is scheduled to complete its task by 2008 or 2009, one year before the International Criminal Court’s first review conference.

Beginning with a history of the crime meant to put the current negotiations in the context of past initiatives, this article sets out the status of the negotiations and begins …

Law Beyond Borders: Jurisdiction In An Era Of Globalization, Introduction To The Symposium, Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Trail Smelter Déjà Vu: Extraterritoriality, International Environmental Law And The Search For Solutions To Canadian-U.S. Transboundary Water Pollution Disputes, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the 1930s, a privately owned smelting plant in Trail, Canada was the focus of the most famous case in international environmental law: the Trail Smelter Arbitration. But the subject of that landmark case has not gone away. Over the last seventy years, the Trail smelter dumped millions of tons of mercury, arsenic, and toxic waste into the Columbia River. The dumping's effects have been felt in neighboring Washington State, where the toxic discharges have caused environmental harm. In 2003, the EPA began investigating the Washington border area for designation as a Superfund (CERCLA) site, and controversially demanded that the …

The Utility Of The Ali/Unidroit Project On Principles And Rules Of Transnational Civil Procedure, Janet Walker

Articles & Book Chapters

This article considers the important role that could be played by transnational rules of civil procedure in facilitating transnational litigation and in reducing the incidence of forum shopping.

Europe And Overseas Commodity Traders V. Banque Paribas London: Zero Steps Forward And Two Steps Back, Paige K. Willison

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

While international securities transactions have become the norm in today's globalized economy, such transactions necessarily implicate the laws of more than one nation, thereby creating both conflict and confusion. Due to the depth and breadth of U.S. securities laws, plaintiffs often prefer to sue in the United States under U.S. law. Yet inappropriately applying U.S. law to transnational transactions may offend notions of comity. This Note discusses the different tools used to decide the following jurisdictional issues. First, under what circumstances do U.S. anti-fraud rules apply to securities transactions? Second, under what circumstances do U.S. registration laws apply? Over the …

The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Equitable Remedies And Other Types Of Non-Money Judgments In United States And French Courts: A Comparative Analysis, Noele Sophie Rigot

LLM Theses and Essays

Courts of industrialized nations are often faced with adjudication of cases which involve foreign components. It is common for those courts to be asked by individuals or legal entities from a transnational environment to adjudicate with regard to some elements already adjudged in a different legal system as if it were a local judgment. The question that arises is how effects should be given when dealing with prior adjudications. Most countries agree to recognize some effects determined by foreign jurisdictions, as long as those determinations meet standards that guarantee proper integration of the foreign decision into the domestic setting. These …

International Abductions, Low Intensity Conflicts, And State Sovereignty: A Moral Inquiry, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

What are the moral principles bearing on operations such as an international abduction? International abductions are part of a larger category of international acts referred to as "low-intensity" operations. Can these acts be morally justified in time of peace? Can one nation, for example, rightfully claim that abductions of persons who are suspected of horrendous crimes by agents of another country violate the first country's sovereignty? Does the interest of the other country in bringing such persons to trial outweigh that sovereignty claim? If not, what interest of the second country could possibly justify the abduction? In any case, are …

Transnational Litigation In American Courts: An Overview Of Problems And Issues, Robert B. Von Mehren

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

This Article discusses problems and issues that attorneys practicing in the area of transnational litigation must understand. These issues include obtaining jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, and service of summons.

Jurisdiction Of The Court--The Supreme Court Of Canada, Peter W. Hogg

Canada-United States Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Jurisdiction Of The Court--The United States Supreme Court, Eugene Gressman

Canada-United States Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reciprocal Influence Of British And United States Law, Clark C. Siewert

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The influence of British and United States courts on each other's statutory and decisional law has been primarily indirect. Although few fundamental differences exist between the legal principles, methods, and concepts of the two major common law jurisdictions, the courts in both countries have resisted the use of the other's case law. This is unfortunate because a United States or an English case might provide a fresh perspective for a domestic court that otherwise feels bound by a previous line of reasoning. Since cases from foreign jurisdictions are most relevant in dealing with a question of international or transnational law, …

Extraterritorial Application Of The Federal Securities Code: An Examination Of The Role Of International Law In American Courts, George M. Taylor Iii.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 were enacted, the international capital market was in its infancy, and the legion difficulties of regulating transnational securities transactions had not evidenced themselves. The adaptation of those laws to the international economy has been largely the work of courts. The Securities and Exchange Commission, whose single venture into the field has not proved fully successful, has gladly acquiesced in the case by case approach to extraterritorial securities jurisdiction. On the other hand, Congress has for the most part remained silent. Since extraterritorial application of the securities laws …