Posts

Using TLB to Teach Civil Procedure (2025 Update)

As the fall semester gets underway, we are updating our posts on using resources on TLB to teach various classes. This post gathers materials that can complement a standard civil procedure course, whether by providing concise overviews of doctrines, distilling Supreme Court developments, or suggesting recent cases that can spark discussions of perennial procedural issues….

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A Win for Helms-Burton Plaintiffs, But Potential Loss for US Companies

On July 30, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a district court’s decision dismissing José Ramón López Regueiro’s case against American Airlines and LATAM Airlines under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.  The court of appeals remanded, holding that the district court’s interpretation of the citizenship prerequisites in Helm-Burton conflicted…

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D.C. Circuit Holds that District Court Must Decide Jurisdictional Facts under FSIA for Itself

In a recent decision, Hulley Enterprises Ltd. v. Russian Federation, the D.C. Circuit held that a district court must decide for itself any “jurisdictional facts” necessary to establish subject matter jurisdiction in suits against foreign states under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The plaintiffs sought to enforce an arbitral award against Russia. The FSIA’s…

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Using TLB to Teach Conflict of Laws (2025 Update)

This post updates our series explaining how professors can use resources on TLB to teach various classes. Previous posts have discussed Transnational Litigation, Civil Procedure, Foreign Relations Law, and International Business Transactions. This post discusses Conflict of Laws. All of these posts are accessible at our Teaching Resources page. Primers and Topic Pages Conflict of…

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First Circuit Remands Constitutionality of the TVPA to District Court

In Boniface v. Viliena, a Massachusetts jury found a former Haitian mayor liable under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) for extrajudicial killing, attempted extrajudicial killing, and torture, awarding the three plaintiffs $15.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. On appeal to the First Circuit, the defendant’s principal arguments were (1) that the TVPA does…

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Unpacking the Originalist Argument for Maximalist Personal Jurisdiction, Part IV: Picquet v. Swan

This is the fourth in a series of posts questioning the originalist argument for unlimited personal jurisdiction in the federal courts. The prior posts have argued that many of the sources cited by proponents of the theory, including early admiralty cases and twentieth-century cases about the extraterritorial reach of Congress’s prescriptive jurisdiction, do not bear…

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California Supreme Court Narrows Grounds for Non-Enforcement of Foreign Forum Selection Clauses

On July 21, 2025, the California Supreme Court issued its first opinion in many years addressing the enforceability of a forum selection clause. In EpicentRx v. Superior Court, it held that the fact that the court named in the clause did not allow for jury trials was not a valid basis for declining to enforce…

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Fifth Circuit Holds that TPVA Does Not Abrogate Foreign Official Immunity

The Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) creates a civil cause of action for torture and extrajudicial killing done under color of foreign law. In Does 1-5 v. Obiano, the widows of five men killed by the Nigerian military during peaceful rallies for Biafran independence sued Willie Obiano, the former governor of the state where the…

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Recent Developments in Helms-Burton Litigation

It is a busy time in the Helms-Burton world.  With a $29.8 million jury award in Florida, major developments in the law of personal jurisdiction, several notable court of appeals decisions, and two recent CVSGs, there is a lot going on. That stands to reason. It was 2019 when the first Trump administration lifted the…

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Unpacking the Originalist Argument for Maximalist Personal Jurisdiction, Part III: Admiralty Jurisdiction

This is the third in a series of posts questioning the originalist argument for maximalist personal jurisdiction. The crux of the originalist argument is that early federal decisions discussed limits on personal jurisdiction in terms of international law (not constitutional constraints) and that Congress could override international law. Thus, the theory goes, Congress as an…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.brunk@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

George Washington University Law School
william.dodge@law.gwu.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Victoria Pino

Vanderbilt Law School
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Robert Kry

MoloLamken LLP
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Rinat Gareev

Whitecliff Management
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León Castellanos-Jankiewicz

Institute for International and European Law
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
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Maryam Jamshidi

University of Colorado Law School
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Fikri Soral

Galatasaray University
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