Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Residents of Gaza Sue President Biden

Israeli tank protecting a settlement in the Jordan Valley, West Bank

The Ninth Circuit is considering a case designed to force the Biden administration to “take all measures within their power to exert influence over Israel to end its bombing of the Palestinian people of Gaza.” Oral argument is scheduled for June 9, 2024. Allegations The plaintiffs are several NGOs, individual Palestinian residents of Gaza, and…

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Victims of Hamas Bring Suit Related to Campus Protests

Victims of the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas have sued two U.S. organizations for violating of Anti-Terrorism Act and the Alien Tort Statute. The nine plaintiffs – U.S. and Israeli citizens – allege that defendants serve as a “propaganda machine,” one that intimidates and recruits “impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for…

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The Challenges of Suing Under JASTA

Foreign states may be sued in the United States only to the extent permitted by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Over the years, Congress has amended the statute to create several exceptions to immunity for terrorism-related lawsuits, especially for those brought against states designated as “state sponsors of terrorism.”  But only a very small…

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It Is Harder Than It Looks to Sue State Sponsors of Terrorism

Rotem and Yoav Golan were injured in a 2015 terrorist attack in Israel when an assailant deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people. The Golans and their family sued Iran and Syria for various torts and for aiding and abetting a terrorist attack. Judge Trevor N. McFadden of the U.S. District Court for…

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TLB Turns Two!

Two years ago today, we launched the Transnational Litigation Blog in hopes of building a community of practitioners, academics, and students similarly interested in these fascinating and important issues. We are grateful to all of our readers, and we are especially grateful to the 91 authors (in addition to the five of us) who have…

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Federal Court Enjoins New Jersey Statute Sanctioning Russia

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, New Jersey enacted a statute (the “Russia Act”) prohibiting state agencies and political subdivisions from doing business with entities engaged in “prohibited activities” in Russia. In Kyocera Document Sols. Am., Inc. v. Div. of Admin., district court judge Robert H. Kirsch held that the statute is preempted…

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Second Circuit Hears Halkbank Oral Argument

On February 28, 2024, the Second Circuit heard oral argument in United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. From the judges’ questions—which admittedly came almost exclusively from Judge Bianco—the panel seems likely to hold that Halkbank, a Turkish state-owned bank, is not immune under federal common law from criminal prosecution for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. That…

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Ninth Circuit Gets Tangled Up in Minimum Contacts and Due Process

Do the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections require minimum contacts? And do those protections apply to foreign states sued under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA)? Those are the fundamental questions on which Ninth Circuit judges offered differing approaches as they resolved a recent petition for rehearing en banc. Regular TLB readers may recall that…

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Afghan Central Bank Assets: Still Not Benefiting the People of Afghanistan

Following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power, the United States government froze approximately $7 billion of Afghan central bank (Da Afghanistan Bank, “DAB”) assets located in the United States.  As covered on TLB, half of those assets remain frozen in the U.S. while the other half…

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Happy New Year!

TLB will be on winter break until January 9, 2024. We wish you all the best in the new year!

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@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

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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Gregg Cashmark

Vanderbilt Law School
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Symeon Symeonides

Willamette University College of Law
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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John B. Bellinger

Arnold & Porter LLP
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R. Reeves Anderson

Arnold & Porter LLP
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Volodymyr Ponomarov

Arnold & Porter LLP
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