Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Supreme Court Grants Review in Three Transnational Litigation Cases

Today, the Supreme Court granted review in three transnational litigation cases and denied review in three others. Emma White has discussed each of the cases in greater detail. In Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, the Court will consider whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies to criminal proceedings. Chimène Keitner has previously analyzed…

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The U.S. Supreme Court, October Term 2022

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court holds its first conference of the October 2022 Term. The term will officially open next week on the first Monday of October. To help readers keep track of petitions and cases raising interesting questions about transnational litigation, we are pleased to announce our new Supreme Court page. At today’s conference,…

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How Congress Should Designate Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism

Cross Posted at Just Security Appearing before the United Nations General Assembly late last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his call for the designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.  Proponents of the designation argue that it would ratchet up sanctions–making it more difficult for Russia to continue the war against Ukraine–and…

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Contractual Waivers of Foreign Sovereign Immunity

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) provides that foreign states are immune from suit in the United States unless an exception applies.  An important and long-standing exception to immunity is consent (the more common term in international practice) or waiver (the term used in the United States). The FSIA provides that a foreign state shall…

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More Evidence that Helms-Burton is Backfiring

In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act to strengthen sanctions against Cuba and to deter foreign companies from investing there. To discourage foreign investment, Title III created a civil remedy allowing U.S. nationals to sue any person who “traffics” in property confiscated by the Cuban government for damages in an amount three times the value…

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Throwback Thursday: John Henry Merryman on the Civil Law Tradition

Transnational litigation is situated at the intersection of many areas of law, including comparative law. This Throwback Thursday focuses on one of the great works of comparative law, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America by John Henry Merryman.  The slim volume can almost get lost…

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Fifth Circuit Issues En Banc Opinion on Personal Jurisdiction over Foreign Defendants

The Fifth Circuit has issued an important en banc opinion on foreign defendants, personal jurisdiction, and the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause.  The court held in Douglass v. Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha that the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause mirrors the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, except that the relevant sovereign is the United States…

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Using TLB to Teach Civil Procedure

August invariably brings not only heat and humidity (to Nashville, anyway) but also…. the first civil procedure classes.  And, more pressingly, the need for a syllabus. This post continues TLB’s series on using the blog to teach law school classes. An earlier post discussed using TLB to Teach Transnational Litigation and there are more to…

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New Scholarship on the Argentinian Sovereign Debt Litigation

For more than a decade in the early 00s, Argentina’s $100 billion sovereign debt default dominated the transnational litigation news headlines – and, indeed, global financial news. Hundreds of cases were filed against Argentina in U.S. courts with long-term implications for foreign sovereign immunity and foreign direct investment.   Many of those cases were consolidated before…

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No Immunity for Diplomats Who Hold Domestic Workers in Conditions of Modern Slavery

The U.K. Supreme Court issued an important decision last week in  Basfar v. Wong. The Court held that a diplomat who allegedly kept a domestic employee in conditions of modern slavery was not immune from suit because the alleged conduct brought the suit within the commercial activity exception to immunity under the Vienna Convention on…

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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

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
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Scott Dodson

UC Law – San Francisco
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Paul MacMahon

LSE Law School
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Satjit Singh Chhabra

Khaitan and Co
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Keshav Somani

Khaitan and Co.
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Kartikey Mahajan

Khaitan and Co.
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Caroline Spencer

Vanderbilt Law School
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