Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk
Vanderbilt Law School
Ingrid Brunk Wuerth (@WuerthIngrid) is the Helen Strong Curry Chair of International Law at Vanderbilt Law School where she is also serves as the Associate Dean for Research and the Director of the Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program. She was a Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law and she has served as a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. In April, 2022 she will become co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law. Professor Wuerth has written extensively on foreign relations law, transnational litigation, and public international law, including for the Harvard Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the American Journal of International Law. She is the co-author of U.S. Foreign Relations Law: Cases, Materials and Practice Exercises (5th ed. 2017).
Posts by Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk
Due Process and in rem Jurisdiction
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in United States v. Nasri that Fifth Amendment due process is violated if a federal court exercises in rem jurisdiction but lacks custody or constructive control over the property. The district court, Judge Hayes (S.D. Cal.), had held to the contrary, and Judge Bennett dissented from the panel…
Continue ReadingDoes the FSIA Permit Trials in Absentia?
During the course of a lengthy litigation, Venezuela stopped defending a lawsuit, due to a change in government. The court set pretrial deadlines, which Venezuela did not meet. The district court did not enter a default, however, because the plaintiff wanted instead to prove his case. The court accordingly held a bench trial (without Venezuela’s…
Continue ReadingThe New HEAR Act: Just in Time for the Cases That Inspired It?
When President Trump signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025 on April 13, 2026, most commentary – including my own – generally discussed the Act as a forward-looking change that would help future claimants. Although I mentioned that the Act would apply to “current” plaintiffs, I did not explain which cases that might…
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