Throwback Thursday: The Helms-Burton Act’s 30th Anniversary
Thirty years ago today, on March 12, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, better known by the names of its principal sponsors as the Helms-Burton Act (“the Act”). The Act was designed to sanction Fidel Castro’s government and to encourage a transition to a democratically…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Forecasting Fuld
Nearly a decade ago, Professor Aaron Simowitz identified not only the problem presented in Fuld v. PLO (2025), but also the solution the Supreme Court ultimately adopted. This Throwback Thursday post highlights Simowitz’s article Legislating Transnational Jurisdiction (57 Va. J. Int’l L. 325), which offers important insights for those trying to make sense of Fuld’s…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Hilton v. Guyot
One hundred and thirty years ago this week, on June 3, 1895, the Supreme Court decided Hilton v. Guyot. Hilton is the seminal decision on recognizing and enforcing foreign judgments in U.S. courts. Although the federal common law rule that Hilton announced has been superseded by state law, Hilton continues to influence state rules in…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain
On June 29, 2004, two decades ago, the Supreme Court decided Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, recognizing an implied cause of action under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for violations of human rights norms that are generally accepted and specifically defined. In this post, I look back at Sosa and discuss what has happened in ATS litigation during…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Empagran’s Complicated Legacy
Twenty years ago tomorrow, on June 14, 2004, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran S.A. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Stephen Breyer, interpreted the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act of 1982 (FTAIA) to preclude the application of U.S. antitrust law to injuries in other countries. Empagran…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Eighty Years of Ex Parte Republic of Peru
Back in 1943, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in an admiralty case against the Ucayali, a Peruvian steamship. A Cuban company brought the in rem action in a federal district court in Louisiana alleging that the steamship violated a charter agreement by failing to carry a cargo of sugar from Peru to New York….
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites
In the Supreme Court’s end-of-Term personal jurisdiction case, Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway (2023) (prior coverage here, here, and here), Justice Jackson wrote separately to explain why she found “particularly instructive” the Court’s prior decision in Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie des Bauxites (1982). Bauxites, a case about jurisdictional discovery and discovery sanctions, is…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. California
Thirty years ago next week, the Supreme Court addressed the extraterritorial reach of U.S. antitrust laws in Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. California. The Court reiterated that the Sherman Act applies to anticompetitive conduct abroad that causes substantial intended effects in the United States, but it divided sharply over the role of “international comity.” Writing…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Federal Rule 44.1
For this installment of Throwback Thursday, we are going back to the year 1966. In that year, the Supreme Court adopted important changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure governing class actions, amendments that have garnered substantial commentary ever since. This post addresses a less-heralded change, the introduction of Federal Rule 44.1 governing foreign…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.
Ten years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., applying the presumption against extraterritoriality to the implied cause of action for human rights violations under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). In Kiobel, the Court began to whittle down the cause of action it had…
Continue Reading