Throwback Thursday: Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino
Sixty years ago, on March 23, 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino. By a vote of 8-1, the Court held that the act of state doctrine prevented U.S. courts from questioning the validity of Cuba’s expropriations of property owned by U.S. nationals, even if the…
Continue ReadingSecond 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…
Continue ReadingA View of Transnational Litigation from the State Department
I recently had the pleasure of reading Footnotes to History: Law and Diplomacy by TLB contributor Mark Feldman. Mark spent sixteen years (1965-1981) at the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, where he helped write the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the Iran Claims Settlement Agreement. The…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Rejects Forum Non Conveniens Motion in Haiti Price-Fixing Case
The plaintiffs in Celestin v. Martelly brought a class action alleging that Haitian President Michel Joseph Martelly hatched a scheme to impose fees and fix prices on money transfers, food remittances, and international calls to and from Haiti and that Haitian and U.S. companies joined the scheme in violation of U.S. antitrust law, the federal…
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 ReadingUsing TLB to Teach Foreign Relations Law
This post discusses Foreign Relations Law as part of our series explaining how professors can use resources on TLB to teach various classes. Previous posts have discussed Transnational Litigation, Civil Procedure, International Business Transactions, and Conflict of Laws. Although TLB focuses on litigation, and Foreign Relations Law classes cover many topics that are rarely litigated, there is significant…
Continue ReadingWhen Is International Law a Political Question?
In a provocative essay posted on SSRN, The Political Question Doctrine and International Law, TLB Advisor Curt Bradley looks at the historical relationship between the political question doctrine and international law, arguing that “the political question doctrine emerged in part to allow the political branches, rather than the courts, to make determinations about this country’s—and…
Continue ReadingOfficials Who Kidnapped Hotel Rwanda Hero Are Not Immune from Suit
In 1994, Paul Rusesabagina was the manager of a hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. During the genocide, he sheltered 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees, all of whom survived. His courage inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda,” and in 2005 President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rusesabagina became a human rights advocate and vocal critic…
Continue ReadingThrowback Thursday: Forty Years of the Bancec Test
The Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba was saddled with a cumbersome mouthful of a title, one confusingly similar to a 1972 opinion in another important case, First National City Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba. Fortunately, the 1983 decision was quickly dubbed Bancec, an…
Continue ReadingChoice of Law in the American Courts in 2022
The thirty-sixth annual survey on choice of law in the American courts is now available on SSRN. The survey covers significant cases decided in 2022 on choice of law, party autonomy, extraterritoriality, international human rights, foreign sovereign immunity, foreign official immunity, the act of state doctrine, adjudicative jurisdiction, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign…
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