Choice of Law

A Costly Drafting Mistake

When I teach Conflict of Laws, I spend a lot of time showing my class how to draft a good choice-of-law clause. It’s not hard. Everything you need to know is laid out in the Primer on Choice-of-Law Clauses. Unfortunately, these instructions are not always followed. In one recent case, Pool Scouts Franchising LLC v….

Continue Reading

Demystifying Borrowing Statutes

A borrowing statute is a law directing the courts in one jurisdiction to “borrow” the shorter statute of limitations of another jurisdiction. Borrowing statutes are common in the United States—thirty-six states have enacted them—but they are largely unknown in the rest of the world. In this post, I seek to demystify borrowing statutes for the…

Continue Reading

New Article on the Public Policy Exception to Choice of Law

In every private international law system, the forum state reserves the right to reject the application of a foreign rule that deeply offends the forum’s fundamental sense of justice and fairness. In all systems, this “public policy reservation” (ordre public) operates as an exception to the forum’s choice-of-law rules, not its rules on jurisdiction or…

Continue Reading

Choice of Law in Terrorism Cases in the District of Columbia

When an Iranian-backed terrorist group operating out of Lebanon detonates a bomb in Israel that kills a U.S. citizen domiciled in Texas, what law governs civil claims brought against Iran in the District of Columbia (DDC)? Some version of this choice-of-law question has been presented to the DDC many times over the past two decades….

Continue Reading

Cassirer’s Case Continues

Regular TLB readers will be familiar with David Cassirer’s long-running suit to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro, which the Nazis stole from his great-grandmother, from a museum owned by the government of Spain. The case turns on choice of law. Under Spanish law, an owner acquires good title through possession for a period of…

Continue Reading

A New CISG Decision from Arizona

Many U.S. lawyers are unaware that the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods – or CISG – might apply to the contracts they negotiate on behalf of their clients. A recent federal district court decision from Arizona, Kümpers Composites GmbH v. TPI Composites (Judge Susan M. Brnovich), provides a nice occasion…

Continue Reading

A Plea for Private International Law

In early January 2025, I published a post titled “Teaching Conflict of Laws at U.S. Law Schools.” The post surveyed the course offerings of the top 50 U.S. law schools to see whether Conflict of Laws had been offered during the previous two academic years. Shortly after it went live, I received the following email from…

Continue Reading

Cassirer Plaintiffs Ask Supreme Court to GVR

On Friday, the plaintiffs in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to grant, vacate, and remand (GVR) the Ninth Circuit’s decision in light of new California legislation mandating the application of California law to the merits of the case. It would be standard practice for the Court to…

Continue Reading

Choice of Law in Terrorism Cases Redux

On September 16, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Senior Judge Richard J. Leon) decided Messina v. Syrian Arab Republic. This case is the latest in a long series brought by victims of state-sponsored terrorism in the District of Columbia. In a pair of prior posts, I argued that the courts’…

Continue Reading

Governor Newsom Signs Holocaust Art Bill

Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2867 into law. The bill provides that California law applies in suits brought by a California resident involving the theft of art or other personal property during the Holocaust or other political persecutions. Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel introduced AB 2867 in response to the Ninth Circuit’s decision earlier this…

Continue Reading

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
Bio | Posts

Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
Bio | Posts

Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
Bio | Posts

Maryam Jamshidi

University of Colorado Law School
Bio | Posts

Fikri Soral

Galatasaray University
Bio | Posts

Gregg Cashmark

Vanderbilt Law School
Bio | Posts

Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Bio | Posts

Symeon Symeonides

Willamette University College of Law
Bio | Posts

Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
Bio | Posts

John B. Bellinger

Arnold & Porter LLP
Bio | Posts

R. Reeves Anderson

Arnold & Porter LLP
Bio | Posts

Volodymyr Ponomarov

Arnold & Porter LLP
Bio | Posts