William Dodge
George Washington University Law School
William S. Dodge is Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at the George Washington University Law School. He served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011 to 2012 and as Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. He is currently a Reporter for the second phase of the Restatement (Fourth), an Adviser for the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws, and a member of the Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Law. Professor Dodge is the co-author of Transnational Business Problems (7th ed. 2024) and Transnational Litigation in a Nutshell (2d ed. 2021). His articles on international law and transnational litigation have appeared in journals such as the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal.
CIMEX’s Implications for Foreign Official Immunity in TVPA Cases
In Exxon Mobil Corp v. Corporación CIMEX, S.A. (Cuba), the Supreme Court held that Congress, by creating a cause of action against agencies and instrumentalities of foreign states, abrogated the immunity from suit that an instrumentality of Cuba would otherwise have enjoyed under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). (For analysis, see here.) The Court relied on…
Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Upholds Dismissal of TVPRA Claims Against Neil Gaiman on Forum Non Conveniens Grounds
On June 29, 2026, in Pavlovich v. Gaiman, the Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of claims against author Neil Gaiman for sex trafficking and forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) on grounds of forum non conveniens, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it held that New…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Holds that Federal Destruction of Property Statute Is Not Extraterritorial
On December 21, 1988, a bomb planted onboard brought down Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 more on the ground. By special agreement, two Libyan intelligence agents were tried for the bombing by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. One was acquitted and the other…
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