Conflict of Laws

Most Americans live their personal and economic lives spread over more than one state -- and many have personal and economic ties with other countries, as well. These pervasive phenomena provoke the key issues in this course: choice-of-law, recognition of judgments, Constitutional constraints, international comity, and so on. These issues may seem to be among the most technical and practical matters in the law school curriculum -- and they are, indeed, crucial for lawyering. However, they also raise the thorniest questions of legal legitimacy. For example, the possibility that more than one jurisdiction's law might apply to a particular case puts into question some of our most taken-for-granted assumptions. What is the basis for the application of any particular law to anyone? The many different approaches to conflict-of-laws that have developed over the past hundred years track the changes in general legal theory during the same period: from formal territorialism to policy-based pragmatism and well beyond. The Constitutional limitations on states' discretion on these issues have undergone a similar evolution. Moreover, the changing global economic and legal landscape has profoundly affected courts' approaches to transnational disputes. We will study the practical lawyering skills entailed in these issues and also ponder the deeper philosophical issues underlying them. Note that while most of the cases in the course concern private law, we will also touch on such matters as anti-discrimination law, international human rights, and the fraught new conflicts among states' abortion laws.