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Is International Litigation a Field? Two Views of the Border

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2017

Paul R. Dubinsky*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University Law School

Abstract

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Type
The Future of Transnational Litigation in U.S. Courts: Distinct Field or Footnote?
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2007

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References

* Mr. Donovan, Professor Reimann, and Professor Silberman did not contribute remarks to the Proceedings.

1 Gary B. Born With David Westin, International Civil Litigation in United States Courts: Commentary and Materials 3 (1988) (“Born & Westin). Among the intellectual precursors to Born & Westin were Abram Chayes, Thomas Ehrlich, and Andreas F. Lowenfeld, International Legal Process : Materials for An Introductory Course (1968); Kurt H. Nadelmann, Conflict of Laws: International and Interstate: Selected Essays (1972), and Henry J. Steiner and Detlev Vagts, Transnational Legal Problems: Materials and Text (1968). See also, American Bar Association, Division for Professional Education, International Litigation and Arbitration: Practical Approaches and Considerations (1987).

2 See Born & Westin at___(referring to the need to (a) balance foreign and U.S. interests, (b) consider the optimal degree of judicial involvement in national foreign affairs, (c) resolve potentially competing claims by state and federal laws and institutions in disputes that touch upon American relations with other countries, (d) determine the status of international law within the U.S. legal system, and (e) define and apply the doctrine of comity).

3 See, e.g., Koh, Harold Hongju, Transnational Legal Process, 75 Neb. L. Rev. 181 (1994)Google Scholar; Lowenfeld, Andreas F., International Litigation and the Search for Reasonableness (1996)Google Scholar.

4 E.g., International Litigation Procedure, International Litigation Quarterly, The Journal of International Arbitration, Transnational Lawyer, Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems; see also, “Transnational Dispute Management” available at <www.transnational-dispute-management.com>.

5 Case books directed at American law students include: Gary B. Born & Peter В. Rutledge, International Civil Litigation in U.S. Courts (4th ed. 2006); Charles S. Baldwin IV, Ronald A. Brand, David Epstein and Michael Wallace Gordon, International Civil Dispute Resolution: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (2004); Thomas E. Carbonneau, Cases and Materials on International Litigation and Arbitration (2005); Andreas F. Lowenfeld, International Litigation and Arbitration (3d ed. 2006); Jordan J. Paust, Jon M. Van Dyke, and Linda A. Malone, International Law and Litigation in the U.S. (2d ed. 2005); Ralph G. Steinhardt, International Civil Litigation: Cases and Materials on the Rise of Intermestic Law (2002); and Russell J. Weintraub, International Litigation and Arbitration: Practice and Planning (4th ed. 2003). The list of general and specialized treatises in the field is far too long to reproduce here.

6 See Reimann, Mathias, Taking Globalization Seriously: Michigan Breaks New Ground by Requiring the Study of Transnational Law, Mich. Bar J. 52 (Jul. 2003)Google Scholar; Elia Powers, “Harvard Alters First-Year Program,” Inside Higher Ed (Oct. 9, 2006) available at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/09/harvard.

7 Association of American Law Schools, 2006 Annual Meeting: Internationalizing the First Year Curriculum, papers published at 24 Penn St.Int’l L. Rev. (2006); Judith Areen, “Expanding Knowledge and Serving Our Communities: Academic, Civil, and International,” 2006-1 AALS News 1,6 (Feb. 2006) (detailing AALS initiatives in response to “dramatic growth in transnational law”); Mid-Year Meeting: Conference on International Law Examines What is Wrong with the Way We Teach and Write International Law, 2007-1 AALS News 9 (Feb. 2007).

8 The term was coined by Philip C. Jessup in his Storrs Lecture on Jurisprudence. See Philip C. Jessup, Transnational Law (1956).

10 Surprisingly, little has been done by the Federal Judicial Center , the National Center for State Courts, or the Judicial Conference of the United States to provide Congress or the public with hard data on the number and kind of suits in the system with a transnational component, however that may be defined. There seems to be little doubt that the absolute number of such cases is increasing. (Data on the number of arbitration requests filed with the International Chamber of Commerce and the American Arbitration Association strongly supports the view that the number of transnational disputes is rising). Less clear is whether the proportion of such cases to the entire case load of American courts is also increasing, but this latter measure likely is less relevant than the absolute number of cases in terms of serving as a critical mass fueling specialization in this area.

11 See London Branches, Doubling Down, American Lawyer (May 2001) at 21 (providing data on the growth in size of London offices of major U.S. law firms).

12 When asked why a lawyer admitted to practice solely in the United States was chosen by Deutsche Telekom Ag to represent it in a complex dispute with France Telecom regarding an attempted acquisition of Telecom Italia S.p.A., Gary Born responded: “What I brought to the case was expertise in the truly international process that has grown up to deal with this mess.” Michael Goldhaber, The Court that Came in from the Cold, American Lawyer (May 2001) at 101.

13 See, e.g., <http://www.abanet.org/litigation/committees/international/home.html> (American Bar Association International Litigation Committee); <http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/sections/international_law/commIT-tee.cfm#3> (District of Columbia Bar International Dispute Resolution Committee); <http://www.nycbar.org/Com-mittees/list.htm#i> (Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Committee on International Commercial Disputes).

14 See Michael Goldhaber, The Court that Came in from the Cold, American Lawyer (May 2001) at 98 (regarding the penetration of U.S.-based law firms into the previously closed market for complex international arbitration disputes).

15 See Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Herbert Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System (1953); Falion, Richard H. Jr., Comparing Federal Courts “Paradigms,” 12 Const. Comment. 3, 4 (1995)Google Scholar (maintaining that the first edition of Hart and Wechsler “define[d] the field”); Falion, Richard H. Jr., Reflections on the Hart and Wechsler Paradigm, 47 Vand. L. Rev. 953, 963 (1994)Google Scholar (“[T]o study Federal Courts law as we know it is to work in a subject area whose definition can be traced directly to Hart and Wechsler.”). There were, however, earlier, somewhat similar efforts. See, e.g., Felix Frankfurter and Wilber G. Katz, Eds., Cases and Materials on Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure (1931).

16 Other data points might include the degree of specialization involved in cross-border transactional work, international tax, and transnational family law matters, to name a few examples.

17 Some would define what constitutes a transnational dispute in greater detail, so as also to encompass litigation in which one or more legal issues is to be adjudicated applying foreign law or international law or where the litigants’ access to evidence is subject to foreign law or the supervision of foreign authorities. foreign or international element is present, such as a foreign party, an issue governed by foreign or international law, or the need to obtain important evidence located abroad.

18 Into which category, for example, would one put a suit by a Michigan corporation against another Michigan corporation, where the latter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a foreign corporation, which will be the focus of much non-party discovery?

19 12 N.Y.2d 473 (1963).

20 An Ontario statute barred a passenger from suing the driver of an automobile if the passenger’s status was that of a guest at the time of the accident. 12 N.Y. 2d at 477 (summarizing Highway Traffic Act of Province of Ontario).

21 American Law Institute, Restatement of Conflict of Laws (1934).

22 American Law Institute, Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971).

23 Among the difficulties: two equally authoritative texts of the statute, one in French and one in English; and the possibility that the Canadian Anglophone tradition regarding the weight to be given to committee reports and the like is different from that in the U.S. Indeed, even within the United States, the correct approach is disputed. Justice Scalia has made a concerted effort for years in voicing opposition each time a majority opinion in a statutory case relies significantly on legislative history rather than other avenues to legislative intent.

24 At one point, the Court noted that the Ontario guest statute had been held not to apply to accidents taking place in Quebec. See 12 N.Y. 2d at 484, fn. 13.

25 See Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, Foreign and Domestic (1834) (repeatedly turning to the law of nations and continental European authors for analogies to U.S. interstate conflicts problems); Lorenzen, Ernest G. Story’s Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws — One Hundred Years After, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 15, 18-19 (1935)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (noting that little had been written on this in either England or the United States prior to Story).

26 The term “law of nations,” used widely in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, is not synonymous with the modern term “international law.” See generally Waldron, Jeremy, Foreign Law and the Modern lus Gentium, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 132-37 (2005)Google Scholar (explaining the ‘broader meaning’ of the term “law of nations”).

27 See e.g., Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657, 666, 669 (1892) (relying on Blackstone and holding that penal judgments fall outside the scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause because such was the rule of international law prior to the adoption of the Constitution); see generally, Cleveland, Sarah H. Our International Constitution, 31 Yale J. Int’l L 1, 49-54 (2006)Google Scholar (describing use of international law as a “structural analogy for the federal system).

28 See, e.g., Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) (evaluating the status of a slave brought into a free state in terms of principles of international law); Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 722(1877) (looking to “well-established principles of public law respecting the jurisdiction of an independent State” to find that each state of the United States “possesses exclusive jurisdiction and sovereignty over persons and property within its territory” to the exclusion of other states); see generally Lee, Thomas H. Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty, 96 NW. U. L. Rev. 1027 (2002)Google Scholar (arguing that principles of law of nations provided template for Eleventh Amendment).

29 See, e.g., Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U.S. 397 (1930) (relying on inter-state precedents and ruling that protections of Fourteenth Amendment extend to aliens and that Texas forum cannot apply Texas law to transaction that took place entirely in Mexico); Cuebas y Arrendondo v. Cuebas y Arredondo, 223 U.S. 376 (1912) (applying complete diversity rule to alienage jurisdiction case based in part on the interstate precedent of Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806)).

30 See Louis Henkin and Albert J. Rosenthal, Eds., Constitutionalism and Rights; The Influence of the United States Constitution Abroad (1990).

31 The lead in this was taken by Professor Albert Ehrenzweig. See, e.g., Ehrenzweig, Private International Law; A Comparative Treatise on American International Conflicts Law, Including Admiralty (1967); Ehrenzweig, , Interstate and International Conflicts Law: A Plea for Segregation, 41 Minn. L. Rev. 717, 724 (1957)Google Scholar (criticizing the use of concepts developed by courts primarily to suit the exigencies of interstate relations” with the result of “burden[mg] international conflicts law”); compare Ehrenzweig, , Recognition of Custody Decrees Rendered Abroad, 2 Am. J. Comp. L. 167 (1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar with Ehrenzweig, , Interstate Recognition of Custody Decrees, 51 Mich. L. Rev. 345 (1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hay, Peter, International Versus Interstate Conflicts of Law in the United States, 35 Rabelsz 429, 430 (1971)Google Scholar (“International cases present factual aspects and policy considerations which are, indeed, or potentially may be, different from those relevant in domestic (interstate) cases”); Scoles, Eugene F. Interstate and International Distinctions in Conflict of Laws in the United States, 54 Cal. L. Rev., 1599-1600 (1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“To apply mechanically a rule developed in interstate cases to an international situation without a consideration of its policy relevance is both wrong and dangerous.”). For an important precursor to these works, see Du Bois, Armand B., The Significance in Conflict of Laws of the Distinction Between Interstate and International Transactions, 17 Minn. L. Rev. 361 (1933)Google Scholar, which lay practically unnoticed for twenty years. by the late 1960s, similar themes were raised, though less explicitly, by leading international law scholars. See, e.g., Henry J. Steiner and Detlev F. Vagts, Transnational Legal Problems: Materials and Text (1968).

32 See Act of Sep. 2, 1958, Pub. L. No. 85-906, 72 Stat. 1743; Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241, 248 (2004).

33 The United States joined the Hague Conference and the International (Rome) Institute for the Unification of Private Law pursuant to authorization contained in Act of Dec. 30, 1963, Pub. L. No. 88-244, 77 Stat. 775.

34 Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, opened for signature March 18, 1970, 23 U.S.T. 2555, 847 U.N.T.S. 231.

35 See Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, opened for signature Nov. 15, 1965, 20 U.S. T. 361, 658 U.N.T.S. 163. For ratification data, see <http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.listing.>

36 13 U.L.A. 39 (2002 ed. and 2006 Supp.) (uniform law governing recognition and enforcement of foreign-country money judgments in U.S. courts).

37 See Pub. L. 88-619,78 Stat. 995 (1964); Sen. Rep. 88-1580, 1964 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3782 (Sep. 15,1964) (“These proposals have been developed by the Commission and the Advisory Committee on International Rules of Judicial Procedure with the assistance of the Columbia Law School project on international procedure.”); see generally Jones, Harry L., International Judicial Assistance: Procedural Chaos and a Program for Reform, 62 Yale L. J. 515, 556-59 (1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing in favor of federal legislation to cure multiple deficiencies in the ability of U.S. courts to cooperate with foreign legal systems). Jones later served as chairman of the Advisory Committee from 1958 to 1966.

38 See Smit, Hans, The Interstate and International Procedures Act Approved by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws: A New Era Commences, 11 Am. J. Comp. L. 415 (1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Committee’s term was twice extended by statute before it expired in 1966.

39 See National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (“NCCUSL”), Interstate Depositions and Discovery of Documents Act, July 2006 Draft, at Pref. Note 1, available at http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/iddda/2006am_draft.txt. NCCUSL withdrew the Uiipa in 1977. Id.

40 See, e.g., section 3 (stating that with some exceptions a “foreign judgment is enforceable in the same manner as the judgment of a sister-state which is entitled to full faith and credit”).

41 In 2005, the Uniform Law Commissioners promulgated a revised version of the 1962 UFMJRA. The title of the new act, the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgment Act, eliminates some of the confusion that had existed as a result of another uniform act (the 1964 uniform act addressing enforcement of sister-state judgments) being called the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. See American Bar Association House of Delegates Recommendation (Feb. 13, 2006), available at <http://www.abanet.org/intlaw/policy/investment/foreigncoun-tryjudgment.pdfx>

42 There was considerable debate during the period about whether Congress had the constitutional authority to preempt state procedural law, either pursuant to the Commerce Clause or the treaty power. See Nadelmann, Kurt H. & Reese, Willis L.M., The American Proposal at the Hague Conference on Private International Law to Use the Method of Uniform Laws, 7 Am. J. Comp. L. 239, 242 (1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 In negotiating the Hague Evidence Convention, for example, the U.S. delegation did not seek to harmonize U.S. discovery practices in transnational cases with the practices of other countries. Rather, the goal pursued by the United States was to make foreign legal systems more receptive to the existing U.S. pretrial discovery model, as is. A second goal was to promote the U.S. model for its emulation by other countries. See S. Exec. Doc. C, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. at 21 (1967) (report of U.S. delegation that negotiated Hague Service Convention) (“The most significant aspect of the [Hague Service] convention is the fact that it requires so little change in the present procedures in the United States, yet at the same time requires such major changes, in the direction of modern and efficient procedures, in the present practices of many other states.”).

44 See M/S Bremen v. Zapata Offshore Co, 407 U.S. 1, 9 (1972) (declining to extend an interstate precedent on the enforceability of forum selection clauses to a transnational case) (“We cannot have trade and commerce in world markets and international waters exclusively on our terms, governed by our laws, and resolved in our courts.”); United States v. First Nat’l City Bank, 379 U.S. 378, 404 (1965) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (“Great care and reserve should be exercised when extending our notions of personal jurisdiction into the international field.”). See also Lauritzen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571 (1953) (interpreting the Jones Act “not on a clean slate, but. . . with regard to a seasoned body of maritime law developed by the experience of American courts long accustomed to dealing with admiralty problems in reconciling our own with foreign interests”).

45 See, e.g., United States v. Alvarez-Machain (interpreting U.S.-Mexico Extradition Treaty as not barring the kidnapping in Mexico of a Mexican citizen in order to secure that person’s presence before a U.S. court). Though quite different on the facts than Bremen, the lesson drawn by some from Alvarez-Machain is that although American cannot always have trade and commerce exclusively on our terms, apparently we can have global law enforcement exclusively on our terms. Compare footnote 35, supra.

46 See National Archives, Guide to Federal Records: Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions and Boards, Record Group 220 at 220.9.12 available at <http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed recorDS/groups/220.html#220.9.12>

47 Most of this scholarship questioned the practice of applying interstate precedents to determine whether the exercise of personal jurisdiction over alien defendants comports with due process. See Born, Gary B. Reflections on Judicial Jurisdiction in International Cases, 17 Ga. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 1 (1987)Google Scholar; Kane, Mary Kay and Degnan, Ronan E. The Exercise of Jurisdiction Over and Enforcement of Judgments Against Alien Defendants, 39 Hastings L. J. 799 (1988)Google Scholar; Hay, Peter, Transient Jurisdiction, Especially Over International Defendants: Critical Comments on Burnham v. Superior Court, 1990 III. L. Rev. 593 (1990)Google Scholar (“The power concept, the power ‘myth,’ may do no harm—indeed it may make some sense—in the interstate context. in an international context, an unqualified, unremitting rule of transient jurisdiction seems quite intolerable”); Lilly, Graham C., Jurisdiction Over Domestic and Alien Defendants, 69 Va. L. Rev. 85 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Toran, Janice, Federalism, Personal Jurisdiction, and Aliens, 58 Tul. L. Rev. 758 (1984)Google Scholar.

48 See American Law Institute, Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, section 421 (1987) (emphasizing international law limitations, rather than constitutional limitations, on the adjudicative jurisdiction of U.S. courts); id. at section 403 (stating international law limitations on Congress’s legislative jurisdiction); but see Brilmayer, Lea and Norchi, Charles, Federal Extraterritoriality and Fifth Amendment Due Process, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 1217 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that the Fifth Amendment should be invoked more frequently by litigants as a limitation on the extraterritorial application of federal statutes).

49 See, for example, the multi-factored reasonableness tests incorporated into sections 403 and 421 and their approaches to legislative jurisdiction and adjudicative jurisdiction.

50 Societě Nationale Industrielle Aerospatiale v. U.S. District Court, 482 U.S. 522 (1987).

51 A litigant’s decision to avail itself of the treaty obligations of foreign authorities was optional, presumably to be done when direct discovery likely would not produce optimal results. For example, discovery from non-parties who are domiciled abroad and who are not U.S. citizens, or discovery in cases in which a final judgment from a U.S. court will need to be enforced abroad, where foreign courts may take a dim view of the failure to pursue discovery through the Convention.

52 486 U.S. 694 (1988) (holding that service of process need not be accomplished using the Hague Service Convention if the law of the forum permits service of he defendant within the forum.). in Schlunk, a German corporation was validly served by delivering the summons and complaint to its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary.

53 See U.S. Dep’t of State, “Statement on US Withdrawal from the Proceedings Initiated by Nicaragua in the International Court of Justic” (Jan. 18, 1985), 24 Int’l Leg. Mat. 246 (1985).

54 Among the amicus briefs urging the Court to go the other way were submissions by the Republic of France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Government of Switzerland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

55 See, e.g., Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 235 (1981) (foreign plaintiffs choice of U.S. forum entitled to less deference than that given to the choice of a U.S. plaintiff in an interstate case); Iragorri v. United Technologies Corp. 274 F.3d 65 (2d Cir. 2001) (en banc) (announcing presumption that foreign plaintiff, unlike domestic plaintiff, bringing suit in a U.S. forum is doing so in effort to forum shop); Vernon’s Tex. Statutes and Codes Ann., Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code sec. 71.051 (authorizing forum non conveniens dismissals but not if the plaintiff is a legal resident of Texas). in addition, U.S. courts more critically assess the adequacy of an alternative forum for purposes of FNC analysis when the alternative is a foreign court rather than a sister-state court.

56 Compare Baldwin v. Iowa State Traveling Men’s Ass’n, U.S. 522 (1931) (no jurisdictional collateral attack permitted on sister-state judgment) with Cibc Mellon Trust Co. v. Mora Hotel Corp., Nv., 743 N.Y. Supp. 2d. 408, 418 (App. Div. 2002), affd, 100 N.Y. 2d 215 (N.Y. 2003), cert, den’d 540 U.S. 948 (“Since a foreign court’s determination that it has personal jurisdiction does not necessarily comport with the prerequisites of this country’s Constitution for such a finding, an assertion of jurisdiction by a foreign court should not preclude a challenge here.”); compare Telnikoff v. Matusevitch, 702 A. 2d 230 (Md. 1997) (refusing to recognize an English libel judgment as contrary to public policy of Maryland) with Baker v. General Motors 522 U.S. 222, 233(1998) (“[0]ur decisions support no roving ‘public policy exception’ to the full faith and credit due [sister-state] judgments.”); compare Overseas Inns, S.A. P.A. v. United States, 911 F.2d 1146 (5th Cir. 1990) (“[Cjomity is more likely to be accorded . . . when the foreign law is comparable to United States law”) with Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230 (1908) (state of Mississippi cannot deny recognition to a Missouri judgment based on a difference in law between the two states or even based on a mistake by the Missouri court in applying Mississippi law).

57 Dean Edward Rubin has repeatedly cautioned, in somewhat different contexts, against injecting federalism into seemingly every legal matter. See Rubin, Edward L. The Fundamentality and Irrelevance of Federalism, 13 Ga. St. L. Rev. 1009 (1997)Google Scholar; Rubin, Edward L. & Feeley, Malcolm, Federalism: Some Notes on a National Neurosis, 41 Ucla L. Rev. 903 (1994)Google Scholar.

58 See Greenspan Fires a Shot Heard Round the World: Comment Curbs Markets ‘ Irrational Exuberance, Chicago Trib. (Dec. 6, 1996) at 1, 1996 WLNR 5258590.

59 Where the defendant is domestic, the plaintiff can refile in another U.S. forum, such as the state where the defendant is domiciled or incorporated. Where the defendant is foreign, there may be no place to bring suit.

60 Of course this depends on the size and sophistication of the defendant and the extent of its presence and market penetration in the U.S. But the challenges of litigation in U.S. courts are considerable, even for sizeable foreign businesses, which may not put in place document retention policies or employee communication policies or even parent-subsidiary structures with an eye toward potential U.S. litigation.

61 Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court, 480 U.S. 102 (1987) (granting 12(b)(2) motion because of burdens on foreign defendants and very modest interests of the forum)

62 See, e.g., Andreas F. Lowenfeld, International Litigation and the Quest for Reasonableness: Essays in Private International Law 76-79 (1996).

63 The statute provides, in relevant part: “The district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.” The amendments empowered district courts to order discovery pursuant to a letter rogatory, or request of a foreign or international tribunal, or upon application of “any interested person.”

64 In re Bayer AG. 146 F.3d 188 (3d Cir. 1998).

65 See Samuel P. Baumgartner, The Proposed Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments: Trans-Atlantic Lawmaking for Transnational Litigation 30-41 (2003) (arguing that “unilateralism ... has controlled U.S. approaches to transnational litigation for quite some time” and that U.S. treaty negotiation in the field of private international law is characterized by “actively promoting] the chosen U.S. approach and “impatience with foreign solutions.”). Id. at 41.

66 542 U.S. 241 (2004).

67 424 U.S. 800 (1976) (reversing decision of federal court to abstain from considering an action that was the subject of a pending action in state court).

68 517 U.S. 706 (1996).

69 299 U.S. 248 (1936).

70 A judge chosen by a selection process thought to discourage bias in favor of in-state litigants and whose impartiality is reinforced by life tenure.

71 Silberman, Linda, Transnational Litigation: Is there a “Field?” A Tribute to Hal Maier” 39 Vand. J. Trans. L. 1427, 1429 (2006)Google Scholar.

72 Id. at 1430.

73 See Silberman, Linda, Transnational Litigation: Is there a “Field?” A Tribute to Hal Maier,” 39 Vand. J. Trans. L. 1427, 1432-37 (2006)Google Scholar.

74 Though, of course, it remains to be seen whether the Ali project will be enacted into U.S. law.