El-Hadad v. United Arab Emirates and Embassy

2019 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 689-702
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
The Law

State immunity — Jurisdictional immunity — Restrictive immunity — Proceedings with respect to employment contract — Whether United Arab Emirates immune from suit — Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act 1976 — Section 1605(a)(2) — Commercial activity exception — Whether applicable — Whether plaintiff civil servant under Act — Whether plaintiff’s work involving exercise of distinctly governmental powers — Nature of work — Irrelevance of purpose — Whether Act shielding United Arab Emirates from suit — The law of the United States

Fun v. Pulgar and Albergrin

2019 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 722-727
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Domestic Servant ◽  
The Law ◽  
Diplomatic Immunity

Diplomatic relations — Diplomatic agents — Immunity from jurisdiction — Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 — Article 31(1)(c) — Action by domestic servant alleging that she had been trafficked and forced to work by former employers — Certification of diplomatic status of former employers — Whether diplomatic immunity continuing despite subsequent termination of diplomatic status — Whether commercial activity exception applicable to hiring of domestic servant — Whether subsequent attempts at service defective — Whether Court lacking jurisdiction — The law of the United States

The New Federal Arbitration Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 203-206
Author(s):  
Julius Henry Cohen ◽  
Kenneth Dayton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
Business World ◽  
The Law ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
And Control ◽  
At Will

This article focuses on the federal arbitration law. On February 12, 1925, President Calvin Coolidge signed the United States Arbitration Law, which became effective on January 1, 1926. This act reversed the hoary doctrine that agreements for arbitration are revocable at will and are unenforceable, and in the language of the statute itself, they are made “valid, enforceable and irrevocable” within the limits of federal jurisdiction. There are three evils which arbitration is intended to correct: (1) the long delay usually incident to a proceeding at law, in equity or in admiralty, especially in recent years in centers of commercial activity, where there has arisen great congestion of the court calendars; (2) the expense of litigation; and (3) the failure, through litigation, to reach a decision regarded as just when measured by the standards of the business world. The article then argues that the proposed law rests upon the constitutional provision by which Congress is authorized to establish and control inferior federal courts. It also contends that sound public policy demands specific enforcement of arbitration agreements by the law.

scholarly journals Jam v. International Finance Corp.

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-811
Author(s):  
Chimène I. Keitner ◽  
Scott Dodson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
International Finance ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Commercial Activity ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
Foreign State ◽  
Foreign Governments

In Jam v. International Finance Corp., the U.S. Supreme Court held that the International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945 (IOIA) affords international organizations (IOs) the same immunity from suit in U.S. courts that foreign governments currently enjoy under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), which codifies the restrictive theory of foreign sovereign immunity. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) had argued that the IOIA, which grants international organizations the “‘same immunity’ from suit … ‘as is enjoyed by foreign governments’” (p. 15), should be understood to provide international organizations with absolute immunity, which it argued foreign governments enjoyed prior to the United States’ explicit adoption of the restrictive theory in 1952. Under the restrictive theory, a foreign state is immune from suit for its sovereign acts (acta jure imperii), but not for its commercial acts (acta jure gestionis). By interpreting language in the IOIA as granting the “same immunity” to international organizations as foreign governments enjoy at the time the suit is filed, the Supreme Court aligned the regime for IO immunity with that of foreign state immunity, except in cases where the IO's founding charter provides a different rule or where the executive branch has explicitly limited immunity. It remains to be seen what IO activities are deemed “commercial” under this regime and what types of transactions are found to have a sufficient nexus to the United States to fall within the FSIA's commercial-activity exception.

Jurisdiction, State Immunity, and Judgments in the Restatement (Fourth) of US Foreign Relations Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-135
Author(s):  
William S Dodge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Frequency ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Domestic Law

Abstract In 2018, the American Law Institute published the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, which restates the law of the United States governing jurisdiction, state immunity, and judgments. These issues arise with great frequency in international cases brought in US courts, including cases involving Chinese parties. This article provides an overview of many of the key provisions of the Restatement (Fourth). The article describes the Restatement (Fourth)’s treatment of the customary international law of jurisdiction, as well the rules of US domestic law based on international comity that US courts apply when deciding international cases.

Justifying “Wholesale Slaughter”

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-258
Author(s):  
Donald VanDeVeer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Late Stage ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Recent Trial ◽  
The Law

In a recent trial in the United States a physician was convicted of manslaughter during the performance of a hysterotomy on a woman pregnant from twenty to twenty eight weeks. Some members of the jury, in their deliberations, were much impressed by seeing a photograph of a fetus of about the same age. The experience apparently provided some jurors with reason to conclude that the fetus which did die during or immediately after the hysterotomy was a human being or a person or, at least, was so like a child that the killing of it was prohibited by the law of homicide. If being a human being is not the same as being a pre-natal progeny of homo sapiens, it is difficult to understand how one could “tell by looking” whether the fetus is a human being. But the sight of a fetus of twenty weeks or longer does, I think, tempt us to think that from a moral standpoint we ought to extend the same treatment to such fetuses, or virtually the same, as we extend to newborn babies and young children. The visual similarities between middle or late stage fetuses and newborn babies is striking.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document