Tax Compliance and the Revenue Rule in Prosecutions for Wire and Mail Fraud

1999 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-446
Author(s):  
Robert B. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
The Us ◽  
Tax Laws

The “revenue rule” is a “well-settled principle of international law that one nation's courts will not enforce the tax claims of another jurisdiction”.1 The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has recently held, however, that using US foreign or interstate telecommunications to devise a scheme to defraud a foreign revenue authority is wire fraud under US law. In United States v. Trapilo2 the Second Circuit reversed the dismissal of indictments against alleged smugglers charged with using telephones and fax machines to effect tax-evasive importation of alcohol into Canada. Under Trapilo, which conflicts with a contrary First Circuit decision on almost identical facts, 3 the entire breadth of US wire and mail fraud precedent may apply to punish violations of foreign tax laws. Moreover, the decision substantially erodes the revenue rule.

scholarly journals 9/11 as False Flag: Why International Law Must Dare to Care

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Baker Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
African History ◽  
The Us ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International War

At the heart of contemporary international law lies a paradox: the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 have justified 16 years of international war, yet the official international community, embodied principally in the United Nations, has failed to question or even scrutinise the US government's account of those attacks. Despite the emergence of an impressive and serious body of literature that impugns the official account and even suggests that 9/11 may have been a classic (if unprecedentedly monstrous) false-flag attack, international statesmen, following the lead of scholars, have been reluctant to wade into what appears to be a very real controversy. African nations are no strangers to the concept of the false flag tactic, and to its use historically in the pursuit of illegitimate geopolitical aims and interests. This article draws on recent African history in this regard, as well as on deeper twentieth-century European and American history, to lay a foundation for entertaining the possibility of 9/11-as-false-flag. This article then argues that the United Nations should seek to fulfil its core and incontrovertible ‘jury’ function of determining the existence of inter-state aggression in order to exercise a long-overdue oversight of the official 9/11 narrative.

International Law in the American Courts – Khulumani v. Barclay National Bank Ltd.: The Decision Heard ‘Round the Corporate World

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Hutchens
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Civil Action ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
Corporate World ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
National Bank ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction

On June 30, 1980, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued Filártiga v. Peña-Irala. In this landmark case, the Paraguayan plaintiffs sought to hold Americo Norbeto Peña-Irala, a high-ranking Paraguayan police officer, liable for torture that led to the death of Joel Filártiga in Paraguay. They rested their main jurisdictional argument “upon the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, which provides: ‘The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.'” The Second Circuit held, “[D]eliberate torture perpetrated under color of official authority violates universally accepted norms of the international law of human rights, regardless of the nationality of the parties. Thus, whenever an alleged torturer is found and served with process by an alien within our borders, § 1350 provides federal jurisdiction.” It added that “Our holding today, giving effect to a jurisdictional provision enacted by our First Congress, is a small but important step in the fulfillment of the ageless dream to free all people from brutal violence.”

War in the Scheme of National and International Life

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-559
Author(s):  
William L. Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Major Premise ◽  
Circuit Court ◽  
Minor Premise ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
The World ◽  
Annual Dinner ◽  
American Society

At the recent annual dinner of the American Society of International Law I listened with much interest to the eloquent and impassioned address of Judge Florence E. Allen, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, asserting that the conservation of peace has not hitherto been, and should be made, the principal objective in the development of international law. I think that her views might be summarized not unfairly in the form of a syllogism. Undeniable is its major premise that war is cruel, costly in life and resources, full of horror—a terrible infliction on those who resort to it. The minor premise is that means exist and others may be discovered whereby disputes may always be settled and peace enforced without recourse to war. And so comes the conclusion that all these means should be sought for, discovered and used, after which war will be unnecessary and will disappear from the world, leaving us under the rule of perpetual physical peace, no matter what may be the mental and emotional differences between nations.

scholarly journals When US Scholars Speak of ‘Sovereignty’, what do they Mean?

2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Sinclair ◽  
Michael Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Academic

The term ‘sovereignty’ figures prominently in international affairs and academic analysis. But does ‘sovereignty’ mean the same thing in different countries and political cultures? In this article, we examine conceptions of sovereignty as they appear in the writings of US scholars of international law and those international relations scholars who deal with international law, in order to obtain a clearer picture of what ‘sovereignty’ means in American academic discourse. At first glance, the US literature is dominated by two distinct conceptions of sovereignty: (1) a statist conception that privileges the territorial integrity and political independence of governments regardless of their democratic or undemocratic character; (2) a popular conception that privileges the rights of peoples rather than governments, especially when widespread human rights violations are committed by a totalitarian regime. On closer examination, what seem to be two conceptions are in fact different manifestations of a single, uniquely American conception of sovereignty which elevates the United States above other countries and protects it against outside influences while concurrently maximising its ability to intervene overseas.

United States v. Dire

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 644-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Kontorovich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Crime ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
Treaty Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The U.S

In the first criminal piracy decision by a United States court in nearly a century, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the federal piracy statute’s reference to the “law of nations” explicitly ties the scope of the offense to evolving customary international law definitions of the crime. The court went on to find that under current customary and treaty law, attempted piracy falls within the scope of the international crime. In doing so, it joined several courts in nations around the world that have confronted the issue as a result of the outbreak of Somali piracy that began in 2008.

scholarly journals Terrorism, The use of Force and International Law After 11 September

2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Us

The United States response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 was encouraging for those who worry about a tendency towards unilateralism on the part of the single super-power. The US deliberately engaged a number of international organisations and built an extensive coalition of supporting States before engaging in military action.

Antitrust Jurisdiction under Customary International Law

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl M. Meessen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
District Court ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
Northern District ◽  
Legal Writing ◽  
The U.S

When, on October 24, 1983, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California handed down its decision in Timberlane Lumber Co. v. Bank of America and denied U.S. jurisdiction out of regard for the Honduran “system of justice,” there may have been some surprise that the case was still pending. The Timberlane decision of 1976 of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which remanded the matter to the district court, had already become a classic, even though it was preceded by the 1968 decision in United States v. First National City Bank on the production of documents located abroad. The Timberlane approach outlined by Judge Choy, under which the exercise of antitrust jurisdiction has to be restrained by a case-by-case analysis of various factors, was widely discussed (and usually praised) in legal writing, and was also followed by federal courts of the Second, Third, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits.

The Constitution of the United States and Foreign Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin S. Flaherty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Executive Agreements

Foreign relations under the US Constitution starts with the paradox, also seen in domestic matters, of relatively scant text providing guidance for the exercise of vast power. Founding understandings, structural inference, and ongoing constitutional custom and precedent have filled in much, though hardly all, of the framework over the course of two hundred years. As a result, two basic questions frame the relationship between the Constitution and US foreign policy: (1) which parts of the US government, alone or in combination, properly exercise authority in the making of foreign policy; and (2) once made, what is the status of the nation’s international legal obligations in the US domestic legal system. The making of American foreign policy is framed by the Constitution’s commitment to separation of powers. Congress, the president, and the courts are all allocated discrete yet significant foreign affairs authority. Determining the exact borders and overlaps in areas such as the use of military force, emergency measures, and treaty termination continues to generate controversy. The status of international law in the US legal system in the first instance turns on whether resulting obligations derive from agreements or custom. The United States enters into international agreements in three ways: treaties, congressional-executive agreements, and sole executive agreements. Complex doctrine deals with the domestic applicability of treaties in particular. US courts primarily apply customary international law in two basic ways. They can exercise a version of their common lawmaking authority to fashion rules of decision based on international custom. They also apply customary international law when incorporated into domestic law by statute.

Derailing State Immunity: A Broad-Brush Approach to Jurisdiction under Claims for the Expropriation of Cultural Property

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (02) ◽  
pp. 181-195
Author(s):  
Luke Tattersall
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
State Immunity ◽  
The Us

Abstract:The following article considers the approach taken by the courts of the United States in claims concerning issues of state immunity and private international law with respect to the expropriation and restitution of cultural property, primarily in the context of Nazi Germany. It can be seen that the US courts have interpreted the provisions under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act so as to significantly widen the scope for individuals to bring claims against states and state entities in circumstances where the case, and the property concerned, has little or no connection with the jurisdiction and which at their core are domestic disputes.

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