Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty

73 Pages Posted: 26 Aug 2003

See all articles by Thomas H. Lee

Thomas H. Lee

Fordham University School of Law

Abstract

The Judicial Power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

- Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

The thesis of this article is that the Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, represented the incorporation into the American domestic constitutional law of federalism (specifically, the doctrine of state sovereign immunity) the late eighteenth-century international law rule that only states have rights against other states on the interstate plane.

Suggested Citation

Lee, Thomas H., Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=434380 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.434380

Thomas H. Lee (Contact Author)

Fordham University School of Law ( email )

150 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
212.636.6728 (Phone)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
432
Abstract Views
4,088
Rank
123,063
PlumX Metrics