Insights on Key Conflict of Laws Concepts: The Federal Government's Role and Judgment Recognition and Enforcement

Abstract

Key themes weave throughout the history and current relevance of Conflict of Laws. As the second installment of a two part compilation of essays, this paper presents many of these themes in the form of “Notes,” offering expository explanation, received wisdom, and new insights. These essays will appear in an upcoming book Conflict of Laws to be published in the Aspen Casebook Series by Wolters Kluwer. The essays cover global, jurisprudential topics as well as doctrinal, fundamental concepts. They should be useful to both novices seeking an overview of core conflict of laws themes as well as well-seasoned experts seeking pithy insights into the key debates in the field. This installment focuses on the role of the federal government as well as judgment recognition and enforcement.

The global, jurisprudential topics in this installment are:

(1) The Domestic and International Forum-Shopping System; (2) Choice of Law Methodology for Federal Courts; (3) Tools for Handling Duplicative Litigation; (4) Theories of Stare Decisis and its Role in Federal Litigation; (5) Intersection of Full Faith and Credit with Preclusion Principles; (6) Private Incentives in Judgment Recognition and Enforcement; (7) The Theoretical Kinship between Judgments and Marriage; and (8) Libel Tourism

Specific doctrinal topics include:

(1) The Substance/Procedure Dichotomy (2) Same Sex Marriage: Constitutional Restrictions on Same Sex Marriage Laws; (3) The Significance and Limitations of Klaxon v. Stentor; (4) Claim and Issue Preclusion; and (5) SPEECH ACT of 2010

Keywords: conflict of laws, choice of law, stare decisis, forum shopping, Erie doctrine, Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, forum selection, public policy exception, private international law, same sex marriage, SPEECH Act, libel tourism, judgment recognition, judgment enforcement

JEL Classification: K41, K42, K49