The Role of Ethics in U.S. Private International Law

Abstract:     
This chapter focuses on the role of ethics in United States private international law. The chapter explores the common law ethos of judicial decision making that grounds the U.S. experience with law generally. The resolution of legal disputes in the United States is a part of an ongoing legal and ethical conversation within a community’s law. When courts are asked, however, to examine private international law cases, the chapter argues that the conversation is at risk of breaking down, either because cases stand outside the Anglo-American tradition or because of unique facts that stretch positive and common law decision making beyond the bounds previously encountered in case law. The chapter shows that courts have looked to the conflict-of-law tradition for answers. The chapter proposes that a focus of future private international law scholarship should be to (a) define or refine the criteria for assessing ethical judgment in the multistate transnational context and (b) define the circumstances under which ethics and ethical reasoning can tip the scale in transnational cases, if at all.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 29

Accepted Paper Series