The Role of Private International Law in the United States: Beating the Not-Quite-Dead Horse of Jurisdiction

2 CILE STUDIES: PRIVATE LAW, PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW & JUDICIAL COOPERATION IN THE EU-US RELATIONSHIP, Chapter 4, 2005

Cornell Law School Research Paper No. 04-023

21 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2004

Abstract

Territorial authority to adjudicate is the preeminent component of private international law. Empirical research proves that forum really affects outcome, probably by multiple influences. This practical effect makes international harmonization of jurisdictional law highly desirable. Although harmonization of nonjurisdictional law remains quite unlikely, jurisdictional harmonization is increasingly feasible because, among other reasons, U.S. jurisdictional law in fact exhibits no essential differences from European law. None of the usual assertions holds up as an unbridgeable difference, including that (1) the peculiar U.S. jurisdictional law flows inevitably from a different theory of governmental authority, one that rests on power notions; (2) U.S. law differs because its legal institutions have managed to constitutionalize jurisdiction; (3) it is the same old story of common-law courts playing too active a part in the development of the law in the United States; (4) the United States has resolved the fundamental jurisprudential tension between certainty and precision in a way that maximizes the role of fact-specific inquiry; and (5) those activist courts are ironically too willing to decline the jurisdiction bestowed on them by the legislature. Indeed, with minor legislative reforms to give the U.S. law somewhat greater certainty and restraint, the distance to Europe would shrink even further.

Jurisdiction could thus be the fulcrum for rearranging the international judicial order. Despite the difficulties recently encountered in the Hague negotiations, the international community should immediately begin to take the series of small steps necessary to prepare the way for achieving the long-run goal of a multilateral convention that harmonizes jurisdictional law.

Suggested Citation

Clermont, Kevin M., The Role of Private International Law in the United States: Beating the Not-Quite-Dead Horse of Jurisdiction. 2 CILE STUDIES: PRIVATE LAW, PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW & JUDICIAL COOPERATION IN THE EU-US RELATIONSHIP, Chapter 4, 2005, Cornell Law School Research Paper No. 04-023, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=588321 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.588321

Kevin M. Clermont (Contact Author)

Cornell Law School ( email )

Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
United States
607-255-5189 (Phone)
607-255-7193 (Fax)

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