The bilateral treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation was for centuries a staple of international diplomacy. These treaties were famous for addressing a wide range of issues — including human rights, trade and investment protection — in a single document. In recent years, however,...

In their wide-ranging and thought-provoking article, A Market for Sovereign Control, Joseph Blocher and Mitu Gulati argue that territorial sovereignty is a commodity that can and should be subject to market forces. In this Response, I first identify the two different types of deals — friendly...

In an earlier era, treaties of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCNs) were the primary international law mechanism through which the U.S. government sought to promote and protect foreign investment. Conventional wisdom holds that FCNs are of only limited historical interest, having been...

Disputes relating to contract interpretation are frequently conceptualized as one-and-done affairs. The court will adopt what it considers to be a reasonable interpretation of the contract, rule in favor of one of the parties, and decide the case. Neither the judge nor the litigants tend to...

In Atlantic Marine Construction Company v. United States District Court, the Supreme Court held that a “contractually valid” forum selection clause should be enforced by federal courts absent extraordinary circumstances. Unfortunately, the Court provided no guidance on how to assess whether...

It is hornbook law that the United States is not currently a party to any treaty governing the enforcement of foreign judgments. At least, it was hornbook law until 1993. In that year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit adopted a novel interpretation of a provision in a bilateral...

Scholars have long debated the criteria that U.S. courts should use when deciding whether to recognize and enforce money judgments rendered by foreign courts. One of the proposed criteria — reciprocity — would require proof that the rendering court would enforce a U.S. judgment if the...