"Courts Without Borders is the first book to examine the politics of judicial extraterritoriality-the practice of domestic courts unilaterally applying domestic laws to conduct and persons outside a state's borders-and its consequences with a focus on the world's chief practitioner: the United States. For much of the post-World War II era, the United States has been a frequent yet selective regulator of activities outside its territory. U.S. federal courts are often on the front line in battles over the extraterritorial reach of U.S. law, enabling it in some instances and restricting it in others"--
AbstractManaging foreign affairs is in no small measure about anticipating the actions (and non-actions) of others, and about taking steps to limit the unexpected—and the undesired. Law has long been recognized as important to these tasks. Nevertheless, standard IR treatments often overlook important properties of law, even when trying to account for international law's effects on behavior. Chief among these overlooked properties is the fact that legal rules are formulated for general use, which means their provisions lack determinate meaning in relation to the full range of facts they may be applied to. Selecting and using legal rules to guide or assess behavior thus requires interpretation. Self-interested actors may differ regarding the applicability, scope, or meaning of individual rules, and still more so where multiple legal rules are in play. In situations where political stakes are high, powerful actors may not be content to leave all options on the table. Instead they may use interpretative tactics to mingle obligations from different agreements and, where needed, to augment relevant legal obligations in efforts to prospectively ensure, in the mode of Riker's heresthetics, that interlocutors feel compelled by legal circumstances to enact the more powerful actor's preferences. I demonstrate how agreement mingling and augmentation function in complex legal environments by reexaming US efforts to insulate its citizens from unwanted exercises of jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 134, Heft 2, S. 333-334
In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 125, Heft 4, S. 701-702
AbstractRegulating private transactions across international boundaries has long posed a challenge to states. Extraterritoriality—the direct regulation of persons and conduct outside a state's borders—is an increasingly common mechanism by which strong states attempt to manage problems associated with transnational activities. This article seeks to account for variation across issues in the willingness of U.S. courts to regulate extraterritorially by focusing on the potential for external conduct to undermine domestic legal rules. It suggests further how attention to domestic-level regulatory processes, with particular focus on the role of private actors, can shed new light on transnational rulemaking and enforcement.
In: Political science quarterly: a nonpartisan journal devoted to the study and analysis of government, politics and international affairs ; PSQ, Band 123, Heft 4, S. 681-682