Harold Maier, Comity, and the Foreign Relations Restatement

Abstract

Hal Maier's career and mine have interacted in several respects. We have both served in the Legal Adviser's Office of the State Department; we have both taught Conflict of Laws as well as International Law; and we have both tried to show--I believe successfully--that there is no sharp divide between "Public International Law" and "Private International Law." In particular, we have both been interested in the reach and limits of economic regulation across international frontiers, initially in connection with antitrust and securities regulation, but also in connection with economic sanctions, pollution controls, and other interactions of governmental and private activity. Generally, Professor Maier and I have come out in the same way on particular issues. We have both advocated reduced emphasis on power and sovereignty and greater emphasis on restraint and flexibility in application of the law of the forum to activity with links to more than one state. Yet there has been a fundamental difference between us which grew as what became the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law was being drafted, debated, and eventually accepted by the American Law Institute.