Aside
from work that I have done on the intersection of the conflicts
of law and the philosophy of law, I have written a number papers
focused more narrowly on doctrinal conflicts law in the United
States (and have a number of other pieces in progress):
Choice of Law as General Common
Law: A Reply to Professor Brilmayer, in Donald Earl
Childress III (ed.), The Role of Ethics in Private International
Law 125-35 (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
This is a brief response to a book chapter by Lea
Brilmayer. In it, I explore a number of hurdles that must be faced
by the position, advocated by Brilmayer, Kim Roosevelt, and Larry
Kramer, that courts should respect a state's choice-of-law rules
when deciding whether to apply the state's law.
The
Return of the Unprovided-For Case, 51 Georgia Law
Review 761-804 (2017)
This is one salvo in a comprehensive
attack on interest analysis - the dominant choice-of-law approach
in the United States. The heart of my argument is that interest
analysis improperly focuses only on the purposes standing behind
enacted laws, ignoring the purposes that were sacrificed when the
law was enacted. These sacrificed purposes can become crucial in a
conflicts case, as unprovided-for cases show.
Authority
and Interest Analysis, in Roxana Banu, Michael S.
Green, & Ralf Michaels (eds.), The Philosophical Foundations
of Private International Law 136-61 (Oxford University Press,
2024)
In this essay I argue that interest analysis, by ignoring the purposes that were
sacrificed when a law was enacted, fails to balance all
considerations for and against the defendant's liability in
choosing what rule to use. As a result, it fails to satisfy
minimal conditions for a claim of authority.
A
Plea for Private International Law (Conflict of Laws),
100 Notre Dame Law Review Reflection 73-84 (2025)
This
is something of an open letter, joined by thirteen other
conflicts professors. It identifies and criticizes a
disturbing trend: despite law schools’ increased emphasis
on international law, private international law/conflict
of laws has been dropping out of the law school
curriculum, particularly in the last five years.
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