LAWS 7739 Conflict of Laws

Conflict of Laws, also known as Private International Law, is the study of the legal issues that arise when legal matters involve facts or parties connected to more than one jurisdiction. In our interconnected nation and world, these issues arise regularly in both the domestic context (matters cutting across different U.S. states) and transnational context (matters cutting across different countries). The core issue is determining which state or countrys law should govern the parties rights and duties. Other issues include personal jurisdiction, enforcement of judgments, and special problems of U.S. federalism and transnational regulation. Students will engage with this material through hypothetical problems from legal practice while also having opportunities to think deeply about underlying theoretical questions, such as what should count as law and why do we follow it.