New Article Surveys US Jurisdiction In Transnational Litigation

Along with increased integration between the economic and political worlds has come global litigation that is exceeding the bounds of any single jurisdiction—whether because the matters in dispute are inherently transnational or as a result of conscious, strategic decisions by the litigants. This "globalization" of litigation is, in part, a natural incident of a world economy that is evermore interconnected. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with litigants making choices among available legal systems to maximize their odds of success, concerns arise when litigants manipulate the global litigation system to obtain an unfair advantage. Such abuse often manifests itself as a species of "global forum shopping." Substantive and procedural mechanisms that liberalize the rules of law so as to tilt the playing field unfairly—coupled with litigants who improperly "play the system"—only exacerbate this practice in jurisdictions throughout the world.