The Story of the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts: A Retrospective

Can Western-based, English-speaking, common law commercial courts operate successfully in an environment that are not their own—such as in the Middle East? This question is not a simple thought experiment but rather the reality that has occurred since the mid-2000s in the Emirate of Dubai. This monograph recounts the history of how the ‘Dubai International Financial Centre Courts’ emerged. Drawing on extensive interviews with key stakeholders involved in the process, along with rich original documents as well as all of the Courts’ judgments, this narrative offers important lessons for those seeking to understand more fully the complex interplay of how law, legal institutions and legal and political actors operate in today’s globalised world.https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facbooks/1199/thumbnail.jp

The \u27Impractical and Anomalous\u27 Consequences of Territorial Inequity

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, American Samoa is one of five populated “unincorporated territories” of the United States. It is unique, though, as those born there are not recognized as American citizens at birth and instead are deemed “noncitizen U.S. nationals.” They enjoy some, but not all, constitutional protections. Two federal appellate courts—the D.C. Circuit (in 2015) and the Tenth Circuit (in 2021)—have ruled that this classification does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Both courts have stated that it would be “impractical” and “anomalous” to extend birthright citizenship to the American Samoan community. Drawing upon a powerful dissent in the Tenth Circuit case, this Article argues that what is actually “impractical” and “anomalous” is excluding American Samoans from this constitutional entitlement. However, there is also a crucial administrative basis for supporting this claim, which to date has received scant attention. For three decades, beginning in 1947, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA)—the top court in the immigration court system—delivered a series of precedent-setting judgments that gradually expanded the rights of American Samoans. These decisions were issued namely as a way of curing what otherwise would have been impractical, anomalous, and unjust actions taken by the government. This finding is especially noteworthy given that the BIA has generally been viewed as hostile to noncitizens. One theory for why the BIA sided with these “discrete and insular” claimants is that the agency’s expertise was not as vulnerable to external pressure then as it is today. Assuming that these cases were decided more squarely on the merits, this Article suggests that it may be worthwhile for the federal courts to consider them when reflecting on whether American Samoans are indeed birthright citizens

International Lawyers as Disrupters of Corruption: Business and Human Rights in Africa’s Most Populous Country—Nigeria

Be it bribery, embezzlement, or the abuse of public trust, corruption poses a major challenge to global security and democratic governance, along with undermining the rule of law, especially within the Global South. Key to this phenomenon is understanding how lawyers are enabling but also disrupting this epidemic. Unfortunately, the literature on this subject is lacking. This study, therefore, offers a nuanced story of globalization and the complicated role that lawyers play in corruption, by relying on the case study of Nigeria—a crucial Global South market that has the largest population on the African continent. While Nigeria has been able to remain a democracy since 1999 (albeit fragilely), private sector and government officials, including the current Nigerian president, concede that corruption is the country’s biggest problem. At the same time, as this study demonstrates, in Nigeria today there is a small but growing group of globally experienced lawyers who are aggressively resisting the entrenched corruption that besieges this environment. By virtue of the opportunities provided by globalization, this cohort is not bound to the parochial interests that have long harmed Nigeria. Yet, these lawyers also work within a larger profession that is conservative, complicated, and at times itself corrupt. Thus, to what extent do these factors affect the ability of these globally focused lawyers to enact change? The answer to this question is critical because it helps to unlock an enduring puzzle as to which agents are best situated to lead a country out of its mired, corrupt history and onto the global stage as a respected power. For other nations, particularly in the Global South, that are also seeking to strengthen their rule of law regimes, the lessons from this study will be instructive in determining whether lawyers who value—and are part of—global networks are capable of curbing corruption within their own domestic contexts

International Lawyers as Disrupters of Corruption: Business and Human Rights in Africa’s Most Populous Country—Nigeria

Be it bribery, embezzlement, or the abuse of public trust, corruption poses a major challenge to global security and democratic governance, along with undermining the rule of law, especially within the Global South. Key to this phenomenon is understanding how lawyers are enabling but also disrupting this epidemic. Unfortunately, the literature on this subject is lacking. This study, therefore, offers a nuanced story of globalization and the complicated role that lawyers play in corruption, by relying on the case study of Nigeria—a crucial Global South market that has the largest population on the African continent. While Nigeria has been able to remain a democracy since 1999 (albeit fragilely), private sector and government officials, including the current Nigerian president, concede that corruption is the country’s biggest problem. At the same time, as this study demonstrates, in Nigeria today there is a small but growing group of globally experienced lawyers who are aggressively resisting the entrenched corruption that besieges this environment. By virtue of the opportunities provided by globalization, this cohort is not bound to the parochial interests that have long harmed Nigeria. Yet, these lawyers also work within a larger profession that is conservative, complicated, and at times itself corrupt. Thus, to what extent do these factors affect the ability of these globally focused lawyers to enact change? The answer to this question is critical because it helps to unlock an enduring puzzle as to which agents are best situated to lead a country out of its mired, corrupt history and onto the global stage as a respected power. For other nations, particularly in the Global South, that are also seeking to strengthen their rule of law regimes, the lessons from this study will be instructive in determining whether lawyers who value—and are part of—global networks are capable of curbing corruption within their own domestic contexts

Analyzing the Friedman Thesis Through a Legal Lens: Book Review Essay Assessing Thomas L. Friedman\u27s The World Is Flat

In his best-selling book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman assesses how globalization has affected the political, economic, and social landscapes of both the developed and developing world. For Friedman, globalization is emboldening people in countries, like in India, to make societal and governmental demands that are similar to those made by Americans in the United States. This Essay seeks to add a new layer to the debate over Friedman’s flattening-world thesis. Focusing on India, in particular, I shall argue that as the trajectory of India’s economic development appears on the rise, the sad reality is that too many observers, like Friedman, have ignored how the functioning of the country’s legal system is spiraling downward Furthermore, as I shall also suggest, Freidman’s thesis that globalization has indelibly altered human behavior, unfortunately short shrifts how preexisting institutional and cultural factors still remain relevant in shaping decision-making processes

From the ALI to the ILI: The Efforts to Export an American Legal Institution

In this article, I argue that those who believe that Americans can successfully export their visions of law and legal research to other countries need to consider - in addition to Japan and Germany, two countries that are often touted as exemplars - the case of India. India gained its independence from the British in 1947, and soon thereafter many American experts traveled to India in an effort to foster a culture of Western legal intellectualism. As part of their mission to improve the status of law in India, the Americans, upon their arrival, strongly advocated for the construction of a national Indian legal research center - similar to the American Law Institute (ALI) which had been located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1923. The ALI had earned the reputation as a leading center that focused on the study and improvement of law. While almost all of the ALI\u27s work concentrated on American law, the idea was that India too could have such a center of its own where lawyers, judges, and academics worked to clarify outstanding legal questions. As I document, however, American efforts to create an Indian version of the ALI encountered serious difficulty. And as I conclude, the lessons from this study might well prove useful as American experts attempt to help countries today, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, devise democratically-based legal systems