French Article 14 Jurisdiction, Viewed from the United States

French courts have broadly read their Civil Code’s oddly written Article 14 as authorizing territorial jurisdiction over virtually any action brought by a plaintiff of French nationality. This study traces the history of this provision from its genesis two hundred years ago to its extension under the current Brussels Regulation. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons, French plaintiffs do not use Article 14 all that much, other than in status suits such as matrimonial matters or in situations where the defendant has assets in France (or now, under the Brussels regime, in Europe). The actual use of Article 14 ends up being not all that different from what other countries have accomplished in other ways, such as the United States by its nonpersonal attachment jurisdiction or Germany by its property-based personal jurisdiction. Each country’s exorbitant jurisdiction constitutes a way to allow its own people to sue at home when they can enforce the judgment at home, which is usually so much easier than suing abroad. So one could argue that, being essentially similar to all the other countries’ exorbitances, Article 14 mainly sounds bad, because it is more nationalistic in expressing who can invoke it and because it does not utilize the subterfuge of expressly linking to property in France or to any other defendant contact with France. But in fact Article 14 has more extensive effects than its limited invocation suggests, lurking in the background of numerous filed cases and threatened cases. The future poses the risk of ever more extensive pernicious effects. International conventions should therefore aim at eliminating Article 14, like any other exorbitant jurisdiction

Exorbitant Jurisdiction

Exorbitant territorial jurisdiction in civil cases comprises those classes of jurisdiction, although exercised validly under a country\u27s rules, that nonetheless are unfair to the defendant because of a lack of significant connection between the sovereign and either the parties or the dispute. The United States, France, and most of the rest of the world exercise a good deal of exorbitant jurisdiction so defined. In the United States, an emphasis on power derived from territoriality has led to jurisdictional restraint in some respects, but has also allowed general jurisdiction based solely on transient physical presence, the attachment of property, or extensive business activities unrelated to the cause of action. In contrast, the civil law\u27s emphasis on fairness has kept France from developing these exorbitant bases of jurisdiction, but has failed to restrain it from asserting general jurisdiction based solely on the plaintiff\u27s nationality. A number of other countries have added some wrinkles to their own brands of exorbitant jurisdiction. We conclude (1) that although the extent, details, and phrasing of the world\u27s exorbitant bases of jurisdiction differ among nations, there appears to be a common core in the nations\u27 urge to disregard defendants\u27 interests in order to give their own people a way to sue at home, when the forum country will be able to enforce the resulting judgment locally, and (2) that even though exorbitant jurisdiction is thus understandable, the ultimate goal should remain its elimination by international agreement

French Article 14 Jurisdiction, Viewed from the United States

French courts have broadly read their Civil Code’s oddly written Article 14 as authorizing territorial jurisdiction over virtually any action brought by a plaintiff of French nationality. This study traces the history of this provision from its genesis two hundred years ago to its extension under the current Brussels Regulation. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons, French plaintiffs do not use Article 14 all that much, other than in status suits such as matrimonial matters or in situations where the defendant has assets in France (or now, under the Brussels regime, in Europe). The actual use of Article 14 ends up being not all that different from what other countries have accomplished in other ways, such as the United States by its nonpersonal attachment jurisdiction or Germany by its property-based personal jurisdiction. Each country’s exorbitant jurisdiction constitutes a way to allow its own people to sue at home when they can enforce the judgment at home, which is usually so much easier than suing abroad. So one could argue that, being essentially similar to all the other countries’ exorbitances, Article 14 mainly sounds bad, because it is more nationalistic in expressing who can invoke it and because it does not utilize the subterfuge of expressly linking to property in France or to any other defendant contact with France. But in fact Article 14 has more extensive effects than its limited invocation suggests, lurking in the background of numerous filed cases and threatened cases. The future poses the risk of ever more extensive pernicious effects. International conventions should therefore aim at eliminating Article 14, like any other exorbitant jurisdiction

Exorbitant Jurisdiction

Exorbitant territorial jurisdiction in civil cases comprises those classes of jurisdiction, although exercised validly under a country\u27s rules, that nonetheless are unfair to the defendant because of a lack of significant connection between the sovereign and either the parties or the dispute. The United States, France, and most of the rest of the world exercise a good deal of exorbitant jurisdiction so defined. In the United States, an emphasis on power derived from territoriality has led to jurisdictional restraint in some respects, but has also allowed general jurisdiction based solely on transient physical presence, the attachment of property, or extensive business activities unrelated to the cause of action. In contrast, the civil law\u27s emphasis on fairness has kept France from developing these exorbitant bases of jurisdiction, but has failed to restrain it from asserting general jurisdiction based solely on the plaintiff\u27s nationality. A number of other countries have added some wrinkles to their own brands of exorbitant jurisdiction. We conclude (1) that although the extent, details, and phrasing of the world\u27s exorbitant bases of jurisdiction differ among nations, there appears to be a common core in the nations\u27 urge to disregard defendants\u27 interests in order to give their own people a way to sue at home, if the home country will be able to enforce the resulting judgment locally, and (2) that even though exorbitant jurisdiction is thus understandable, the ultimate goal should remain its elimination by international agreement

Exorbitant Jurisdiction

Exorbitant territorial jurisdiction in civil cases comprises those classes of jurisdiction, although exercised validly under a country\u27s rules, that nonetheless are unfair to the defendant because of a lack of significant connection between the sovereign and either the parties or the dispute. The United States, France, and most of the rest of the world exercise a good deal of exorbitant jurisdiction so defined. In the United States, an emphasis on power derived from territoriality has led to jurisdictional restraint in some respects, but has also allowed general jurisdiction based solely on transient physical presence, the attachment of property, or extensive business activities unrelated to the cause of action. In contrast, the civil law\u27s emphasis on fairness has kept France from developing these exorbitant bases of jurisdiction, but has failed to restrain it from asserting general jurisdiction based solely on the plaintiff\u27s nationality. A number of other countries have added some wrinkles to their own brands of exorbitant jurisdiction. We conclude (1) that although the extent, details, and phrasing of the world\u27s exorbitant bases of jurisdiction differ among nations, there appears to be a common core in the nations\u27 urge to disregard defendants\u27 interests in order to give their own people a way to sue at home, when the forum country will be able to enforce the resulting judgment locally, and (2) that even though exorbitant jurisdiction is thus understandable, the ultimate goal should remain its elimination by international agreement

Continental breakup and UHP rock exhumation in action: GPS results from the Woodlark Rift, Papua New Guinea

We show results from a network of campaign Global Positioning System (GPS) sites in the Woodlark Rift, southeastern Papua New Guinea, in a transition from seafloor spreading to continental rifting. GPS velocities indicate anticlockwise rotation (at 2–2.7°/Myr, relative to Australia) of crustal blocks north of the rift, producing 10–15 mm/yr of extension in the continental rift, increasing to 20–40 mm/yr of seafloor spreading at the Woodlark Spreading Center. Extension in the continental rift is distributed among multiple structures. These data demonstrate that low-angle normal faults in the continents, such as the Mai'iu Fault, can slip at high rates nearing 10 mm/yr. Extensional deformation observed in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, the site of the world's only actively exhuming Ultra-High Pressure (UHP) rock terrane, supports the idea that extensional processes play a critical role in UHP rock exhumation. GPS data do not require significant interseismic coupling on faults in the region, suggesting that much of the deformation may be aseismic. Westward transfer of deformation from the Woodlark Spreading Center to the main plate boundary fault in the continental rift (the Mai'iu fault) is accommodated by clockwise rotation of a tectonic block beneath Goodenough Bay, and by dextral strike slip on transfer faults within (and surrounding) Normanby Island. Contemporary extension rates in the Woodlark Spreading Center are 30–50% slower than those from seafloor spreading-derived magnetic anomalies. The 0.5 Ma to present seafloor spreading estimates for the Woodlark Basin may be overestimated, and a reevaluation of these data in the context of the GPS rates is warranted

Probing the Gamma-Ray Burst Rate with Trigger Simulations of the Swift Burst Alert Telescope

The long gamma-ray burst (GRB) rate is essential for revealing the connection between GRBs, supernovae and stellar evolution. Additionally, the GRB rate at high redshift provides a strong probe of star formation history in the early universe. While hundreds of GRBs are observed by Swift, it remains difficult to determine the intrinsic GRB rate due to the complex trigger algorithm of Swift. Current studies usually approximate the Swift trigger algorithm by a single detection threshold. However, unlike the previously flown GRB instruments, Swift has over 500 trigger criteria based on photon count rate and additional image threshold for localization. To investigate possible systematic biases and explore the intrinsic GRB properties, we developed a program that is capable of simulating all the rate trigger criteria and mimicking the image trigger threshold. We use this program to search for the intrinsic GRB rate. Our simulations show that adopting the complex trigger algorithm of Swift increases the detection rate of dim bursts. As a result, we find that either the GRB rate is much higher than previously expected at large redshift, or the luminosity evolution is non-negligible. We will discuss the best results of the GRB rate in our search, and their impact on the star-formation history.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 7th Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium, GRB 2013: paper 35 in eConf Proceedings C130414

Probing the Cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst Rate with Trigger Simulations of the Swift Burst Alert Telescope

The gamma-ray burst (GRB) rate is essential for revealing the connection between GRBs, supernovae and stellar evolution. Additionally, the GRB rate at high redshift provides a strong probe of star formation history in the early universe. While hundreds of GRBs are observed by Swift, it remains difficult to determine the intrinsic GRB rate due to the complex trigger algorithm of Swift. Current studies of the GRB rate usually approximate the Swift trigger algorithm by a single detection threshold. However, unlike the previously flown GRB instruments, Swift has over 500 trigger criteria based on photon count rate and additional image threshold for localization. To investigate possible systematic biases and explore the intrinsic GRB properties, we develop a program that is capable of simulating all the rate trigger criteria and mimicking the image threshold. Our simulations show that adopting the complex trigger algorithm of Swift increases the detection rate of dim bursts. As a result, our simulations suggest bursts need to be dimmer than previously expected to avoid over-producing the number of detections and to match with Swift observations. Moreover, our results indicate that these dim bursts are more likely to be high redshift events than low-luminosity GRBs. This would imply an even higher cosmic GRB rate at large redshifts than previous expectations based on star-formation rate measurements, unless other factors, such as the luminosity evolution, are taken into account. The GRB rate from our best result gives a total number of 4571^{+829}_{-1584} GRBs per year that are beamed toward us in the whole universe. SPECIAL NOTE (2015.05.16): This new version incorporates an erratum. All the GRB rate normalizations ($R_{\rm GRB}(z=0)$) should be a factor of 2 smaller than previously reported. Please refer to the Appendix for more details. We sincerely apologize for the mistake.Comment: 52 pages, 17 figures, published in ApJ 783, 24L (2014). An erratum is included. A typo in Eq. 8 is fixed in this versio