Association of American Law Schools 2001 Annual Meeting Wednesday, January 3, 2001 - Saturday, January 6, 2001 San Francisco, California

You are here:   2001 Annual Meeting >> Workshops >> Workshop on Shifting Boundaries >> Workshop Materials >> Torts Annual Meeting Workshop on Shifting Boundaries: Globalization and Its Discontents Discussion Issues – Concurrent Session on Torts Naomi Roht-Arriaza, University of California, Hastings College of Law This session is not meant to provide finished presentations but to discuss different possible ways to incorporate international and comparative law concepts into the first-year torts course. I teach both torts and international subjects, but have never, frankly, tried to do a "separate" unit on international issues in my torts course. Rather, I have tried to infuse different parts of the traditional course with a global sensibility. Therefore, what follows are merely suggested topics for discussion. There are no doubt others, which I would welcome. The most obvious place to do a "unit" on international law in torts is the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows aliens to file suit in federal court for torts in violation of the law of nations, no matter where they were committed. Recent cases have concerned torture, summary execution, forced labor, war crimes, and environmental damage. The cases are fascinating reading, but they may raise too many new issues to be easily understandable by first year students (i.e. choice of law, treaty vs. customary law). Does it make sense to try to simplify one of these cases for inclusion? Barring the ATCA, there are a few other ways I can think of to bring global issues in. First, comparative law approaches would allow students to look at doctrinal issues from other perspectives. An obvious place would be when we discuss "duty to rescue." Many other countries have a mandatory "easy duty to rescue" doctrine. We could look at why they chose a different approach, and what the effects have been. We could also look at non-U.S. approaches to products liability. Hate speech and intentional torts is a third area that seems ripe for comparative treatment. Are there other areas of tort law that lend themselves to comparative treatment? Would we use foreign legislation or cases, more theoretical readings, or what? Second, there are a host of issues involved in the move from national to global markets that impact tort law doctrines. Just to name a couple, the definition of "state of the art" in products cases, market share theories of tort liability (i.e. is national market share still the most appropriate measure?), the effect of non-U.S. regulation on duties of care, etc. This could lead to lots of fruitful debate about the competing policies involved in the choice of market to focus on. Are there cases out there that would profitably raise these questions? More generally, what is the role of international-level guidances and rules, for example in the area of pesticide tolerances or law-enforcement procedures? Third, one might look at the liability-related protocols in international agreements, and see how they compare to domestic law. Liability protocols exist in the oil spill, hazardous waste (in draft) and a few other areas. One might organize an interesting and fruitful discussion about how such rules are generated and applied and how that compares to domestic rules on the same subjects. Are there other international or regional-level agreements that involve liability, that would allow discussion of these issues? These are just some initial ideas. I look forward to discussing them with you.