"Export/Import: American Civil Justice in a Global Context"-Eighth Annual Tort Law and Social Policy Symposium
Sponsored by DePaul University College of Law, 04/18/2002
The goal of the eighth annual Clifford Symposium is to explore some of the issues raised by the export of American notions of civil justice and the impact of foreign constraints on our system.
American courts have become a forum for the airing of a host of legal claims arising on foreign shores. One particular category has been cases involving alleged wrongs done by officials of other nations to citizens of those nations. The wisdom of using American courtrooms and converting foreign human rights abuses into American tort claims deserves the most thorough examination on both a substantive and procedural level.
For more than half a century, America has sought to export its notions about the conducting of civil litigation to regimes around the world. The start of the new millennium seems an appropriate time to ask whether America has succeeded as a trendsetter in civil justice by exploring whether its ideas have captured the world's legal imagination or served as a model for emerging legal systems. It is also an appropriate moment to ask whether ideas that are increasingly controversial at home, including those regarding class actions and discovery, have had an influence on foreign legal thinking and practice.
The flow has not all been in the direction of supplying American courtrooms, concepts, or procedures to foreign legal systems. A number of legal disputes, especially several arising under NAFTA, have led observers to wonder whether American treaty and trade commitments might mandate changes in American legal processes. These sorts of claims suggest just how profoundly international arrangements may intrude upon American civil litigation.
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The Clifford Tort Law and Social Policy Symposium
In 1994, Robert A. Clifford endowed the country's first Chair in Tort Law and Social Policy. The endowment supports faculty research and teaching as well as sponsoring an annual seminar on timely issues related to the law of torts and how it impacts society.
