Target Audience: Law librarians who support faculty, students, and government and private attorneys who work with civil law jurisdictions and U.S. litigation involving the doctrine of forum non conveniens
Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to describe the essential principles of the civil law tradition necessary to understand the impact of U.S. transnational litigation in Latin America.
2. Participants will be able to explain forum shopping and the repercussions of the U.S. doctrine of forum non conveniens.
Globalization has brought different legal systems closer together. Legal practitioners, government lawyers, and judges increasingly need to deal with cases that require research and understanding of a foreign legal system or specific aspects of comparative law. People doing business in civil law countries need to understand the fundamentals of civil code-based jurisdictions. This presentation will introduce the main elements that distinguish common law and civil law traditions, especially with respect to Latin American jurisdictions. Additionally, the U.S. bar has been very active on issues of forum shopping involving civil law jurisdictions. For example, there are cases involving U.S. multinational corporations litigating in Latin American and U.S. courts for damages arising from activities related to petroleum exploration and banana plantations, or based on U.S.-manufactured defective products. The presentation will also discuss various responses (judicial decisions and legislation) from Latin American civil law countries to the U.S. forum non conveniens doctrine, and provide participants with a research guide for exploring these issues further.