District court in Missouri cites Professor Dodge's article on comity

Professor William S. Dodge’s 2015 article “International Comity in American Law” was cited in A.O.A. v. Rennert by the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, which refused to dismiss a tort suit on comity grounds. Plaintiffs are hundreds of Peruvian children who live near a smelting and refining complex in Peru and allege that their exposure to lead and other toxic substances has resulted in serious injuries.

In refusing to dismiss the suit on grounds of international comity, the District Court adopted Professor Dodge’s definition of international comity as deference to foreign government actors that is not required by international law but is incorporated into domestic law. Given the connections of the case to the United States, the court concluded that the sovereign interests of Peru and the United States did not support dismissal.

Professor Dodge is Martin Luther King, Jr. professor of law at UC Davis School of Law. He is an influential international law scholar, who served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011 to 2012 and as co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. Professor Dodge is a co-author of the casebook Transnational Business Problems and a co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change, which won the American Society of International Law's 2012 certificate of merit. He has authored more than 50 other publications in books and law reviews.