Professor Dodge cited in Supreme Court opinion

Professor William S. Dodge’s 2012 article “Corporate Liability Under Customary International Law” was cited by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissenting opinion in Jesner v. Arab Bank. Justice Sotomayor also cited and relied on an amicus brief that Professor Dodge submitted on behalf of International Law Scholars in the case. In both the article and the brief, Professor Dodge argued that the customary international law of human rights establishes norms of conduct (like the prohibition against torture) but leaves it to domestic legal systems to decide how those norms should be enforced. In Jesner, the Supreme Court held that human-rights suits cannot be brought against foreign corporations under the Alien Tort Statute. But the court preserved the possibility of human rights suits against U.S. corporations, and Justice Sotomayor’s interpretation of international law got one more vote (4) than the contrary position in Justice Kennedy’s plurality opinion (3). Professor Dodge analyzed the decision for the blog Just Security.

Professor Dodge, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, is an influential international law scholar. He serves as a Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute's Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law: Jurisdiction and as a member of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Law. He 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.