Professor Dodge co-authors amicus brief in climate change appeal

Working with the Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School, Professor William S. Dodge co-authored an amicus brief of conflict of laws and foreign-relations law scholars in City of New York v. BP PLC, which was filed with the Second Circuit on Nov. 15. The city of New York brought suit against major oil companies seeking compensation under state nuisance and trespass laws for injuries resulting from climate change. The district court held that the presumption against extraterritoriality barred the suit. The amicus brief explains that the presumption is a principle of statutory interpretation that does not apply to common law claims, that under conflict of laws rules it is appropriate to apply the law of the place of the injury, and that federal law pre-empts state common law only in limited circumstances, none of which is present in this case.

Professor Dodge is a 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.