Evading Legislative Jurisdiction

In the last few years, and mostly unnoticed, courts have adopted a radically different approach to issues of legislative jurisdiction. Instead of grappling with the difficult question of whether Congress intended a law to reach beyond U.S. borders, courts have side-stepped it entirely. Courts have done so by redefining the definition of extraterritoriality. Significant and contentious decisions in the Ninth and D.C. Circuits paved the way by holding that not all regulation of overseas foreign conduct is extraterritorial. And then suddenly, last term, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed life into the practice. In its landmark Morrison v. National Australia Bank decision, the Court suggested that legislation focused on domestic conditions may not be extraterritorial, even if the legislation regulates overseas foreign activity. This Essay laments the birth of this troubling new approach, where established law is jettisoned and legislative jurisdiction analysis is evaded. The Essay’s aim is largely descriptive: it summarizes an important development and reveals how courts have lapsed into error. But it goes beyond the descriptive to also critique the new practice. Redefining extraterritoriality not only subverts established doctrine; it removes an important safeguard to the difficulties that extraterritorial regulation creates. More problematically, the practice undercuts principles that have been foundational in both domestic and international law.