Current debates in the conflict of laws.

• Author: Roosevelt, Kermit, III
• Position: SYMPOSIUM

Legal scholars have long predicted that the increasing interconnectedness of the global economy, coupled with new technologies that decrease the salience of geography, will present new challenges for the field of conflict of laws. Less predictable, but equally significant, are the issues raised by some states' recognition of same-sex marriage, and by the detention and interrogation of aliens outside the boundaries of the United States as part of American antiterror activities.

From one perspective, the topics are quite distinct. One arises from global transactions, one from domestic interstate relations, and one from conduct entirely outside the United States. Each, though, is on the cutting edge of conflicts; each challenges scholars, practitioners, and judges as they bring conflicts into the new century.

These topics formed the basis for the Symposium conducted November 12, 2004, at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The papers gathered in this issue of the Law Review were presented at three panels. The first, addressing choice of law and jurisdiction on the Internet, featured papers from Paul Schiff Berman, Erin O'Hara, Joel Reidenberg, and Peter Swire. Allan Stein moderated and served as commentator.

Paul Berman's paper argues for what he calls a cosmopolitan vision of the conflict of laws. Building on a now-classic article previously published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Berman argues that the diminishing significance of geography has undermined the idea of the territorially bounded nation-state as the basic unit of analysis for conflicts purpose. Instead, Berman suggests that courts should recognize the possibility that people can hold multiple, sometimes nonterritorial community affiliations, and also that communities other than conventional nation-states can assert forms of legal or quasi-legal jurisdiction.

Erin O'Hara's contribution examines the rapidly growing world of online commerce. She investigates the possibility that a lack of trust of unknown vendors reduces the efficiency of the market for online purchases. Having concluded that distrust of unknown vendors represents a negative externality, she explores the extent to which contract doctrine could serve a coordinating function for vendor behavior that might work to promote consumer trust in unknown vendors.

Joel Reidenberg's paper considers the disputes about jurisdiction over Internet activities as part of the larger struggle to establish the...