Defining Exorbitant Jurisdiction

Abstract

Despite decades of vigorous debate, the term “exorbitant jurisdiction” remains an ill-defined concept within international civil procedure and private international law. The discord has created a quagmire in which any serious discussion of exorbitant jurisdiction must begin with a lengthy discussion of what the concept actually entails. The result of this quagmire is that there are as many definitions of exorbitant jurisdiction as there are articles or treaties that address it.This Article is an attempt to distill those definitions into five manageable schemata – essentially definitional genres. The schemata can then serve as shorthand for future scholars and drafters so that they can convey particular views of exorbitant jurisdiction without delving too deeply into the discord surrounding the concept of exorbitant jurisdiction.Author's note, December 2012: Certain aspects of this Article have changed. Most notably, the European Community has made changes to the Brussels Regime, and the U.S. Supreme Court has questioned the continuing application of certain forms of jurisdiction. These changes aside, the majority of the research in this Article remains relevant and timely.