United States Jurisdiction Over Conflicts Arising Outside of the US. Some Hegemonic Implications

Abstract

Recently, numerous lawsuits have been filed in United States Federal and State Courts asserting what are now commonly referred to as “Holocaust Claims.” In these claims are for events arising out of World War II, plaintiffs maintain that the wrongs alleged – which include concealed bank accounts, looted assets, looted art, and insurance policy claims – are best adjudicated by United States Courts because various procedural mechanisms of the United States judicial system allow efficient disposition of the claims, notwithstanding the fact that the events giving rise to the claims are both temporally and spatially remote. This brief paper focuses on the question of why these claims having no apparent connection with the United States have nevertheless been brought in the United States, and wishes to suggest that the expansionist view of United States jurisdiction over such claims may be viewed as a sort of legal imperialism in which the United States (and some of its states) asserts itself upon the rest of the world.