AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL LAW CASES Fourth Series 2009 VOLUME 6

Book excerpt: AILC is an annual case law reporter that provides the full text of U.S. court opinions involving international law issues. The courts covered include all U.S. federal district courts, federal appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as some state courts, the U.S. Court of Claims, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the U.S. Tax Court. The series seeks to provide not every single case in which a court refers to international law but rather all cases that analyze at least one international law issue in depth. The list of subjects addressed by these volumes is vast and changes from year to year, with the inclusion and prominence of most topics turning on their prevalence in a given year's jurisprudence. Some consistently prominent topics are personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants, deportation procedure, and double taxation. Over the last three editions (2006, 2007, and 2008), many topics have developed rapidly and constitute a correspondingly larger portion of the volumes, particularly Terrorism, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Forum Non Conveniens, and an entirely new, added topic: the National Security Exception (to deportation eligibility). The 2008 edition of AILC also features expanded sections on family law and on the detention of terrorist suspects. The U.S. war on terror and the crisis at Guantanamo have made that last topic a significant and dynamic component of AILC. Each edition of AILC also comes framed with two practical resources for students and scholars. The first is an introductory editor's note that both reviews international law's major developments for the given year and explains to readers how to use the volumes. The second is a subject index to allow for targeted research. Volume Six of AILC includes the exceptions and limitations of procedural aspects, such as the Political Question Doctrine, the Federal Tort Claims Act, the Foreign Affairs Doctrine, and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The volume also includes cases involving diplomacy and diplomatic immunity and treaties and agreements. In Mani Kumari Sabbithi v. Major Waleede KH N.S. AL SALEH, domestic workers from India sued their employers and the state of Kuwait under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and various contract and tort claims. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss based on diplomatic immunity. In In re B. Del C.S.B., the issue was whether a child of Mexican origin, whose mother wrongfully retained her in the United States, should be allowed to stay in her current home while custody proceedings are conducted in the United States, or whether she should be returned to Mexico while the proceedings are conducted there. The court examined whether a child is not settled for the purposes of Article 12 of the Hague Convention.