Sovereign Disobedience
-
Published:September 2024
This chapter examines recent creditor litigation against Argentina to show that the expansion of US judicial territory has continued in the twenty-first century, with US courts now claiming more authority than ever before—including, in this case, over the entire world except Argentina. In the process, the courts have built on previous case precedent, while simultaneously breaking new ground by not only further expanding the categories of commercial and domestic, but even challenging their relevance altogether. This created the first significant tensions between the executive and the judiciary over the extent of US judicial reach. While US courts had long been respectful of and sometimes even deferred to the executive in past moments of judicial expansion, here the courts dismissed the executive’s concerns altogether. When it comes to cases it understands as commercial, the judiciary no longer shows any interest in the executive’s opinions.