Yesterday morning, at a conference co-sponsored by the Manhattan Institute, the Institute for Legal Reform at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a new paper entitled "Think Globally, Sue Locally: Out-of-Court Tactics Employed by Plaintiffs, Their Lawyers, and Their Advocates in Transnational Tort Cases" (PDF). In cases involving the 1789 Alien Tort Statute as well as other litigation -- including U.S. litigation to enforce dubious, fraudulently obtained foreign verdicts -- plaintiffs' lawyers are increasingly trying to use American courts to recover for alleged conduct that happened overseas. As the report documents, such litigation is typically accompanied by out-of-court media, community organizing, investor-relations, and political tactics.

The study author, Jonathan Drimmer, wrote this piece in The Wall Street Journal discussing his findings.