Opinion ID: 2750493
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Foreign interests

Text: The proper analysis of foreign interests essentially mirrors the consideration of U.S. interests. Foreign states, no less than the United States, have legitimate interests in regulating conduct that occurs within their borders, involves their nationals, impacts their public and foreign policies, and implicates universal norms. See Mich. Cmty. Servs., Inc. v. NLRB, 309 F.3d 348, 356 (6th Cir. 2002). Accordingly, courts have considered the territoriality of the questioned activity, its effects, the nationality of the parties, and the interests of the foreign state when deciding whether to exercise jurisdiction. See Jota, 157 F.3d at 160 (holding that deference to foreign state’s position on matters that took place within its territory is “inherent in the concept of comity”); see also Sequihua, 847 F. Supp. at 62 (declining jurisdiction in part because of Ecuador’s “official[]” protest that the litigation “will do ‘violence’ to the international legal system”). To illustrate, in Bi, the Second Circuit held that individual victims of the Bhopal gas leak disaster in India, which harmed almost exclusively Indians, did not have standing to challenge a settlement reached between India and the company responsible for the tort in light of an Indian law granting the Indian government exclusive standing to represent victims of the disaster. 984 F.2d at 586 (declining “to pass judgment on the validity of India’s response to a disaster that occurred within its borders” because doing so “would disrupt our relations with that country and frustrate MUJICA V. AIRSCAN 57 the efforts of the international community to develop methods to deal with problems of this magnitude in the future”); see also, e.g., Freund, 592 F. Supp. at 578 (declining jurisdiction where “Plaintiffs’ claims [we]re inextricably connected to France”).