Rethinking Early Judicial Involvement in Foreign Affairs: An Empirical Study of the Supreme Court's Docket

Abstract

Mainstream and revisionist scholars advance radically different histories of early judicial involvement in foreign affairs. By reconstructing the foreign affairs docket of the Jay and Marshall Courts, this Note presents empirical evidence by which these claims can be evaluated. In finding that nearly one fourth of the Court's caseload involved international disputes, this Note concludes that scholars have not fully appreciated the degree of judicial involvement in foreign affairs or the reasons for it. To assist further research, this Note presents summary statistics on the parties, jurisdictions, areas of law, and kinds of disputes on the Court's foreign affairs docket.

Keywords: Foreign Affairs, International Law, Legal History, Jay, Marshall, Docket

JEL Classification: K33