Roger Alford’s New Article on 28 U.S.C. sec. 1782: Ancillary Discovery To Prove Denial of Justice

Roger Alford has just posted on SSRN his latest article, “Ancillary Discovery to Prove Denial of Justice,” which has been published in the Virginia Journal of International Law. It analyzes Section 1782 discovery proceedings in the context of BIT arbitration and argues that there is now uniform agreement among federal courts that investment arbitration panels are “international tribunals” within the meaning of Section 1782. But as he points out today on opiniojuris, the article has relevance outside that context, too. As recent cases have demonstrated, this mechanism is becoming a typical (and powerful) tool for international litigators to obtain discovery in aid of any non-U.S. proceeding. This is a fabulous article on the recent wave developments in regard to this mechanism, and reaches a number of salient conclusions regarding the growing use of ancillary discovery in international adjudication.