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Philip Thoennes ’15 receives award from American Society of Comparative Law

A paper submitted by Philip Thoennes ’15 received Honorable Mention in the American Society of Comparative Law Younger Comparatists Committee’s Phanor J. Eder JD Prize in Comparative Law Competition.
March 03, 2015

A paper submitted by Philip Thoennes ’15 received Honorable Mention in the American Society of Comparative Law Younger Comparatists Committee’s Phanor J. Eder JD Prize in Comparative Law Competition. The prize is awarded annually for outstanding papers authored by JD students on the topic of comparative law.

Thoennes’ paper, “Eo Nomine: The Divergence of State and Foreign Sovereign Immunity,” will be published in the Lewis & Clark Law Review (Volume 19, Issue 3). 

In his paper, Thoennes compares and contrasts state sovereign immunity and foreign sovereign immunity in the United States. Specifically, he argues that over time the two doctrines have evolved in different directions—state sovereign immunity has expanded in favor of the states, and foreign sovereign immunity has contracted, to the detriment of foreign governments. Thoennes reasons that the two doctrines should be more closely aligned, and proposes utilizing the market participant exception of the dormant Commerce Clause as an initial starting point for analyzing a state’s claim of sovereign immunity. Under Thoennes’ proposal, a court would begin by asking whether a state were acting as a market participant. If so, the state would not be immune from suit for actions arising out of that market participant activity. If not, the courts would apply the current state immunity framework.

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