Private International Law focuses on the allocation of law-making and law-adjudicating authority among states. It should be an attractive area for students interested in issues of regulation, litigation, and arbitration of both interstate and international disputes.
The core course is the basic Conflict of Laws course (as Private International Law is referred to in the United States), which focuses primarily on choice of law, jurisdiction, and recognition of judgments in the interstate context; it includes to a lesser extent those issues as played out in the international context.
Advanced core courses include: (1) the International Litigation/Arbitration simulation course, which focuses on issues of applicable law, jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, and recognition of awards and judgments in the context of cross-border litigation and international arbitration; (2) a seminar in Forum-shopping; and (3) International Business Transactions, which deals with issues of substantive commercial law and their interface with questions of private international law.
Other courses that should be of interest to students of private international law are any of the sales-related courses, such as International Sales, Sales: Domestic and International; and Drafting International and Commercial Contracts. Also the various commercial arbitration courses include elements of private international law. There are also courses in Investment Arbitration and Investment Law that may be of interest to students with a focus in the arbitration area. Good background courses in this diverse field would also be International Law, Federal Courts, Commercial Law, and possibly a course in Comparative Law or Comparative Procedure.