Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty

Authors

Thomas H. Lee, Fordham University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Northwestern University Law Review

Volume

96

Publication Date

2001

Keywords

eleventh amendment, constitution

Abstract

The Judicial Power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. - Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America The thesis of this article is that the Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, represented the incorporation into the American domestic constitutional law of federalism (specifically, the doctrine of state sovereign immunity) the late eighteenth-century international law rule that only states have rights against other states on the interstate plane.

Recommended Citation

Thomas H. Lee, Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty, 96 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1027 (2001-2002)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/407