Monday round-up
on Dec 7, 2020 at 7:00 am
The Supreme Court will hear five cases this week in what will be the court’s final oral arguments of 2020. In Monday’s session, the justices will hear two cases that were brought by Holocaust survivors and involve important issues of international law. The survivors — or their heirs — are seeking compensation for valuable art and other property that was seized by or sold to Germany and Hungary during the Holocaust. Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp asks whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction to resolve claims arising from a foreign country’s alleged confiscation of property from its own nationals within its own borders. Both Germany and Republic of Hungary v. Simon ask whether U.S. courts can and should abstain from resolving such claims under the doctrine of “international comity.” Our preview of the jurisdictional question in Germany is here. Our preview of the comity question in both Germany and Hungary is here.
Oral arguments begin at 10 a.m. EST. Before that, at 9:30 a.m., the court is expected to release orders from its private conference last Friday.
Here’s a round-up of other Supreme Court-related news and commentary from around the web:
- High court to decide whether Nazi art case stays in US court (Jessica Gresko, Associated Press)
- Supreme Court to Hear Case on Trump’s Medicaid Work Requirements (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
- Senate Republicans Seek Religious Exemptions to Public-Health Orders (Jess Bravin, The Wall Street Journal)
- Religious Liberty Ruling Risks Public Health (Kenneth Jost, Jost on Justice)
- Constitution doesn’t allow special burdens on pro-life speech, US Supreme Court should say so (John Bursch, The Hill)
- Preview of Republic of Hungary v. Simon (Tanmayi Sharma & Anna Whistler, Cornell Legal Information Institute)
- Preview of Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp (Julia Mikolajczak & Daniel Bialer, Cornell Legal Information Institute)
[Disclosure: Goldstein & Russell, P.C., whose attorneys contribute to SCOTUSblog in various capacities, is among counsel for Rosalie Simon and the other plaintiffs in Hungary v. Simon. The author of this article is not affiliated with the firm.]
We rely on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, podcast or op-ed relating to the Supreme Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion, please send it to roundup@scotusblog.com. Thank you!
