As a student of the Yale Law School more than 40 years ago, I audited a course in conflicts of laws taught by the Israeli academic Avigdor Levontin. His course began with the 1808 English case of Buchanan v Rucker, in which the plaintiff sued a nonresident of Tobago in Tobago courts by posting a summons near the Tobago court house door.

That summons was valid under Tobagan law. The defendant declined to appear. The court in Tobago entered a judgment against him. The plaintiff then sought to enforce his Tobagan judgment in England. In response to this audacious claim, Lord Ellenborough quipped “Can the Island of Tobago pass a law to bind the rights of the whole world?” ‘No’, was his answer.

To read this report in The Financial Times in full, see:
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e77a5ec2-320a-11df-a8d1-00144feabdc0.html