Vigilante Nonprofits: The Bob Jones Rule As Applied to the International Promotion of the Rule of Law‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION Imagine a small European nation in which physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill has been legalized. Perhaps organizations aiding in the provision of such services have even been held to be tax-exempt charities in this country. Now imagine that these organizations, flooded with donations from local contributors, decide to extend their operations overseas in order to offer their services to individuals in other countries, including the United States, where domestic laws prevent the formation of similar organizations. Whether or not these groups would be criminally prosecuted in the United States, the fact that their home nation is in effect subsidizing their attempts to flout U.S. law via tax exemption would most likely complicate relations between the two nations. Whatever the merits of the organizations' missions, significant portions of the American population would be outraged--if not by the activities themselves, then by the organizations' disregard for U.S. law.