submitted by a party or admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court’s determination must be treated as a ruling on a question of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 44.1. Rule 44.1 provides courts with broad authority to conduct their own independent research to determine foreign law but imposes no duty upon them to do so. See Carey v. Bahama Cruise Lines, 864 F.2d 201, 205 (1st Cir.1988) (“[Rule] 44.1 empowers a federal court to determine foreign law on its own, but does not oblige it do so.”). Thus, the party claiming foreign law applies carries both the burden of raising the issue that foreign law may apply in an action and the burden of proving foreign law to enable the district court to apply it in a particular case. Cf. Whirlpool Fin. Corp. v. Sevaux, 96 F.3d 216, 221 (7th Cir.1996) (<HOLDING>). Where a party fails to satisfy either burden,
holding that a defendant who fails to raise a specific issue as the basis for suppression in a motion to suppress to the district court has waived the right to raise that issue on appeal holding that party waived conflicts of law issue because it failed to fulfill its obligation under rule 441 to provide the district court with reasonable notice of his intention to raise an issue of foreign law holding that defendant failed to raise a constitutional issue at trial and thus waived appellate review of that issue holding that a partys failure to raise an issue in the opening brief waived the issue even though the party raised the issue in his reply brief holding that defendant failed to raise a constitutional issue at trial and thus failed to preserve the issue for appellate review