Digital Commons Network^™

Recommendations For Durable Solutions For Palestinian Refugees: A Challenge To The Oslo Framework, Susan M. Akram, Terry Rempel

Faculty Scholarship

I. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 2 II. International Legal Framework and the Palestinian Refugees .................... 9 A. The International Scheme of Refugee Protection and Protection of Stateless Persons .................................................................................................... 9
B. The Regime for Protection of Palestinian Refugees - Three Provisions and Three Agencies ......................................................................... 16
C. The Standard Interpretation of the Provisions Applying to the Status of Palestinian Refugees and Stateless Persons, and their Ramifications ........................................................................................................... 22
D. Reinterpreting the Provisions Based on Plain Language ....................... 27
E. Reinterpreting the Provisions in Light of the Drafting History and their Scope and Purpose ..................................................................................... 31 III. Durable Solutions and Palestinian Refugees ........................................... …

Evaluating Mistakes In Intellectual Property Law: Configuring The System To Account For Imperfection, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, the author argues that in assessing the performance of the intellectual property laws, it is useful to conceive of intellectual property law as a system comprised of both interacting decision-makers and other sets of law. Those decisionmakers include Congress, the PTO, and courts, and the other relevant laws include antitrust and contract. The author reviews the major intellectual property statutes, illustrating ways in which different institutions may be situated to correct the errors of another and how antitrust and contract also can work to correct errors in the scope of protection. The Essay concludes by arguing that …

Limited Liability And Creditors' Rights: The Limits Of Risk Shifting To Creditors, Frederick Tung

Faculty Scholarship

In this Symposium, we were asked to identify and articulate the nature of our passion for teaching corporate law. My passion-a bit odd in this context, perhaps-is bankruptcy. In addition to teaching the basic Corporations course, I also teach Corporate Reorganization and Bankruptcy, and my research has focused primarily on corporate reorganization issues. As I say, my particular passion may seem out of place in the context of this Symposium. The corporation is an engine for maximizing wealth. Yet we bankruptcy types obsess about financial ruin. We pray for the next recession. We sell short. Our chips sit on the …

Symposium: Regulatory And Liability Considerations, Michael S. Baram, Ellen Flannery, Patricia Davis, Gary Marchant

Faculty Scholarship

You can tell from remarks by prior speakers that regulatory approvals and liability prevention are of critical importance to progress in biomaterials. Gene therapy trials and the tragic outcomes of some of those trials have raised the specter of government suspension of clinical studies, termination of funding, and potential liability for personal injury under malpractice or products liability doctrines. Regulatory requirements and the terms of research grants and contracts have to be very carefully addressed by organizations testing, developing, making, selling and using biomaterials, biotechnology, and medical devices. However, many regulatory requirements are incomplete, ambiguous and confusing because the agencies …

Symposium: Patent Rights And Licensing, Michael S. Baram, Ashley Stevens, Thomas Meyers, Michael J. Meurer

Faculty Scholarship

This panel will discuss intellectual property - the patent incentive, patentability issues, licensing, and litigation-related matters. It will be moderated by Dr. Ashley Stevens, the Director of the Office of Technology Transfer at Boston University. Ashley has multiple degrees, including a doctorate in physical chemistry from Oxford University. He has worked in the biotech industry for a number of years, mostly with startup companies and academic research organizations such as the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where he was also Director of Technology Transfer. Ashley was instrumental in the startup and operations of firms such as Biotechnica International, and started his …

The Constitutionality Of Copyright Term Extension: How Long Is Too Long?, Wendy J. Gordon, Jane C. Ginsburg, Arthur R. Miller, William F. Patry

Faculty Scholarship

I am Professor William Patry of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. I will be the moderator of this star-studded debate on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

A Proposal For A New Massachusetts Notoriety For Profit Law: The Grandson Of Sam, Sean J. Kealy

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, two women stood convicted of highly publicized major crimes in Massachusetts. Katherine Ann Power ("Power") was a fugitive who committed felony-murder in 1970. She led a life on the run as a fugitive until 1993 when she revealed her true identity and surrendered to authorities to face the consequences of her crimes. Louise Woodward ("Woodward"), an au pair originally from England, gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean when she was convicted of killing the baby entrusted to her care. Both women captured the attention of the national media for months and reportedly had opportunities …

In Hell There Will Be Lawyers Without Clients Or Law, Susan P. Koniak, George M. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

Class action abuse is a particularly interesting area in which to explore both when and why law might fail to affect lawyer conduct and the complexity of the lawyer-entity relationship. By class action abuse, we have in mind three related problems: collusive settlements, inadequate representation of class interests, and payoffs to objectors and their counsel. The law condemns collusive settlements and the lawyers who make them.²⁰ It demands that class counsel adequately represent the class.²¹ Paying objectors and their counsel to drop their challenges to class settlements is, at best, legally questionable behavior and, at worst, evidence of …

Unbending Gender: Why Work And Family Conflict And What To Do About It, Joan Williams, Jamie Boyle, Adrienne Davis, Martha Ertman, Nancy Polikoff, Katharine B. Silbaugh, Lucie White, Susan Carle, Leti Volpp

Faculty Scholarship

PROCEEDINGS PROFESSOR WILLIAMS: I am going to talk fast, and talk short as an introduction to this panel. First, just a very few words about the norm of parental care. The goal-my goal, anyway, in using the norm of parental care which, of course, started out really as the norm of mother care-is to try to use the momentum of domesticity to bend our current gender to use the norm of parental care as a way of democratizing access to domesticity, which has always been classbased.

On Equality, Bias Crimes, And Just Deserts, Kenneth Simons

Faculty Scholarship

In a recent article, Professors Alon Harel and Gideon Parchomovsky propose to widen the focus of criminal law beyond the culpability of the offender and the wrongdoing he commits. Criminal law, they believe, should also encompass the state's special egalitarian duty to protect the interests of the most vulnerable victims of crime. They offer this suggestion for two reasons - to give a convincing justification of bias crime legislation, which they claim a retributivist approach cannot do; and, more broadly, to remedy retributivism's supposedly inadequate attention to the interests of crime victims.

Although these egalitarian goals are worthy, the authors' …

The Logic Of Egalitarian Norms, Kenneth Simons

Faculty Scholarship

"The Logic of Egalitarian Norms" was prompted by a recent article by Christopher J. Peters, "Equality Revisited," 110 Harv. L. Rev. 1210 (1997), arguing that the concept of equality is self-contradictory and sometimes leads to absurd results, such as the multiplication of wrongs or wasteful "leveling down" of social benefits. Peters' view is shared by other recent skeptical commentators who question the value of egalitarian norms or who worry that such norms are often misleading. The article defends egalitarian logic against such skepticism in a wide variety of legal domains.

Accountants' Independence The Recent Dilemma, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

A fundamental issue has been raised recently in connection with the status of "independent accountants." The issue involves a new breed of a few very large accounting firms. These firms are engaged in global commerce and finance, and cater to an important segment of multinational corporations.

These mammoth accounting firms raise a familiar question in a new context. On the one hand, the size and diversity of the firms meet the needs of large multinational clients and offer efficiency benefits. On the other hand, these benefits expose the firms to increased possible conflicts of interest and endanger the firms' gatekeeping …

Securitizing Insurance Risks, Tamar Frankel, Joseph W. Laplume

Faculty Scholarship

This Article analyzes and evaluates the legal problems that have arisen in connection with this rapidly developing insurance risk securitization. The first part of the Article deals with legal issues concerning the SPVs that undertake insurance and reinsurance contracts with ceding insurers and the other parties to the transaction. The Article addresses the dilemma in choosing the laws applicable to SPVs, the bonds they issue, and the persons and entities that form part of the securitization transaction. These laws involve state insurance laws, bankruptcy and tax laws, the Investment Company Act of 1940 and the Commodity Exchange Act of 1934, …

New Plants As Natural Experiments In Economic Adjustment: Adjustment Costs, Learning-By-Doing And Lumpy Investment, James Bessen

Faculty Scholarship

A large sample of new plants is studied to reveal detailed adjustment behavior for capital, labor and productivity. Once production has begun, capital adjusts almost as quickly as labor. Overall, capital adjustment is lumpy while labor follows a learning-by-doing model rather than a convex adjustment cost model. Plants are quite heterogeneous, however: convex adjustment costs appear important at small plants, but large plants exhibit lumpy investment and substantial investment in learning-by-doing. A positive association between plant productivity growth and wages (and also the change in wages) corroborates the importance of learning-by-doing. Also, learning-by-doing appears to influence the behavior of large …

The Rich Have More Money, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Review of Ethics, Equity and Health for All, by Z. Bankowski, J. H. Bryant, and J. Gallagher, eds. (Geneva: CIOMS, 1997)