Digital Commons Network^™

Terminology Matters: Dangers Of Superficial Transplantation, Silvia Ferreri, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

The history of legal transplantations from one legal system to another is as long as law itself. It has numerous edifications and names including reception, borrowing, and influence. Legal transplantations from one legal system to another come at various levels of substance and penetration including the transplantation of a legal tradition (English common law to the United States and the English Commonwealth), transplantation of national law (Turkey's adoption of Swiss Civil Code), transplantation of an area of law (Louisiana's adoption and retention of French sales law), transplantation of a rule or concept (Chinese adoption of principle of good faith), and …

Don’T Steal My Recipe! A Comparative Study Of French And U.S. Law On The Protection Of Culinary Recipes And Dishes Against Copying, Claire M. Germain

Working Papers

Food and gastronomy are at the heart of every culture. In 2010, The Gastronomic Meal of the French was listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Interest in gastronomy became mainstream in the U.S. starting in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. The emergence of cooking literature, television cooking, celebrity chefs, and competitive cooking programs have now permeated American and French popular culture like never before. It is also a huge business for restaurants. This article examines the legal status of recipes and culinary creations in U.S. and French law, and what can be done to stop others from copying …

A Rule-Based Method For Comparing Corporate Laws, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

Part I explains the processes for specifying a Scenario. It introduces the Scenario that will serve as the illustration in the remainder of this Article—a comparison of the liability of directors for the exercise of poor judgment in a Delaware corporation with the corresponding liability in a United Kingdom public limited company. Part II explains and illustrates the necessity of selecting specific entity types for comparison. Part III describes and illustrates the method for resolving the Scenario in both jurisdictions. Part IV explains and illustrates the novel process for close comparison—the extraction, juxtaposition, and comparison of decisional rules from the …

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Antitrust is an important area of law and policy for most companies in the world. Having divergent rules across antitrust systems means that the same economic behavior may be treated differently depending on the jurisdiction, leading to disparate outcomes in which one jurisdiction finds illegal behavior (but the other does not) when the underlying behavior may be pro-competitive. This disparate set of outcomes creates a world in which the most stringent antitrust system may produce the global standard. As a result, if the antitrust rules applied are too rigid, they threaten to hurt consumers not merely in the jurisdiction where …

Chinese Reception And Transplantation Of Western Contract Law, Wang Jingen, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

The transformation of the People's Republic of China (China) into a market economy and its ascendancy into a global economic power increases the importance of studying its private laws (contract, torts, property, and unjust enrichment). The twin pillars of a market economy are private property and contract law. This Article will focus on the latter of the two pillars. The evolution of Chinese contract law provides an opportunity to study the influences of foreign laws and the formal transplantation of foreign and international law into a different cultural and legal tradition. China's formation of private contract law, beginning in the …

Decentralizing The Amendment Power, Jonathan L. Marshfield

UF Law Faculty Publications

The United States Constitution could soon be re-written by the states. Article V of the Constitution authorizes two-thirds of the state legislatures to bypass Congress and demand a convention to initiate federal constitutional amendments addressing any number of issues. States have adopted resolutions calling for a convention to consider amendments that would, among other things, require a balanced federal budget, eliminate life tenure for Supreme Court Justices, constitutionalize universal healthcare, and even invalidate bulwark rulings such as Roe v. Wade. In April 2014, Michigan arguably became the thirty-fourth state to adopt such a resolution, and convention supporters believe that a …

Foreign Precedent In State Constitutional Interpretation, Jonathan L. Marshfield

UF Law Faculty Publications

The use of foreign law in constitutional interpretation has been met with intense criticism and commentary. Indeed, few subjects in constitutional law have attracted more attention in the last two decades. Justices, scholars, politicians, and pundits have all weighed in on how and whether American courts should consider foreign law when interpreting domestic constitutional provisions. The issue is now standard stock for questioning at judicial confirmation hearings, and law reviews have dedicated hundreds — perhaps thousands — of pages to related analysis and commentary. Despite this impressive tome of literature, this essay draws attention to an issue that the vast …

Globally Speaking - Honoring The Victims' Stories: Matsuda's Human Rights Praxis, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Globally speaking, international law and the vast majority of domestic legal systems strive to protect the right to freedom of expression. The United States’ First Amendment provides an early historical protection of speech—a safeguard now embraced around the world. The extent of this protection, however, varies among states.

The United States stands alone in excluding countervailing considerations of equality, dignitary, or privacy interests that would favor restrictions on speech. The gravamen of the argument supporting such American exceptionalism is that free expression is necessary in a democracy. Totalitarianism, the libertarian narrative goes, thrives on government control of information to the …

The Law And Economics Of (Functional) Antitrust Standing In The United States And The European Union, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

To date, and despite pressures toward convergence, the United States and the European Union have taken different paths with respect to the enforcement of antitrust laws by private parties and, therefore, differ dramatically in levels of functional standing. U.S. law is more encouraging to private enforcement than E.U. law but has a narrower view of whom those private parties are permitted to be. In the European Union, the eligible parties are broad but the motivation of any single party to bring an action is quite low. In the United States, the substantive law and much of the procedural law flow …

Meaningless Comparisons: Corporate Tax Reform Discourse In The United States, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the role that international comparisons play in current corporate tax reform discourse in the United States. Citing the need to make the U.S. corporate tax system more competitive, comparisons are frequently used to assess other jurisdictions' tax-competitiveness, and many legislative proposals are supported by such comparative arguments. Examining such discourse against the background of several theoretical approaches to comparative law, this article argues that, to the extent that comparisons are aimed at providing guidance for prospective reform, this purpose is not well served. Participants in the corporate tax reform discourse, from both sides of the aisle, lack …

Law And Development: The Way Forward Or Just Stuck In The Same Place?, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay does three things. First, it provides an overview of Law and Development issues. Second, it responds to other pieces in the symposium "The Future of Law and Development". Third, it suggests that to measure success, Law and Development needs clearer goals.

Authorizing Subnational Constitutions In Transitional Federal States: South Africa, Democracy, And The Kwazulu-Natal Constitution, Jonathan L. Marshfield

UF Law Faculty Publications

Not all federal systems permit their constituent units to adopt constitutions. This Article considers whether, and under what circumstances, subnational constitutions tend to contribute to the volatility or stability of their respective federal systems. By examining the role that subnational constitutions played in South Africa’s celebrated democratization, this Article observes that a transitional federal state can increase its flexibility and adaptability by merely authorizing subnational constitutions. The Article concludes that federal systems, particularly those undergoing fundamental change, can be better equipped to manage regime-threatening conflicts and perpetuate a democratic political culture if they permit constituent units to adopt constitutions.