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Full-Text Articles in Law

Insolvency Principles And The Odious Debt Doctrine: The Missing Link In The Debate, A. Mechele Dickerson Jul 2007

Insolvency Principles And The Odious Debt Doctrine: The Missing Link In The Debate, A. Mechele Dickerson

Law and Contemporary Problems

Politicians as well as many members of the international human-rights community, view the odious debt doctrine as fundamentally unfair that the Iraqi people may be saddled with the debts Saddam Hussein's brutal regime incurred. Furthermore, some in the human-rights community generally argue that rich (creditor) countries have a moral duty or obligation to protect citizens of poor (debtor) countries and that richer nations should forgive the debts of poorer nations to help reduce existing inequalities between developed and developing countries. Here, Dickerson evaluates the doctrine of odious debts using the insolvency framework found in the United States Bankruptcy Code.


A Critique Of The Odious Debt Doctrine, Albert H. Choi, Eric A. Posner Jul 2007

A Critique Of The Odious Debt Doctrine, Albert H. Choi, Eric A. Posner

Law and Contemporary Problems

Choi and Posner indicate that it is unclear whether the doctrine will improve the welfare of the population that might be subject to a dictatorship in terms of the odious debt doctrine. The traditional backward-looking defense of the odious debt doctrine, which suggests that the doctrine is costless because it releases a suffering population from an unjust debt, is seriously incomplete. Although in specific cases the benefits of loan sanctions may exceed the costs, the defenders of the doctrine have not made the empirical case that the net benefits are sufficiently high in the aggregate as to warrant routine application …


Military Values In Law, Diane H. Mazur May 2007

Military Values In Law, Diane H. Mazur

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Congress, for example, takes inappropriate advantage of the tremendous deference given by courts to its constitutional powers to raise and support Armies, to provide and maintain a Navy, and to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.\n In a court-martial involving a military defendant and a civilian victim of sexual assault, application of the psychotherapist-patient privilege raises no difficult issues related to professional military values. When both the victim and the defendant are members of the military, however, the victim's assertion of privilege is at least potentially inconsistent with the victim's professional obligation to …


Medical Malpractice Overseas: The Legal Uncertainty Surrounding Medical Tourism, Philip Mirrer-Singer Apr 2007

Medical Malpractice Overseas: The Legal Uncertainty Surrounding Medical Tourism, Philip Mirrer-Singer

Law and Contemporary Problems

Mirrer-Singer explores some of the legal uncertainty surrounding medical tourism specifically in ways medical tourists can seek relief in US courts for malpractice committed abroad and explains why courts probably lack jurisdiction over foreign physicians who have allegedly committed malpractice. Among other things, he discusses theories under which US firms in the medical-tourism business could be held liable for the foreign provider's negligence.


The Retrogressive Flaw Of Chapter 15 Of The Bankruptcy Code: A Lesson From Maritime Law, John J. Chung Apr 2007

The Retrogressive Flaw Of Chapter 15 Of The Bankruptcy Code: A Lesson From Maritime Law, John J. Chung

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.


Reflections On Transatlantic Approaches To International Law, John B. Bellinger Iii Apr 2007

Reflections On Transatlantic Approaches To International Law, John B. Bellinger Iii

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.


Independent Judicial Research In The Daubert Age, Edward K. Cheng Mar 2007

Independent Judicial Research In The Daubert Age, Edward K. Cheng

Duke Law Journal

The Supreme Court's Daubert trilogy places judges in the unenviable position of assessing the reliability of often unfamiliar and complex scientific expert testimony. Over the past decade, scholars have therefore explored various ways of helping judges with their new gatekeeping responsibilities. Unfortunately, the two dominant approaches, which focus on doctrinal tests and external assistance mechanisms, have been largely ineffective. This Article advocates for a neglected but important method for improving scientific decisionmaking--independent judicial research. It argues that judges facing unfamiliar and complex scientific admissibility decisions can and should engage in independent library research to better educate themselves about the underlying …


Advisory Counterparts To Constitutional Courts, Christopher S. Elmendorf Feb 2007

Advisory Counterparts To Constitutional Courts, Christopher S. Elmendorf

Duke Law Journal

In recent years, legal scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the emergence of constitutional courts and judicial review in democracies worldwide, yet an intriguing parallel development in democratic constitutionalism has gone largely unnoticed: the establishment of independent bodies which, like constitutional courts, are concerned with foundational commitments of liberal democracy, but which advance these commitments mainly through investigations and advice-giving. Lacking de jure authority to block the implementation of unconstitutional laws and policies, the new advice givers instead make their contributions ex ante, identifying problems that warrant legislative attention and helping to craft laws and regulations that …


Babes And Beefcake: Exclusive Hiring Arrangements And Sexy Dress Codes, Ann C. Mcginley Jan 2007

Babes And Beefcake: Exclusive Hiring Arrangements And Sexy Dress Codes, Ann C. Mcginley

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Concluding that being a woman should not be a BFOQ for the job, this article addresses whether casino owners may require that women and men cocktail servers wear sexy provocative uniforms to serve cocktails in Las Vegas casinos.


Vive La Difference? A Critical Analysis Of The Justification Of Sex-Dependent Workplace Restrictions On Dress And Grooming, Patrick S. Shin Jan 2007

Vive La Difference? A Critical Analysis Of The Justification Of Sex-Dependent Workplace Restrictions On Dress And Grooming, Patrick S. Shin

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

Any answer here is bound to be controversial, but it would have to be founded on a notion that we, as a society, have reason to value and therefore preserve a state of affairs in which certain types of behaviors relating to the manner of presenting oneself to others are engaged in predominantly by members of one sex but not the other.109 To put it another way, the rationalizability of sex-dependent workplacepresentation rules must depend on the idea that, even granting that sex and gender or gender-performance can be conceptually disaggregated,110 we nevertheless have reason to maintain a state of …


The Peahen’S Tale, Or Dressing Our Parts At Work, Julie A. Seaman Jan 2007

The Peahen’S Tale, Or Dressing Our Parts At Work, Julie A. Seaman

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy

However, there may ultimately be no logical way to reconcile decisions that prohibit employers from requiring women to wear revealing outfits and others that permit employers to require them to wear makeup,20 or decisions that prohibit penalizing a woman for being insufficiently feminine and others that permit penalizing a man for being insufficiently masculine.21 In addition, the increasing judicial acceptance of the sex stereotyping theory of sex discrimination under Title VII is in substantial tension with recent cases that insist that sex-differentiated dress and grooming requirements that "merely"22 conform to existing social gender norms do not amount to impermissible sex …


Reflections On Animals, Property, And The Law And Rain Without Thunder, Gary L. Francione Jan 2007

Reflections On Animals, Property, And The Law And Rain Without Thunder, Gary L. Francione

Law and Contemporary Problems

Animal interests will almost always be regarded as less important than human interests, even when the human interest at stake is relatively trivial and the animal interest at stake is significant. The result of any supposed balancing of human and nonhuman interests required by animal-welfare laws is predetermined from the outset by the property status of the nonhuman as a "food animal," "experimental animal," "game animal," et cetera.