Law Commons^™

Science, Technology, Society, And Law, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Traditionally, science and technology have been granted as sources of knowledge and objective truth. However, much more recently, they are also seen as human activities, conducted in a social environment. This new approach focuses on the intersections between science, technology and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Concerns on how to best regulate the interaction come up in modern societies, and when either their use or their impacts are global, international law and international organizations become involved. The impact of the fourfold relation is so high that science and technology are seen as one of the reasons for …

The Interlinkages Science-Technology-Law: Information And Communication Society, Knowledge-Based Economy And The Rule Of Law, Giovanni Bombelli, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the circular and complex relationship between science, technology, society, and law. The technology/society connection focuses on the democratic deficit issue. The democratic deficit would be a consequence of the lack of adaptability of western democracy to complex (information) societies, where technology (and the increasing access to data that it permits) is separating the connection between information and knowledge (as well as the classical legitimacy couple of democracy-truth) moving these societies towards a technocracy. On one hand, the technology-law circle deals with the progressive reduction of law to a normative technique (since the law is always late …

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

Artificial Intelligence And Contract Formation: Back To Contract As Bargain?, John Linarelli

Book Chapters

Some say AI is advancing quickly. ChatGPT, Bard, Bing’s AI, LaMDA, and other recent advances are remarkable, but they are talkers not doers. Advances toward some kind of robust agency for AI is, however, coming. Humans and their law must prepare for it. This chapter addresses this preparation from the standpoint of contract law and contract practices. An AI agent that can participate as a contracting agent, in a philosophical or psychological sense, with humans in the formation of a con-tract will have to have the following properties: (1) AI will need the cognitive functions to act with intention and …

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …

Sustainability In Public Procurement, Corporate Law And Higher Education (Introduction), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Lela Mélon’s edited collection brings a fresh perspective to the intricate relationship between corporations and sustainability. The book focuses on the role of state actors in boosting environmental protection and the increasing importance of state awareness on environmental crises. Whether it is procurement, or education or corporate governance, we are witnessing a proactive stance of the state that is balancing economic growth with ecological concerns. The difficulties faced in forcing a particular conduct in the private sphere is reviewed in detail in the book, along with national laws and regulations that, rather than promoting environmental protection, have had the opposite …

Nudge Efficiency, Avishalom Tor

Book Chapters

Law and Economics in All His Facets: Festschrift in Honour of Klaus Mathis

Only a small portion of the substantial literature on behavioral interventions ("nudges") that developed over the last fifteen to twenty years has considered nudges from an economic perspective. Moreover, despite the importance of the topic for a law and economics assessment of this increasingly common form of regulation, even fewer contributions have examined whether and when behavioral instruments are likely to make an efficient means for increasing social welfare. This chapter therefore offers some basic observations about nudge efficiency: Part I opens with a reminder that behavioral …

Shareholder Engagement In The United States, Vikramaditya S. Khanna

Book Chapters

Shareholder voting and engagement in the US have undergone substantial changes over the last 50 years. They have moved from being relatively sleepy issues to those that trigger insomnia in even the most hardened executives. The changes in the ownership structure of US publicly traded firms are probably the most important reason for the shift, but so too are rule changes that have facilitated greater shareholder activism. This chapter explores these developments while describing the rules of the road for shareholder voting in the US by focusing on Delaware jurisprudence and changes in US federal securities regulations. It also examines …

Law And Authors: A Legal Handbook For Writers (Introduction), Jacqueline D. Lipton

Book Chapters

Drawing on a wealth of experience in legal scholarship and publishing, Professor Jacqueline D. Lipton provides a useful legal guide for writers whatever their levels of expertise or categories of work (fiction, nonfiction, academic, journalism, freelance content development). This introductory chapter outlines the key legal and business issues authors are likely to face during the course of their careers, and emphasizes that most legal problems have solutions so law should never be an excuse to avoid writing something that an author feels strongly about creating. The larger work draws from case studies and hypothetical examples to address issues of copyright …

The Football As Intellectual Property Object, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

The histories of technology and culture are filled with innovations that emerged and took root by being shared widely, only to be succeeded by eras of growth framed by intellectual property. The Internet is a modern example. The football, also known as the pelota, ballon, bola, balón, and soccer ball, is another, older, and broader one. The football lies at the core of football. Intersections between the football and intellectual property law are relatively few in number, but the football supplies a focal object through which the great themes of intellectual property have shaped the game: origins; innovation and …

Governing Medical Knowledge Commons - Introduction And Chapter 1, Katherine J. Strandburg, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

Governing Medical Knowledge Commons makes three claims: first, evidence matters to innovation policymaking; second, evidence shows that self-governing knowledge commons support effective innovation without prioritizing traditional intellectual property rights; and third, knowledge commons can succeed in the critical fields of medicine and health. The editors' knowledge commons framework adapts Elinor Ostrom's groundbreaking research on natural resource commons to the distinctive attributes of knowledge and information, providing a systematic means for accumulating evidence about how knowledge commons succeed. The editors' previous volume, Governing Knowledge Commons, demonstrated the framework's power through case studies in a diverse range of areas. Governing Medical Knowledge …

Business Trusts, Peter B. Oh

Book Chapters

The business trust arguably is the most prominent and yet enigmatic organizational form used today. The problem is that no one knows exactly how prevalent business trusts are, much less why they are the preferred vehicle for a broad and diverse range of transactions. This chapter sheds some light on the business trust by examining its early history at common law, its subsequent mutation into modern statutory and contractarian forms, as well as some of its most common functions. The more closely we scrutinize the business trust, the more apparent it becomes that the pertinent question about business trusts is …

Governing Knowledge Commons -- Introduction & Chapter 1, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Katherine J. Strandburg

Book Chapters

“Knowledge commons” describes the institutionalized community governance of the sharing and, in some cases, creation, of information, science, knowledge, data, and other types of intellectual and cultural resources. It is the subject of enormous recent interest and enthusiasm with respect to policymaking about innovation, creative production, and intellectual property. Taking that enthusiasm as its starting point, Governing Knowledge Commons argues that policymaking should be based on evidence and a deeper understanding of what makes commons institutions work. It offers a systematic way to study knowledge commons, borrowing and building on Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning research on natural resource commons. It …

Contrasts In Innovation: Pittsburgh Then And Now, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

Assessments of the relationship among law, innovation, and economic growth often begin with one or more propositions of law or law practice and predict how changes might affect innovation or business practice. This approach is problematic when applied to questions of regional economic development, because historic and contemporary local conditions vary considerably. This paper takes a different tack. It takes a snapshot of one recovering post-industrial economy, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. For most of the 20th century, Pittsburgh's steelmakers were leading examples worldwide of American economic prowess. Pittsburgh was so vibrant with industry that a late 19th century travel writer …

Do International Organisations Play Favourites? An Impartialist Account, Steven Ratner

Book Chapters

The recent turn of politics and philosophy to serious appraisals of international law is welcome news for politics, ethics and law. Politics can offer us rich description of the international landscape – the actors and their policies, conflicts and approaches to overcoming them; and political and moral philosophy can produce reasoned prescription for devising a just world order. But international law is a critical bridge between them, for law, with its grounding in the institutional arrangements devised by global actors, provides a path to implementing theories of the right or of the good. Just as scholars of politics have realised …

Business, Steven R. Ratner

Book Chapters

This chapter seeks to expose some of the divergences between doctrine and reality, and to suggest ways of understanding the field that take proper account of business. It does so first by examining the roles and goals of business entities with respect to international environmental law. It then examines how international law has accommodated the place of business in environmental policy with respect to two key issues: (1) corporations as the target of legal obligations; and (2) corporations as participants in the process of international environmental law, particularly with respect to law-making and implementation. I conclude with some thoughts regarding …

Judicial Review Of Labor Arbitration Awards: A Second Look At Enterprise Wheel And Its Progeny, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Book Chapters

Logic, so the cliche goes, is not the life of the law. But logic is very much like the DNA of the law-the structural principle without which all is sprawl and muddle. In the last ten years a controversy has raged over the role of the labor arbitrator in issuing awards, and the role of the courts in reviewing and enforcing those awards. This controversy has largely taken the form of a continuing debate among scholars and practicing arbitrators at the annual meetings of the National Academy of Arbitrators. With due respect to the thoughtful and experienced persons who have …