Law Commons^™

Common Sense Recommendations For The Application Of Tax Law To Digital Assets, Luís Calderón Gómez, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Edward A. Zelinsky

Online Publications

In response to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s July 2023 request for comments on application of various Internal Revenue Code sections on digital assets, we propose a consistent set of rules to apply current law to digital assets. We highlight that the underlying economics and characteristics of transactions should be the primary concern for the application of rules and the valuation of digital assets. We believe any digital asset rules should (1) treat classes of digital assets with unique characteristics differently based on their economics, (2) minimize incentives for users to engage in tax-motivated structuring of transactions, and (3) allow …

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …

Common Sense Recommendations For The Application Of Tax Law To Digital Assets, Linda M. Beale, Jeremy Bearer-Friend, Jennifer Bird-Pollan, Samuel D. Brunson, Luís Calderón Gómez, Bryan Camp, Adam Chodorow, Mark Cochran, Lin William Cong, Matthew Foreman, Phil Gaudiano, I. Richard Gershon, Nathan C. Goldman, Jillian Grennan, Megan Justice, Young Ran (Christine) Kim, Herbert I. Lazerow, Tao Li, Lawrence Lokken, Omri Y. Marian, Orly Mazur, Stephanie Hunter Mcmahon, Tyler Menzer, Matt Metras, Ann M. Murphy, Henry Ordower, Amanda Parsons, Daniel Rabetti, Alex Raskolnikov, Tracey M. Roberts, Kerry A. Ryan, Edward A. Zelinsky

All Faculty Scholarship

In response to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s July 2023 request for comments on application of various Internal Revenue Code sections on digital assets, we propose a consistent set of rules to apply current law to digital assets. We highlight that the underlying economics and characteristics of transactions should be the primary concern for the application of rules and the valuation of digital assets. We believe any digital asset rules should (1) treat classes of digital assets with unique characteristics differently based on their economics, (2) minimize incentives for users to engage in tax-motivated structuring of transactions, and (3) allow …

Walling Out: Rules And Standards In The Beach Access Context, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

The overwhelming majority of U.S. states facially allocate exclusionary rights and access privileges to beaches by categorically deciding whom to wall in and whom to wall out. In the conventional terms of the longstanding debate surrounding the design of legal directives, such “rules” are considered substantively determinant ex ante and, in application, analogically transparent across similarly situated cases. Only a small number of jurisdictions have adopted “standards” in the beach access context, which—again, on the conventional account—sacrifice both determinacy and transparency for the ability to accommodate ex post the complexities of individual cases. This Article contends that beach access policy …

Reimagining Reentry: A Vision For Transformative Justice Beyond The Carceral State, Kemiya Nutter

Ethnic Studies Senior Capstone Papers

Throughout the past decade, mass incarceration has emerged as a buzzword within academic scholarship and public policy discourse that seeks to examine the unparalleled expansion of the contemporary carceral state. With 2.2 million Americans imprisoned and over 7 million under various forms of penal control, the United States maintains the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The unprecedented inflation in the nation’s incarceration rate is a direct manifestation of the 1970’s War on Drugs, which enabled the legislative transformations that permeate modern sentencing policy and procedure. Institutions of policing, surveillance, and incarceration are constitutive features of the carceral system’s …

End-Of-Life Decision Making: Policy And Statutory Progress (2011-2020), Jocelyn Downie, Mona Gupta, L. Wayne Sumner, Joshua Wales

Reports & Public Policy Documents

In 2009, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) identified a series of urgent scientific and public policy questions. It established a series of five Expert Panels to study the issues and provide recommendations for next steps. It is now timely to revisit the findings of these Expert Panel Reports. What impact have they had? Have their recommendations been implemented? What are the next steps in terms of policy options?

To answer these questions, the RSC is establishing Policy Briefing Committees (PBC) to:

• describe the context, findings, and recommendations of the report;
• track policy developments in relation to the panel’s findings …

Prosecuting Vote Suppression By Misinformation, Chelsea Mihelich

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, concerns about the influence of “fake news” proliferated in the media. Questions abounded regarding the affect social media platforms may have had on the electorate. Election Day 2016 had many in the media pondering: “Did Social Media Ruin Election 2016?” and “Facebook’s failure: did fake news and polarized politics get Trump elected?” Two years after the election, social science scholars were still studying the effect of voters’ consumption of fake news stories leading up to November 8. The current fascination in the U.S. regarding fake news and, relatedly, the role of social media as …

Report Of The Task Force For The Promotion Of Public Trust: City Of Atlanta, Leah Ward Sears, Derek Alphran, O.V. Brantley, Linda Disantis, William S. Duffy Jr., Robert M. Franklin Jr., Maryanne Gaunt, Lawton Jordan, Don Penovi, Michael T. Sterling, Joseph Wilkinson Jr., Paul Zucca

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

The Task Force for the Promotion of Public Trust was formed out of a desire by the Mayor and Atlanta City Council to strengthen the City’s ethical environment and analyze the City’s existing resources pertaining to oversight and investigations currently divided among a number of City agencies. The Task Force was also asked to assess the role of the City’s Independent Compliance Office, a new investigative office created by Ordinance earlier this year. The mandate of the Task Force was to juxtapose an analysis of the operational roles of the multiple offices in Atlanta responsible for investigations, ethics, oversight, audit, …

Carrying Little Sticks: Is There A ‘Deterrence Gap’ In Employment Standards Enforcement In Ontario, Canada?, Eric Tucker, Leah F. Vosko, Rebecca Casey, Mark P. Thomas, John Grundy, Andrea M. Noack

Articles & Book Chapters

This article assesses whether a deterrence gap exists in the enforcement of the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA), which sets minimum conditions of employment in areas such as minimum wage, overtime pay and leaves. Drawing on a unique administrative data set, the article measures the use of deterrence in Ontario’s ESA enforcement regime against the role of deterrence within two influential models of enforcement: responsive regulation and strategic enforcement. The article finds that the use of deterrence is below its prescribed role in either model of enforcement. We conclude that there is a deterrence gap in Ontario.

An Alternative Path To Rule Of Law: Thailand's Twenty-First Century Administrative Courts, Frank W. Munger, Peerawich Thoviriyavej, Vorapitchaya Rabiablok

Articles & Chapters

New courts in Asia’s rapidly developing states offer an opportunity to understand how a court system takes root in a society. This article presents a case study of the development of administrative court structure, functions, and practice in Thailand: Southeast Asia’s newest system of administrative courts. The study examines why courts made sense to those who established them and how the courts’ authority is being utilized. For relatively powerless and resource-poor litigants, barriers to litigation may be many, but when these barriers are overcome, administrative courts exercise extraordinary influence, even when they fail to render a decision fully vindicating a …

Identity-Based Conflicts In Public Policy: The Case Of Hydraulic Fracturing Policy In Pennsylvania, Alison Peck

Law Faculty Scholarship

Americans are experiencing a communication crisis in public policy-a crisis that has become especially acute since the November 2016 elections. Research shows that Americans increasingly treat their policy views as constitutive of their identities and separate themselves from other groups based on these identities. New solutions are needed in the lawmaking process to soften participants' hardening of their own identities and negative characterizations of other groups. This Article studies one controversy that has proven to be entrenched, if not yet intractable, in many jurisdictions: hydraulic fracturing. The Article examines advances made by scholars of conflict resolution and peace and conflict …

Funding Integrity: Comparing Inspector General Funding Approaches, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that inspectors general require adequate funding to effectively perform their duties. Whether or not funding is adequate depends on the funding mechanism, but no particular method for budgetary allocations is used universally. CAPI reviewed different approaches throughout the country to better understand how budgets for inspectors general offices are set. This issue brief describes four different budget approaches used in various jurisdictions and examines their pros and cons. The Appendix lists the offices examined and provides information on their funding methods.

Intellectual Property And Culture, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper takes a critical look at the interaction between intellectual property law and culture using three examples, namely: 1) the need to preserve and disseminate culture, through the recognition of cultural heritage institutions' vital role in society; 2) the need to maintain culture from depreciation, through the safeguard of a strong public domain; and 3) the need to let culture evolve, through the protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE's). This brief study shows that, although IP rights can be said to afford useful protection to objects of culture – taken in the narrow sense of ‘culture’, they can also …

The Required Law & Public Policy Course In The College Of William & Mary's Master Of Public Policy Program: 25 Years Of Lessons, James S. Heller

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Putting Distribution First, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is common for normative legal theorists, economists and other policy analysts to conduct and communicate their work mainly in maximizing terms. They take the maximization of welfare, for example, or of wealth or utility, to be primary objectives of legislation and public policy. Few if any of these theorists seem to notice, however, that any time we speak explicitly of maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing other things and of equalizing yet other things. Fewer still seem to recognize that we effectively define ourselves by reference to that which we distribute and equalize. For it is in …

Remuneration Of Authors Of Books And Scientific Journals, Translators, Journalists And Visual Artists For The Use Of Their Works, Europe Economics, Lucie Guibault, Olivia Salamanca, Directorate-General For Communications Networks, Content And Technology (European Commission)

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Europe Economics and the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam were commissioned by DG Connect to undertake a study on the remuneration of authors of books and scientific journals, translators, journalists and visual artists (all groups are hereafter referred to as “authors”) for the use of their freelance works. The overarching objectives of this study are to analyse the current situation regarding the level of remuneration paid to authors in order to compare the existing national systems of remuneration for authors and identify the relative advantages and disadvantages of those systems for them. We also aim to …

The High Cost Of Transferring The Dream, Kim Brooks

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper is part of a larger project where I use the facts in tax decisions to reveal something about who we are. It looks through a small window into the lives of the people who find themselves caught between our collective and their individual expenditure aspirations. More specifically, it explores the circumstances in which individuals find that their outstanding tax debts pose a threat to their ability to maintain ownership of their home.

In this paper I use the facts of tax cases for two ends. First, I am interested in disrupting legal knowledge hierarchies. We choose cases to …

State-Created Immigration Climates And Domestic Migration, Huyen Pham, Pham Hoang Van

Faculty Scholarship

With comprehensive immigration reform dead for the foreseeable future, immigration laws enacted at the subfederal level -- cities, counties, and states -- have become even more important. Arizona has dominated media coverage and become the popular representation of the states' response to immigration by enacting SB 1070 and other notoriously anti-immigrant laws. Illinois, by contrast, has received relatively little media coverage for enacting laws that benefit the immigrants within its jurisdiction. The reality on the ground is that subfederal jurisdictions in the United States have taken very divergent paths on the issue of immigration regulation.

Compiling city, county, and state …

Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul

Political Science Honors Projects

The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.

Profile In Public Integrity: Lynda Taschereau, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Lynda Taschereau serves as Executive Director of the Strategic and Corporate Policy Division of the City of Toronto, Canada. In that role, she is responsible for key functions including inter-governmental relations, strategic planning and policy development, governance and decision-making structures for Toronto’s City Council and City’s agencies and corporations, and the policy framework for the City’s Accountability Officers. Taschereau’s team leads government-wide initiatives and provides objective, professional advice to the Mayor and City Council. She is committed to public service and has a special interest in the policy development process and the role of leaders throughout organizations. Taschereau was a …

The Influence Of A Juvenile's Abuse History On Support For Sex Offender Registration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, M. C. Stevenson, J. M. Salerno, T. R. A. Wiley, B. L. Bottoms, K. M. Farnum

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We investigated whether and how a juvenile’s history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants …

Cronyism, Corruption, And Political Intrigue: A New Approach For Old Problems In Public Sector Employment Law, Jonathan Fineman

Journal Publications

This article argues that the best interest of the public is served when at least some public employees receive some degree of job protection. However, there is also value in the argument that we no longer can justify the retention of a uniform system of traditional civil service protections for all public employees. Therefore, this article takes the position that this debate should not be framed as an "either/or" proposition between a rigid system of job protections for all (or most) employees on one hand and unfettered managerial discretion on the other. Instead, job protections should be context-based, varied depending …

Identifying (With) Disability: Using Film To Teach Employment Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

Building on a prior article about using film to teach health law, this Essay is intended to share my experience using the film Philadelphia as a method of enhancing coverage and discussion of the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and to provide an opportunity for recognition of, and identification with, the experiences of people with disabilities.

Identifying (With) Disability: Using Film To Teach Employment Discrimination, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

Building on a prior article about using film to teach health law, this Essay is intended to share my experience using the film Philadelphia as a method of enhancing coverage and discussion of the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and to provide an opportunity for recognition of, and identification with, the experiences of people with disabilities.

The Imprisoner's Dilemma: A Cost-Benefit Approach To Incarceration, David S. Abrams

All Faculty Scholarship

Depriving an individual of life or liberty is one of the most intrusive powers that governments wield. Decisions about imprisonment capture the public imagination. The stories are told daily in newspapers and on TV, dramatized in literature and on film, and debated by scholars. The United States has created an ever-increasing amount of material for discussion as the state incarceration rate quadrupled between 1980 and 2000. While the decision to incarcerate an individual is given focused attention by a judge, prosecutor, and (occasionally) a jury, the overall incarceration rate is not. In this article, I apply a cost-benefit approach to …

Due Process In The American Identity, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

In the last four years, public opinion polls have found an increasingly high level of public support for the methods applied in the war on terror. A significant majority of the population now expresses support for targeted killing through drone strikes and for the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. While there are undoubtedly many dynamics at play in the public's changing views of national security and due process, this Article examines one piece of the puzzle: how the concept of due process fits within the structure of the American identity.

This Article examines due process and national …

Restorative Justice, Euthanasia, And Assisted Suicide: A New Arena For Restorative Justice And A New Path For End Of Life Law And Policy In Canada, Jennifer Llewellyn, Jocelyn Downie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article examines the current Canadian legal approach to euthanasia and assisted suicide, highlights some of the problems with it, and offers a novel alternative to the current traditionally criminalized prohibitive regime. The authors first describe a restorative justice approach and explain the differences between such an approach and the traditional approach currently in use. They then explain how a restorative justice approach could be implemented in the arena of assisted death, acknowledging the potential challenges in implementation. The authors conclude that taking a restorative justice approach to euthanasia and assisted suicide could enable movement in the seemingly intractable public …

The Unenforceable Corrupt Contract: Corruption And Nineteenth Century Contract Law, Zephyr Teachout

Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores the 19th century practice of courts refusing to enforce "corrupt" contracts as against public policy.

Immigration, Association, And The Family, Matthew J. Lister

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper I provide a philosophical analysis of family-based immigration. This type of immigration is of great importance, yet has received relatively little attention from philosophers and others doing normative work on immigration. As family-based immigration poses significant challenges for those seeking a comprehensive normative account of the limits of discretion that states should have in setting their own immigration policies, it is a topic that must be dealt with if we are to have a comprehensive account. In what follows I use the idea of freedom of association to show what is distinctive about family-based immigration and why …

Putting The Community Back Into The ‘Community Benefit’ Standard, Jessica Wilen Berg

Faculty Publications

The responsibility of hospitals to provide charity care raises fundamental questions about the structure of the United States' health care system. There has been little concrete effort to reassess the obligations of hospitals. This Article seeks to fill that gap by proposing a novel framework for analyzing hospitals' community obligations. This new framework challenges traditional notions of individual charity care and provides a normative basis for encouraging a shift toward public health benefits.