Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2007

Chicago-Kent College of Law

Uniform commercial code

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Law

Commentary: The Trajectory Of Complex Business Contracting In Latin America, Claire A. Hill Dec 2007

Commentary: The Trajectory Of Complex Business Contracting In Latin America, Claire A. Hill

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Latin American contract documentation used to be quite short, as is typical in civil law countries. Increasingly, it resembles U.S. contract documentation: long, detailed, and full of boilerplate. This commentary discusses this development, and considers what effect it will have on contracting practice in Latin America; it also considers some broader implications of international convergence in contracting practices.

I argue that the explanation can't be that U.S. contracting practices are superior. That explanation doesn't even work in the U.S., where parties and institutions are geared up to use U.S. practices and documentation. Indeed, most of the virtues of U.S.-style contracting …


Uncertainty And Loss In The Free Speech Rights Of Public Employees Under Garcetti V. Ceballos, Sarah F. Suma Dec 2007

Uncertainty And Loss In The Free Speech Rights Of Public Employees Under Garcetti V. Ceballos, Sarah F. Suma

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Resolving a circuit split, the Supreme Court declared in Garcetti v. Ceballos that the First Amendment does not protect speech made pursuant to a public employee's work duties, regardless of whether the speech relates to a matter of public concern or the government's restrictions are justifiable. This article argues that a bright line rule eliminating First Amendment protection for job-duty speech is inconsistent with the theories underlying free speech protection. Further, this article explores practical drawbacks to Garcetti's bright-line rule, including inconsistent judicial determination of the scope of job duties, a disincentive to report government abuse through one's chain-of-command, …


Constitutional Transplants And The Mutation Effect, Horacio Spector Dec 2007

Constitutional Transplants And The Mutation Effect, Horacio Spector

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article is concerned with constitutional transplantation, that is, the borrowing of constitutional institutions and precedents from foreign jurisdictions. It pursues two main goals. First, it argues that the borrowing of constitutional texts can be successful over long periods of time, and that when the transplanted texts fail, this failure is not easily attributable to transplantation alone. Second, it introduces the notion of a "mutation effect" to the theoretical analyses of judicial transplants. By "mutation" of precedents, the author means the process of continuing to extend the scope of a holding, regardless of its factual basis, to cover situations not …


Domestic Bonds, Credit Derivatives, And The Next Transformation Of Sovereign Debt, Anna Gelpern Dec 2007

Domestic Bonds, Credit Derivatives, And The Next Transformation Of Sovereign Debt, Anna Gelpern

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Financial markets in poor and middle-income countries are experiencing a fundamental shift. Until recently, most of them were shallow-to-nonexistent and closed to foreigners. Governments often had to rely on risky borrowing abroad; the private sector had even fewer options. But between 1995 and 2005, domestic debt in the emerging markets grew from $1 trillion to $4 trillion dollars. In Mexico, domestic debt went from just over twenty percent of the total government debt stock in 1995 to nearly eighty percent in 2007. Over the same period, derivative contracts to transfer emerging market credit risk surpassed the market capitalization of the …


The Color Of Brazil: Law, Ethnic Fragmentation, And Economic Growth, Tade O. Okediji Dec 2007

The Color Of Brazil: Law, Ethnic Fragmentation, And Economic Growth, Tade O. Okediji

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The influence of ethnic fragmentation on economic performance has been the subject of much scholarly inquiry in economics and political economics literature. Studies have shown that ethnic fragmentation has a distinct impact on the prospects for economic growth through its effect on government policies and in particular macroeconomic stabilization strategies. It has also become relevant in legal scholarship, especially with regard to developing antidiscrimination laws to ameliorate incessant conflict in plural societies. Accurate measurements of the scale or degree of ethnic fragmentation are important for determining sustainable economic development policies and legal policies for overall development planning. The multiple, complex, …


Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role Of Law And Markets And The Case Of Developing Countries, Antonio Vives Dec 2007

Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role Of Law And Markets And The Case Of Developing Countries, Antonio Vives

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In order for the corporation to engage in responsible practices, many obstacles must be overcome. One such obstacle is the belief of many managers that the corporation would be violating its fiduciary responsibility if it engaged in activities that go beyond what is required by the law. Another obstacle is that many of those practices have a real cost but are perceived not to have a corresponding tangible benefit. The article discusses and dismisses these perceived obstacles and argues that it is both through law and the workings of the market that responsible behavior can enhance society's welfare. It is …


Order Without (Enforceable) Law: Why Countries Enter Into Non-Enforceable Competition Policy Chapters In Free Trade Agreements, D. Daniel Sokol Dec 2007

Order Without (Enforceable) Law: Why Countries Enter Into Non-Enforceable Competition Policy Chapters In Free Trade Agreements, D. Daniel Sokol

Chicago-Kent Law Review

There has been an explosion in the past ten to fifteen years of bilateral and regional free trade agreements in Latin America (together, preferential free trade agreements or PTAs). The purpose of PTAs is to increase trade, regulatory, and investment liberalization. As trade liberalization requires more than just a reduction of tariffs, PTAs include "chapters" in a number of areas of domestic regulation. These chapters that address domestic regulation create binding commitments to liberalize domestic regulation that may impact foreign trade. Among chapters that address domestic regulation, many of the Latin American PTAs include a chapter on antitrust or competition …


The Future Of The Economic Analysis Of Law In Latin America: A Proposal For Model Codes, Juan Javier Del Granado, M. C. Mirow Dec 2007

The Future Of The Economic Analysis Of Law In Latin America: A Proposal For Model Codes, Juan Javier Del Granado, M. C. Mirow

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Nothing excites civilian lawyers and judges more than commissions for codification. Codification is more than an academic enterprise. Codification projects directly cut across the interface between law and life. ALACDE intends to harness this Latin American interest in codification to bring the economic approach to Latin America. A new-generation law and economics civil and commercial code will be a conscious project to restate Roman law's usefulness for coping with today's problems. Through law and economics, Roman law will renew itself. As a paradigmatic private-law system, Roman law is eminently amenable to a state-of-the-art fusion with law and economics. Sensitivity to …


What Is The Point Of International Criminal Justice?, Mirjan Damaška Dec 2007

What Is The Point Of International Criminal Justice?, Mirjan Damaška

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The first part of the article discusses the goals international criminal courts have set for themselves. The author believes that these goals are too numerous, that they are often in conflict, and that the courts are not well suited for the achievement of some of them. This situation generates disparity between the courts' aspiration and achievement, a degree of disorientation, and difficulty in assessing the courts' performance. Disillusionment stemming from unfulfilled expectations, and inconsistencies springing from disorientation, are harmful to any system of justice, and especially to international criminal courts whose legitimacy is still fragile.

In the second part of …