Law Commons^™

Difficulties With The Interordinal Laws Of Cultural Property As Applied In The United States, And Proposed Solutions, Jeffrey John Miles

Jeffrey John Miles

This paper evaluates the interordinal web of international cultural property law as applied in the United States. The work explores problematic areas where law fails to adequately protect against illicit trade in cultural property from art to artifacts. The complexity in this area stems from the often opaque movements of cultural property and the overlapping legal regimes of foreign nation states and domestic federal and state laws. After evaluating the structure of these laws as applied in the United States, I propose solutions to improve coverage where lacunas exist.

The Culture Wars Of Climate Change, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Of late, there has been a growth in cultural expression about climate change – with the rise of climate fiction (‘cli-fi’); art and photography responding to changes in nature; musical anthems about climate change; plays and dramas about climate change; and environmental documentaries, and climate cinema. Drawing comparisons to past controversies over cultural funding, this paper considers the cultural wars over climate change. This article considers a number of cultural fields. Margaret Atwood made an important creative and critical contribution to the debate over climate change. The work examines Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, a tragi-comedy about authorship, invention, intellectual property, …

An Essay On Christian Constitutionalism: Building In The Divine Style, For The Common Good(S), Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

Theocracy is a matter of growing global concern and therefore of renewed academic interest. This paper answers the following question: "What would a Christian constitution, in a predominantly Christian nation, look like?" The paper was prepared for presentation as the Clark Lecture at Rutgers School of Law (Camden), where papers answering the same question with respect to Jewish and Islamic constitutions and cultures, respectively, were also presented. A Christian constitution would not have as its aim the comparatively anodyne -- and ultimately futile -- business of introducing more "Judeo-Christian values" into the life of the typical nation state. The paper …

Art Actually! The Courts And The Imposition Of Taste, Marett Leiboff

Marett Leiboff

How do we read art, at least in law? The traditional approach of the courts has been to disavow, or at least avoid any discussion on matters of aesthetics or connoisseurship, or more accurately assert such a disavowal. Because whether the courts acknowledge it or not, they actively judge art, even when they say they don't. Judging art by judges, as we will see, is not a particularly edifying spectacle, but is it better for the courts to avoid judging art? In this article, I will explore what happens when the courts grapple with the problem of judging art, but …

Many Voices, David D. Butler

David D. Butler

This brief article is 1,500 words, including its two intriguing footnotes. Read it in its entirety. Read it before the 2012 presidential election.

Aesthetics And Human Rights, Winston Nagan, Aitza Haddad

Winston P Nagan

This article seeks to contribute to a better understating of the relationship between aesthetics and fundamental human rights. The initial challenge was to develop a more clarified conception of aesthetics as a social process in order to better mark those aspects of aesthetics that have clear human rights implications. This required us to contextualize the aesthetics process in terms of the generally accepted model of communications theory, and then to deepened the inquiry using this model as the broad architectural foundation for unpacking the social process of aesthetics. These ideas were put into the context of significant contributions from the …

The Next Battleground? Personhood, Privacy, And Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

Personhood statutes and amendments have been proposed in several states. As a general matter, they establish as a matter of state law that legal personhood begins at conception. Such laws may have implications for state policies concerning abortion and contraception, and will have implications for other areas of law including state policies related to assisted reproductive technologies. Yet, some of the ways in which these different areas of law might be affected are not well understood and thus are explored here.

Law, Art, And The Killing Jar, Louise Harmon

Louise Harmon

No abstract provided.

Stolen Art, Looted Antiquities, And The Insurable Interest Requirement, Robert L. Tucker

Robert L Tucker

Trafficking in stolen art and looted antiquities is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Stolen art and looted antiquities are ultimately sold to museums or private collectors. Sometimes the purchasers acquire them in good faith. But other times, the purchasers know, suspect, or willfully blind themselves to the possibility that the piece was stolen or illegally excavated and exported up the chain of title.

This problem is compounded by customs and course of dealing in the art and antiquities trade. Dealers generally decline to provide meaningful information to prospective purchasers about the provenance of a piece, and sophisticated purchasers customarily acquiesce in …

The California Resale Royalty Act: Droit De [Not So] Suite, Emily Eschenbach Barker

Emily Eschenbach Barker

It is a generally accepted principal that an artist owns certain rights to exploit the economic value of his works. In the United States an artist’s rights are protected by various provisions of the federal copyright laws. These pecuniary rights exist largely in the same form across the globe, however, some countries, and now the state of California, have begun to recognize personal rights of artists in their work. These moral rights, or droit moral, are retained by the artist even after a work is sold. The particular moral right that my manuscript is concerned with is the droit de …

Painting Preemption With The Wrong Brush: The Misapplication Of The Preemption Doctrines In Von Saher V. Norton Simon Museum Of Art, Alexis H. Rossman

Alexis H. Rossman

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis looted thousands of works of art throughout World War II. After the war, many pieces were not returned to the rightful owners but instead remained in public and private collections throughout the United States and abroad. California enacted California Code of Civil Procedure Section 354.3 in response to difficulties encountered by plaintiffs seeking to recover these pieces. The statute created a forum in California courts for plaintiffs to bring claims as rightful owners of Holocaust-era artwork. The Ninth Circuit recently found that this statute was preempted by the federal government’s exclusive power to conduct foreign …

The New Battleground Of Museum Ethics And Holocaust Era Claims: Technicalities Trumping Justice Or Responsible Stewardship For The Public Trust?, Jennifer Kreder

Jennifer Kreder

How should museums, collectors and governments handle the ever-increasing number of claims that art in their collections had been looted or subject to a forced sale? Museums can restitute art only if presented with solid proof of looting or else they would violate fiduciary obligations to manage their collections in trust for the public. The current wave of claims attempts to expand the definition of “forced sale” to include all property sold as a result of discriminatory economic persecution during the Nazi era. If courts hearing the many currently pending claims adopt such a definition, the number of art objects …

The “Csi Effect”: Better Jurors Through Television And Science?, Michael Mann

Michael D. Mann

This Comment explores how television shows such as CSI and Law & Order have created heightened juror expectations in courtrooms across America. Surprise acquitals often have prosectors scratching their heads as jurors hold them to this new "Hollywood" standard. The Comment also analyzes the CSI phenomena by reflecting on past legal television shows that have influenced the public's perception of the legal profession and how the "CSI effect" has placed an even greater burden on parties to proffer some kind of forensic evidence at trial.

The Comment was published in volume 24 of the Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal (2006).

A Critique Of Levinson, Ryan Dreveskracht

Ryan Dreveskracht

No abstract provided.

Painting With Print: Incorporating Concepts Of Typographic And Layout Design Into The Text Of Legal Writing Documents, Ruth Anne Robbins

Ruth Anne Robbins

This article looks at the science behind what makes words readable and legible. It suggests that lawyers should be strategizing the look of the document itself as a persuasive technique. The article also contains suggetsed optimal layouts and looks at court rules around the country to determine whether lawyers can actually accomplish the visual persuasion in a particular jurisdiction (New Jersey lawyers are out of luck beyond the trial level courts). The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has the article linked from its homepage. www.ca7.uscourts.gov

Preservation Is Process: The Designation Of ‘Dream Garden’ As A Historic Object, John F. Nivala

John F. Nivala

No abstract provided.

Four Stories About Copyright Law And Appropriation Art, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

This article considers copyright law and the art of appropriation in an Australian context. It tells four stories about Australian artists - Imants Tillers, Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila and Tracey Moffatt. The stories examine the postmodern critique of copyright law, indigenous copyright and self-determination, the introduction of moral rights, and copyright, photography and film. The article concludes that the work of such contemporary artists has practical implications for the reform of copyright law.

Professorial Activism, Ali Khan

Ali Khan

Teaching law as science is morally confusing, if not dangerous. Supporting human laws on "scientific grounds" remains a popular, self-serving means to stunt a vigorous moral dialogue; it is a convenient route to escape an otherwise difficult moral terrain.