When Alternative Dispute Resolution Works: Lessons Learned From The Bashingantahe, 2019 Buffalo Law Review
When Alternative Dispute Resolution Works: Lessons Learned From The Bashingantahe, Alexander J. Buszka
Buffalo Law Review
No abstract provided.
Religious Courts In Secular Jurisdictions: How Jewish And Islamic Courts Adapt To Societal And Legal Norms, 2019 University of Colorado Law School
Religious Courts In Secular Jurisdictions: How Jewish And Islamic Courts Adapt To Societal And Legal Norms, Rabea Benhalim
Publications
At first glance, religious courts, especially Sharia courts, seem incompatible with secular, democratic societies. Nevertheless, Jewish and Islamic courts operate in countries like the United States, England, and Israel. Scholarship on these religious courts has primarily focused on whether such religious legal pluralism promotes the value of religious freedom, and if so, whether these secular legal systems should accommodate the continued existence of these courts. This article shifts the inquiry to determine whether religious courts in these environments accommodate litigants’ popular opinions and the secular, procedural, and substantive justice norms of the country in which they are located. This article …
Mandatory Disclosure In Primary Markets, 2019 University of Colorado Law School
Mandatory Disclosure In Primary Markets, Andrew A. Schwartz
Publications
Mandatory disclosure—the idea that companies must be legally required to disclose certain, specified information to public investors—is the first principle of modern securities law. Despite the high costs it imposes, mandatory disclosure has been well defended by legal scholars on two theoretical grounds: ‘Agency costs’ and ‘information underproduction.’ While these two concepts are a good fit for secondary markets (where investors trade securities with one another), this Article shows that they are largely irrelevant in the context of primary markets (where companies offer securities directly to investors). The surprising result is that primary offerings—such as an IPO—may not require mandatory …
One Rule Of Law Project In Post-Soviet Russia, 2019 University of New Hampshire School of Law
One Rule Of Law Project In Post-Soviet Russia, Albert E. Scherr
Law Faculty Scholarship
"One Rule of Law Project in Post-Soviet Russia" is published as Chapter 9 of the book At Home Abroad: Friendship First - A Look at Rule of Law Projects and Other International Insights, (ed. Joseph Nadeau, New York: Austin Macauley Publishers LLC, 2019). This book provides personal insights into an international cooperative effort to promote the rule of law in emerging democracies around the world. Professor Scherr's chapter examines the cultural context within a study of the rule-of-law project that was conducted between 1999 and 2004 in Vologda, Russia.
The Constitution As Poetry, 2019 Touro Law Center
The Constitution As Poetry, Samuel J. Levine
Scholarly Works
Building upon a body of scholarship that compares constitutional interpretation to biblical and literary interpretation, and relying on an insight from a prominent nineteenth century rabbinic scholar, this Article briefly explores similarities in the interpretation of the Torah—the text of the Five Books of Moses—and the United States Constitution. Specifically, this Article draws upon Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin’s (“Netziv”) intriguing suggestion that the interpretation of the text of the Torah parallels the interpretation of poetry. According to Netziv, this parallel accounts for the practice of interpreting the Torah expansively in ways that derive substantive legal rules and principles far …
On Constructing A Knowledge Base Of Chinese Criminal Cases, 2019 Columbia Law School
On Constructing A Knowledge Base Of Chinese Criminal Cases, Xiaohan Wu, Benjamin L. Liebman, Rachel E. Stern, Margaret Roberts, Amarnath Gupta
Faculty Scholarship
We are developing a knowledge base over Chinese judicial decision documents to facilitate landscape analyses of Chinese Criminal Cases. We view judicial decision documents as a mixed-granularity semi-structured text where different levels of the text carry different semantic constructs and entailments.We use a combination of context-sensitive grammar, dependency parsing and discourse analysis to extract a formal and interpretable representation of these documents. Our knowledge base is developed by constructing associations between different elements of these documents. The interpretability is contributed in part by our formal representation of the Chinese criminal laws, also as semi-structured documents. The landscape analyses utilizes these …
Separation Of Powers In Comparative Perspective: How Much Protection For The Rule Of Law?, 2019 Columbia Law School
Separation Of Powers In Comparative Perspective: How Much Protection For The Rule Of Law?, Peter L. Strauss
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter discusses the separation of powers. The point about traditions, or shared social norms, is a central one for this chapter. At a time of growing pessimism about the fate of democracy worldwide, adherence to norms of political behaviour may have an importance transcending formal provisions for the allocation of governmental power. As such, this chapter first presents a brief account of ‘separation of powers’ under American presidentialism; then the contrasting system of Westminster parliamentarianism; third, the increasingly prevalent mixed regimes, often semi-presidential, that can be described as ‘constrained parliamentarism’; and, finally, international institutions. As the chapter shows, in …
Activist Directors And Agency Costs: What Happens When An Activist Director Goes On The Board?, 2019 Columbia Law School
Activist Directors And Agency Costs: What Happens When An Activist Director Goes On The Board?, John C. Coffee Jr., Robert J. Jackson Jr., Joshua Mitts, Robert Bishop
Faculty Scholarship
We develop and apply a new and more rigorous methodology by which to measure and understand both insider trading and the agency costs of hedge fund activism. We use quantitative data to show a systematic relationship between the appointment of a hedge fund nominated director to a corporate board and an increase in informed trading in that corporation’s stock (with the relationship being most pronounced when the fund’s slate of directors includes a hedge fund employee). This finding is important from two different perspectives. First, from a governance perspective, activist hedge funds represent a new and potent force in corporate …
The Most Fundamental Right, 2019 Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
The Most Fundamental Right, Nicholas A. Robinson
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
The Magna Carta and successors recognize a right to the environment as central to human existence. Along with associated rule of law and due process, 193 national charters recognize such a right — but not the U.S. Constitution. This right does lie latent in America’s state constitutions, however, and can also be read into the federal document as well. Meanwhile, recognition of environmental rights is expanding globally.
To Recognize Or Not? Good Faith Under Nigerian Law Of Contract, 2019 Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law
To Recognize Or Not? Good Faith Under Nigerian Law Of Contract, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Unlike jurisdictions such as Canada and the United Kingdom, Nigerian courts have not engaged with the doctrine of good faith. Similarly, there is a dearth of academic scholarship that examines this aspect of the Nigerian law of contract. In this paper, I examine how the Nigerian courts have operationalized the common law of good faith in the performance of contracts. Rather than suggest that good faith as “an organizing principle” has an internally consistent meaning by which we can transplant the doctrine from one jurisdiction to another, or even apply the so-called duty of honest performance as enunciated by the …
Mens Rea In Comparative Perspective, 2019 Marquette University Law School
Mens Rea In Comparative Perspective
Marquette Law Review
This Essay compares and contrasts the American and civilian approaches to mens rea. The comparative analysis generates two important insights. First, it is preferable to have multiple forms of culpability than to have only two. Common law bipartite distinctions such as general and specific intent fail to fully make sense of our moral intuitions. The same goes for the civilian distinction between dolus (intent) and culpa (negligence). Second, attitudinal mental states should matter for criminalization and grading decisions. Nevertheless, adding attitudinal mental states to our already complicated mens rea framework may end up confusing juries instead of helping them. As …
Embracing Non-Icsid Investment Arbitration? The Chinese Perspective, 2019 Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Embracing Non-Icsid Investment Arbitration? The Chinese Perspective, Meng Chen
Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business
This article introduces and examines Chinese arbitration institutions’ recent movements to expand non-ICSID investment arbitration services, which could potentially contravene existing relevant Chinese laws and judicial practice, and it explores the prospects for non-ICSID investment arbitration in China. The article first compares ICSID and non-ICSID investment arbitration to determine the differences between them and their respective selling points for stakeholders in investment disputes. Next, the article examines the diverse mechanisms involved and highlights the different rules that govern non-ICSID arbitration, including the rules established by Chinese arbitration institutions in recent years. The article then further analyzes the obstacles in existing …
Techniques For Regulating Military Force, 2019 Columbia Law School
Techniques For Regulating Military Force, Monica Hakimi
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter draws on the five chapters that follow—each of which describes the war powers in a single country — to identify and analyze some of the techniques for regulating this area of foreign affairs and then to reflect on the value of comparative research on it. Three basic techniques are: (1) to establish substantive standards on when the government may or may not use force, (2) to divide among different branches of government the authority to deploy the country’s armed forces, and (3) to subject such decisions to oversight or review. There is considerable variation, both across countries and …
Rethinking Non-Recognition: Taiwan’S New Pivot To Asean And The One-China Policy, 2019 Singapore Management University
Rethinking Non-Recognition: Taiwan’S New Pivot To Asean And The One-China Policy, Pasha L. Hsieh
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
The article examines the evolution of Taiwan’s engagement in Southeast Asia since the 1990s as a unique case study in international law and international relations (IR). Under the one-China policy, the evolution of bilateral relations with Taiwan highlights the theoretical concept of recognition premised on identity and status in interstate affairs. The article argues that the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have established diverse forms of recognition of Taiwan in line with a policy of non-recognition. While such recognition has not amounted to recognition of statehood in international law, it demonstrates the IR concept of recognition …
The Clinical Law Review At 25 - What Have We Wrought, 2019 American University Washington College of Law
The Clinical Law Review At 25 - What Have We Wrought, Robert Dinerstein
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
No abstract provided.
The Circulation Of Judgments Under The Draft Hague Judgments Convention, 2019 University of Pittsburgh School of Law
The Circulation Of Judgments Under The Draft Hague Judgments Convention, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
The 2018 draft of a Hague Judgments Convention adopts a framework based largely on what some have referred to as “jurisdictional filters.” Article 5(1) provides a list of thirteen authorized bases of indirect jurisdiction by which a foreign judgment is first tested. If one of these jurisdictional filters is satisfied, the resulting judgment is presumptively entitled to circulate under the convention, subject to a set of grounds for non-recognition that generally are consistent with existing practice in most legal systems. This basic architecture of the Convention has been assumed to be set from the start of the Special Commission process, …
Harry Flechtner--A True Teacher/Scholar, With Rhythm, 2019 University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Harry Flechtner--A True Teacher/Scholar, With Rhythm, Ronald A. Brand
Articles
This is a tribute to Professor Emeritus Harry Flechtner upon his retirement from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Professor Flechtner was a leading scholar on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), a stellar teacher, a musician who used that skill in the classroom as well as the Vienna Konzerthaus, and a genuinely nice person.
The Past, Present And Future Of The Cisg (And Other Uniform Commercial Code Law Initiatives), 2019 University of Pittsburgh School of Law
The Past, Present And Future Of The Cisg (And Other Uniform Commercial Code Law Initiatives), Harry Flechtner
Articles
As the keynote speaker of the Spring 2019 CISG Conference, Harry M. Flechtner, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, candidly shares his perspectives on the development and progress of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) through the years. He begins with his initial introduction to the convention and then reflects upon several important issues and challenges facing the CISG, particularly involving uniform international law initiatives. Professor Flechtner looks hard at what's working and what's not and with a critical eye he draws attention to crucial matters yet to be resolved. While his perspective is light …
The Case For American Muslim Arbitration, 2019 University of Colorado Law School
The Case For American Muslim Arbitration, Rabea Benhalim
Publications
This Article advocates for the creation of Muslim arbitral tribunals in the United States. These tribunals would better meet the needs of American Muslims, who currently bring their religious disputes to informal forums that lack transparency. Particularly problematic, these existing forums often apply legal precedent developed in majority-Muslim nations, without taking into consideration the changed circumstances of Muslim living as minorities in the United States. These interpretations of Islamic law can have especially negative impacts on women. American Muslim arbitration tribunals offer the potential to correct these inadequacies. Furthermore, a new arbitral system could better meet the needs of sophisticated …
Sustainable Development: Energy, Justice, And Women, 2019 University of Colorado Law School
Sustainable Development: Energy, Justice, And Women, Lakshman Guruswamy
Publications
This article will first offer a functional synopsis relevant to its remit, of the concept of sustainable development (SD) embodied in international law and policy that reflects a tension between economic and social claims as contrasted with environmental protection. While the dominant place acquired by the economic and social dimensions of SD will be recognized, it will argue consistent with the predicate of justice discussed in the article, that the protection of the human environment encompasses the plight of the energy poor and their women and children. Second, the article will delineate the contours of one of the great developmental …