Social Welfare Law Commons^™

A Framework For Thinking About The Future Of Japanese Society In The Face Of Declining Fertility And Population, Hirotaka Nagaishi

Japanese Society and Culture

Japanese society is facing declining birthrates and a shrinking population. According to Yoshinori Hiroi, what is indispensable for promoting regional and urban revitalization and seeking sustainability in this situation is the selection of values and concepts for a desirable society rooted in community. This society will ultimately be realized through policy integration/comprehensive policies.

Therefore, we must envisage a desirable future society, taking the current social situation as the starting point. Robert and Edward Skidelsky see the current capitalist society as a “rich enough, poor enough society,” while Hiroi sees the future society as a “post-capitalist/post-industrial society” and considers it as …

Does Childcare Support Stimulate Women’S Employment?, Masako Kamada, Kazuyasu Kawasaki

Japanese Society and Culture

A childcare support policy was implemented as part of gender equality and countermeasures to the falling birthrate in Japan. One of the childcare support policies was provided preschool service free of charge in October 2019.

In this paper, we analyze whether this childcare cost reduction policy was effective or not. Especially, we focus on whether this childcare support policy contribute to accelerate female labor force participation or not. As a result of our analysis, we show childcare cost reduction policy is ineffective of female labor force participation.

The Legal Order In East Asian Family Law, Sai Sasaki

Japanese Society and Culture

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Medical-Legal Partnerships: Equity, Evolution, And Evaluation., Katherine L. Kraschel, James Bhandary-Alexander, Yael Z. Cannon, Vicki W. Girard, Abbe R. Gluck, Jennifer L. Huer, Medha D. Makhlouf

Faculty Scholarly Works

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare systemic inequities shaped by social determinants of health (SDoH). Public health agencies, legislators, health systems, and community organizations took notice, and there is currently unprecedented interest in identifying and implementing programs to address SDoH. This special issue focuses on the role of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) in addressing SDoH and racial and social inequities, as well as the need to support these efforts with evidence-based research, data, and meaningful partnerships and funding.

Building Resilience By Removing Barriers: Addressing Structural Impediments To Advocacy By Nonprofit Organizations On Behalf Of The Unenfranchised, Kirsten Widner, Heather M. Kolinsky

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Charitable contributions, particularly from private foundations, are an essential source of support for many nonprofit charitable organizations. However, the ability to accept these contributions comes with significant restrictions on lobbying and advocacy. Using vulnerability theory and an original survey of nonprofit advocacy organizations, we show that current restrictions on 501(c)(3) organizations disproportionally limit advocacy on behalf of the most politically disadvantaged groups—those without the right to vote. This, in turn, reinforces existing inequalities in whose voices are heard and whose interests are considered by policymakers. This Article argues that reforming the laws that structure what organizations can take tax-deductible charitable …

Affirmatively Furthering Health Equity, Mary Crossley

Brooklyn Law Review

Pervasive health disparities in the United States undermine both public health and social cohesion. Because of the enormity of the healthcare sector, government action, standing alone, is limited in its power to remedy health disparities. This article proposes a novel approach to distributing responsibility for promoting health equity broadly among public and private actors in the healthcare sector. Specifically, it recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance articulating an obligation on the part of all recipients of federal healthcare funding to act affirmatively to advance health equity. The Fair Housing Act’s requirement that recipients of federal …

Puerto Rican Presidential Voting Rights: Why Precedent Should Be Overturned, And Other Options For Suffrage, Sigrid Vendrell-Polanco

Brooklyn Law Review

The United States has continued to hold Puerto Rico as a colony, much like the British empire did the US colonies, and has given it no clear path to incorporation, statehood, or independent sovereignty. It has also denied its citizens the right to vote for their president and have voting representation in Congress. Current case law regarding Puerto Rican presidential voting rights and voting representation in Congress rests on precedent that dates almost as far back as its acquisition—the infamous Insular Cases. This case law is inconsistent with prior precedent, constitutional principles, and does not account for Puerto Rico’s contributions …

“Help Is Here”: How A Daca Pathway To Citizenship Will Help Save The Social Security Fund, Jissel Esparza

Arkansas Law Review

Two federal programs hold their beneficiaries in limbo: DACA and Social Security. This Comment demonstrates that creating a citizenship pathway for the DACA population will not only give these deserving individuals the ability and security to remain in the United States but will also provide relief to Social Security’s impending insolvency through the influx of taxes that these then citizens will contribute as a result of increased opportunities. At the same time, this Comment does not attempt to portray its argument as a “silver bullet.” Rather, this approach is one tool that can be utilized by legislative efforts to remedy …

Navigating The Conundrum Of Mandatory Reporting Under The Pocso Act: Implications For Medical Professionals, Nanditta Batra

Articles

To address the under reporting of sexual offences against children, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, makes reporting of such offences mandatory. The duty to report such offences has been extended to healthcare professionals. The inclusion of healthcare professionals within mandatory reporting, however, strikes at the very foundation of the doctor-patient relationship based on trust and confidentiality and conflicts with the patient confidentiality safeguards of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. It also has unintended public health consequences, such as denial of medical termination of pregnancy due to fear of prosecution under POCSO. An urgent reassessment of …

The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Public Primacy In Corporate Law, Dorothy S. Lund

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the malleability of agency theory by showing that it could be used to justify a “public primacy” standard for corporate law that would direct fiduciaries to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of the public. Employing agency theory to describe the relationship between corporate management and the broader public sheds light on aspects of firm behavior, as well as the nature of state contracting with corporations. It also provides a lodestar for a possible future evolution of corporate law and governance: minimize the agency costs created by the divergence of interests between management and …

Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …

Stakeholder Governance As Governance By Stakeholders, Brett Mcdonnell

Seattle University Law Review

Much debate within corporate governance today centers on the proper role of corporate stakeholders, such as employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, and local communities. Scholars and reformers advocate for greater attention to stakeholder interests under a variety of banners, including ESG, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and stakeholder governance. So far, that advocacy focuses almost entirely on arguing for an expanded understanding of corporate purpose. It argues that corporate governance should be for various stakeholders, not shareholders alone.

This Article examines and approves of that broadened understanding of corporate purpose. However, it argues that we should understand stakeholder governance as extending well …

Corporate Law In The Global South: Heterodox Stakeholderism, Mariana Pargendler

Seattle University Law Review

How do the corporate laws of Global South jurisdictions differ from their Global North counterparts? Prevailing stereotypes depict the corporate laws of developing countries as either antiquated or plagued by problems of enforcement and misfit despite formal convergence. This Article offers a different view by showing how Global South jurisdictions have pioneered heterodox stakeholder approaches in corporate law, such as the erosion of limited liability for purposes of stakeholder protection in Brazil and India, the adoption of mandatory corporate social responsibility in Indonesia and India, and the large-scale program of Black corporate ownership and empowerment in South Africa, among many …

A Different Approach To Agency Theory And Implications For Esg, Jonathan Bonham, Amoray Riggs-Cragun

Seattle University Law Review

In conventional agency theory, the agent is modeled as exerting unobservable “effort” that influences the distribution over outcomes the principal cares about. Recent papers instead allow the agent to choose the entire distribution, an assumption that better describes the extensive and flexible control that CEOs have over firm outcomes. Under this assumption, the optimal contract rewards the agent directly for outcomes the principal cares about, rather than for what those outcomes reveal about the agent’s effort. This article briefly summarizes this new agency model and discusses its implications for contracting on ESG activities.

The Limits Of Corporate Governance, Cathy Hwang, Emily Winston

Seattle University Law Review

What is the purpose of the corporation? For decades, the answer was clear: to put shareholders’ interests first. In many cases, this theory of shareholder primacy also became synonymous with the imperative to maximize shareholder wealth. In the world where shareholder primacy was a north star, courts, scholars, and policymakers had relatively little to fight about: most debates were minor skirmishes about exactly how to maximize shareholder wealth.

Part I of this Essay discusses the shortcomings of shareholder primacy and stakeholder governance, arguing that neither of these modes of governance provides an adequate framework for incentivizing corporations to do good. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

A History Of Corporate Law Federalism In The Twentieth Century, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

This Article describes the emergence of corporate law federalism across a long twentieth century. The period begins with New Jersey’s successful initiation of charter competition in 1888 and ends with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. The federalism in question describes the interrelation of state and federal regulation of corporate internal affairs. This Article takes a positive approach, pursuing no normative bottom line. It makes six observations: (1) the federalism describes a division of subject matter, with internal affairs regulated by the states and securities issuance and trading regulated by the federal government; (2) the federalism is an …

How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …