Digital Commons Network^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Contract, Status And The Bonds Of Welfare, Kenneth Veitch

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

This article explores the relationship between contract and status in the context of contemporary social policy. Using examples of contract in the areas of unemployment policy (what is here called the workfare contract) and what has become known as the financialisation of the welfare state (Social Impact Bonds), the article identifies the types of bonds and obligations involved in those contracts and their sources. Drawing critically on Émile Durkheim and Max Weber’s work on the history and pre-history of contract, it is argued that issues of status – the status of the unemployed and capital, amongst others – lie at …

Deontics And Time In Contracts: An Executable Semantics For The L4 Dsl, Seng Joe Watt, Oliver Goodenough, Meng Weng (Huang Mingrong) Wong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Existing approaches to modelling contracts often rely on deontic logic to reason about norms, and only treat time qualitatively. Using L4, a textual domain specific language (DSL) for the law, we offer a more operational interpretation of norms, based on states and transitions, that also accounts for the granular timing of events. In this paper, we present a higher-level rendering of the loan agreement from Flood & Goodenough in L4, and an accompanying operational semantics amenable to execution and static analysis. We also implement this semantics in Maude and show how this lets us visualize the execution of the loan …

After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge

Faculty Scholarship

Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies spawned by the innovation of blockchain programming have exploded in prominence, both in gains of massive market value and in dramatic market losses, the latter most notably seen in connection with the failure of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022. After years of investment and speculation, however, something crucial has faded: the original use case for Bitcoin as a system of payment. Can cryptocurrency-as-a-payment-system be saved, or are day traders and speculators the actual cryptocurrency future? This article suggests that cryptocurrency has been hobbled by a lack of foundational commercial and consumer-protection law that …

Navigating Unfair Contract Terms: Drawing Insights From Australia In Addressing The Legal Conundrum In Malaysia, Ibtisam@Ilyana Ilias, Norazlina Abdul Aziz, Hariz Sufi Zahari, Helza Nova Lita

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

In Malaysia, the regulation of unfair contract terms within business-to-consumer contracts falls under the jurisdiction of Part IIIA of the Consumer Protection Act 1999. This regulatory framework is overseen by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Living Cost. However, the effectiveness of Part IIIA is hindered by certain gaps, resulting in its infrequent utilization for determining unfair terms in consumer contracts. One of the primary challenges lies in interpreting key terms such as “harsh,” “oppressive,” “unconscionable,” and “adequate justification.” These ambiguities often remain unresolved until legal proceedings take place. Complicating matters, doubts persist regarding the applicability of the Consumer Protection …

Dark Patterns In A Bright World : An Analysis Of The Indian Consumer Legal Architecture, Sandeep Sharma J., Ishita Sharma Dr.

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

Dark patterns’ are consumer targeted marketing strategies that capitalize on cognitive biases of consumers’ propelling them to make decisions, contrary to their intended preferences. The term dark patterns coined by user designer Harry Bignull has gained traction recently, due to its correlation with psychological responses that are produced through nudges that are unaligned to the consumers’ original preference. The consumer responses elicited through the use of such dubious nudges have a direct correlation with the way human brain functions. These covert strategies employed by digital marketing platforms capitalize through behavioral science, aimed at their economic growth compromising the consumers’ free, …

An Idealist’S Approach For Smart Contract Correctness, Duy Tai Nguyen, Hong Long Pham, Jun Sun, Quang Loc Le

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we experiment an idealistic approach for smart contract correctness verification and enforcement, based on the assumption that developers are either desired or required to provide a correctness specification due to the importance of smart contracts and the fact that they are immutable after deployment. We design a static verification system with a specification language which supports fully compositional verification (with the help of function specifications, contract invariants, loop invariants and call invariants). Our approach has been implemented in a tool named iContract which automatically proves the correctness of a smart contract statically or checks the unverified part …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

An Introduction To Personal Growth Bets: Using Contract Law To Lose Weight And Quit Smoking, Max Raskin, Jack Millman

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Self-improvement is hard. Whether losing weight or quitting smoking, individuals have a difficult time honoring their commitments, especially if the only person they are disappointing is themselves. In this Article, we introduce a new legal mechanism for incentivizing personal growth. We describe this mechanism as a personal growth contract, which allows an individual to make an enforceable agreement with either a counterparty or himself with the aim of self-improvement. We propose the use of smart contracts to help execute unilateral personal growth contracts. Our conclusion is that personal growth contracts should be presumptively legal, provided they do not violate some …

Badges Of Honor: Professional Conduct, Consumer Protection, And Accolades In Lawyer Advertising, Kiren Dosanjh Zucker, Bruce Zucker

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ethics At The Speed Of Business, James A. Doppke Jr.

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

This paper discusses several ways in which the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Illinois Supreme Court Rules, construct barriers that prevent lawyers and businesses from accomplishing reasonable commercial goals. Often, those barriers arise from outdated concepts, or terminology that does not reflect current business realities. The paper argues for the amendment of specific Rules to enhance lawyers’ and businesses’ respective abilities to conduct their affairs more efficiently, without sacrificing public protection in the process.

Digital Property Cycles, Joshua Fairfield

Washington and Lee Law Review

The present downturn in non-fungible token (“NFT”) markets is no cause for immediate alarm. There have been multiple cycles in both the legal and media focus on digital intangible property, and these cycles will recur. The cycles are easily explainable: demand for intangible property is constant, even increasing. The legal regimes governing ownership of these assets are unstable and poorly suited to satisfying the preferences of buyers and sellers. The combination of demand and poor legal regulation gives rise to the climate of fraud that has come to characterize NFTs, but it has nothing to do with the value of …

Mitigating The Legal Challenges Associated With Blockchain Smart Contracts: The Potential Of Hybrid On-Chain/Off-Chain Contracts, Niloufer Selvadurai

Washington and Lee Law Review

Tantamount with the increasing application of blockchain technologies around the world, the use of blockchain-based smart contracts has rapidly risen. In a “smart contract,” computer protocols automatically facilitate, verify, and enforce arrangements made between parties on a blockchain. Such smart contracts offer a variety of commercial benefits, notably immutability and increased efficiency facilitated by removing the need for a trusted intermediary. However, as discussed in recent legal scholarship, it is difficult for smart contracts to uphold certain fundamental principles of contract law. Translating concepts of individual intention and responsibility into the decentralized space of blockchain is problematic. Aggregating such individual …

Confidentiality Clauses In Settlement Agreements After The Consumer Review Fairness Act, Wayne Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

Online commerce has skyrocketed in recent years, and shoppers are purchasing goods or services online in greater numbers every year. The COVID-19 pandemic has only hastened the trend. One significant aspect of online shopping is the presence of consumer reviews posted by prior purchasers of goods or services, describing their experience with the products, the services and/or the selling merchant. A vast majority of online shoppers say that they rely on these reviews to help inform their purchasing decisions. Positive reviews can be tremendously beneficial to a business’ profitability, whereas negative reviews can be equally detrimental. Users of the internet …

The Nil Glass Ceiling, Tan Boston

University of Richmond Law Review

Name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) produced nearly $1 billion in earnings for intercollegiate athletes in its inaugural year. Analysts argue that the shockingly high totals result from disproportionate
institutional support for revenue-generating sports.

Although NIL earnings have soared upwards of eight figures to date, first-year data reveals that significant gender disparities exist. Such disparities raise Title IX concerns, which this Article illustrates using a hypothetical university and NIL collective. As such, this Article reveals how schools can facilitate gender discrimination through NIL collectives, contrary to Title IX. Although plainly applicable to NIL transactions in which schools are involved, Title IX’s …

Clicking Away Consent: Establishing Accountability And Liability Apportionment In Direct-To-Consumer Healthcare Artificial Intelligence, Stephanie L. Lee

Brooklyn Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are making sweeping changes across all industries, and health care is no exception. AI promises to revolutionize patient treatment with the development of algorithm-driven tools to improve efficiency in clinical care. As alluring as machine-driven learning may be given its potentialities, however, the incorporation of AI into the healthcare field has also been received with trepidation. This fear is understandable given the lack of transparency to the public surrounding the exact mechanisms for creating algorithms and the reasoning followed by the software. Indeed, AI in the healthcare system is aptly known as “black-box medicine.” …

From Models To Mannequins: The Oxymoronic Equation Of International Labor Law Standards In The World Of Fashion, Namrata Bhowmik, Naman Anand

Cleveland State Law Review

Fashion law is an emerging field that addresses the legal issues that arise in the fashion industry. With the rapid growth and globalization of the fashion industry, there is an increasing need for specialized legal guidance in this area. Fashion law encompasses a wide range of legal issues, including intellectual property, contract law, employment law, international trade law, and environmental law.

One of the main drivers behind the need for fashion law is the rise of counterfeiting and intellectual property theft in the fashion industry. With the proliferation of ecommerce and social media, it has become easier than ever for …

Urgensi Pengawasan Terhadap Penyedia Jasa Pengiriman Dalam Kegiatan E-Commerce: Studi Komparasi Indonesia Dengan Malaysia, Lydia Azzahro Silparensi, Abdul Salam

Lex Patrimonium

Delivery service providers are a role that is needed, especially with the increase in e-commerce activity. However, the implementation of courier services is still lacking in overcoming these problems. As an effort to increase supervision while adapting it to consumer needs, an analysis was carried out using a normative juridical method by comparing the two institutions between Indonesia and Malaysia. Institutions in Malaysia are different from Indonesia which are under the auspices of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, that the Malaysian Institution known as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission is an institution whose role is to oversee communication …

Etuaptmumk: A Means To Advance Indigenous Economic Development “In A Good Way”, Frankie Young

Dalhousie Law Journal

A reckoning is required on how Eurocentric laws and economic systems are biased toward Western worldviews while not accounting for Indigenous realities, legal orders, or economic perspectives. Most notably, Eurocentric laws have been instrumental in advancing non-Indigenous economic interests to the detriment of Indigenous interests, largely because Indigenous laws have not been respected. The strengthening of certain Eurocentric property and contract laws have limited Indigenous peoples’ legal and economic interests and continues to constrain positive economic outcomes and advancement for Indigenous nations. This article argues that re-centering Indigenous legal traditions is a means to advance Indigenous economic interests. The principle …

Standards And The Law, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

The world of standards and the world of laws are often seen as separate, but they are more closely intertwined than many professionals working with laws or standards realize. Although standards are typically considered to be voluntary and non-binding, they can intersect with and affect the law in numerous ways. They can serve as benchmarks for determine liability in tort or contract. They can facilitate domestic and international transactions. They can prompt negotiations over the licensing of patents. They can govern the development of forensic evidence admissible in criminal courts. And standards can even become binding law themselves when they …

Employer Tuition Assistance: Current Approaches And The Application Of The Implied Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing, Jordan T. Krieger

Northwestern University Law Review

American corporations are increasingly expanding tuition reimbursement programs, potentially improving access to higher education for American workers. Yet, despite their increasing availability, only 2% of employees, as a percentage of those interested in pursuing further education, are utilizing these reimbursement programs. For those employees who do make use of these reimbursement programs, they may face unexpected challenges to accessing judicial remedies if a dispute arises.

This Note takes an interdisciplinary approach to first explore employee risks and employer incentives under tuition reimbursement programs. On the employee side, a worker risks premature termination by expressing an interest in tuition reimbursement because …

Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law Review

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.

To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …

Adapting Private Law For Climate Change Adaptation, Jim Rossi, J. B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The private law of torts, property, and contracts will and should play an important role in resolving disputes regarding how private individuals and entities respond to and manage the harms of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation (known in climate change policy dialogue as “adaptation”). While adaptation is commonly presented as a problem needing legislative solutions, this Article presents a novel and overdue case for private law to take climate adaptation seriously.

To date, the role of private law is a significant blind spot in scholarly discussions of climate adaptation. Litigation invoking common-law doctrines in climate adaption disputes …

Beyond Section 230 Liability For Facebook, Nancy S. Kim

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In October 2021, a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, publicly revealed that the company's internal research documented harms that its products caused some of its users. The company’s response was sadly predictable. It questioned the reliability of Haugen’s testimony, asserted its commitment to doing the right thing, and then diverted the public’s attention by changing its name to Meta. The company’s deny-and-distract tactics were, by now, all too familiar and provided few answers.

More than any other platform company, Facebook has found itself at the center of controversy. Its advertisement-supported business model relies upon user engagement which means that …

Force Majeure & Covid-19: A Clause Changed?, Claudia Petcu

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Kinder, Gentler Irs? Where?, Harvey Gilmore

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hard Truths: Cracking Open The Case Of Whether Hard Seltzer Is Beer, Scott Fraser

University of Miami Law Review

Following the line of cases asking questions such as what is a chicken, and is a burrito a sandwich, comes the next deep legal issue, what is beer? How do we determine this seemingly simple question? Do we simply know it when we see (or taste) it? Does it require a mix of specific ingredients or certain processes? Or, if we should rely on definitions, do we look to the dictionary, history, or statutes? In a dispute in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the court is asked to resolve this question. Courts have …

Covid-19 Vs. Constitution; Limited Government's Unlimited Response, John A. Losurdo

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A “Duty To Write” Smart Contracts That Unsophisticated Users Have A “Duty To Read”, Chase Webber

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Analisis Terhadap Penerapan Asas Formil Dan Materiil Pembentukan Rancangan Undang-Undang Tentang Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual, Siti Sharhana Drajat

"Dharmasisya” Jurnal Program Magister Hukum FHUI

Sexual violence in Indonesia has caused a public’s worry. The bill on the elimination of sexual violence (RUU PKS) is considered very important to be passed. Purpose of this article is to analyze the suitability of the principles in the RUU PKS with Indonesian act of Formulation of Laws and Regulation Number 12 of 2011 (UU P3). The method used in writing this article uses the normative legal research. Results of this study are formal principles in the anti sexual violence bill is appropriate with the UU P3 except the principle of openness. Likewise with the material principles in the …