Digital Commons Network^™

Precipitated By The Pandemic: From Remote Witnessing To Electronic Wills, Edward Ti, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the rigidity of will-making laws requiring in-person witnessing. Jurisdictions responded differently: some introduced temporary measures, others implemented permanent reforms allowing remote witnessing. This article compares responses in England and Wales, selected Australian states, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR, tracing developments toward potential recognition of electronic wills. The central argument is that law reform should balance accessibility with safeguards against fraud and undue influence, avoiding overly burdensome formalities that deter compliance. The article concludes by examining how national digital identity systems could be used for the execution of electronic wills.

Judicial Enforcement Of Evidence Law, G. Alexander Nunn

Vanderbilt Law Review

The truth matters. At least it should. In the courtroom, truth can serve as the cornerstone of justice, liberating the innocent, vindicating victims, and holding the guilty to account. Indeed, truth is such a normative imperative that an entire legal discipline now focuses on fostering its discovery at trial— evidence law. By regulating both the reliability of proof and the rationality of cognitive inferences, evidence law seeks to help factfinders discern truth and reach an accurate verdict. And given the importance of that role, one might naturally assume that the strict enforcement of evidence law would be a legal mandate …

Redefining Law In China, Zeming Liu, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Although there is a growing body of literature on the role of law under authoritarian regimes, scholars have paid little attention to authoritarian legal ideology or conceptions of legality in contemporary authoritarian states. This Article presents the first in-depth study of the Chinese Communist Party’s recent novel attempt to introduce and implement an official legal ideology under the banner of “Xi Jinping’s Thought on the Rule of Law,” one which aims both to create a definitive theory of law and to offer a guide to China’s legal development. We examine four principal components of this legal ideology: the theoretical definition …

Fairer Public Benefit In Copyright Law, Amanda Levendowski Tepski

Cardozo Law Review

In 1966, a court considered expressly whether a secondary use of copyrighted works served a public benefit. While public benefit has become a subfactor of the fair use doctrine, it remains undefined, uncodified, and undertheorized. Courts often invoked public benefit in pivotal cases involving novel technologies, from home video recorders to digital libraries to algorithms—but they did not need to. After the recent Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle, however, public benefit is unavoidable: The Court stated that “we must take into account the public benefits the copying will likely produce.” A qualitative analysis of key public benefit cases …

Do Civil Penalties Punish? The Fbar Penalty And The Case For An Emboldened Excessive Fines Clause, Scott Oatkin

Cardozo Law Review

The Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) regime authorizes the IRS to impose severe penalties—up to the greater of $100,000 or fifty percent of the account balance—for failure to report foreign bank accounts exceeding $10,000. While the Eighth Amendment protects Americans from “excessive fines,” circuit courts are split on whether the FBAR penalty constitutes a fine and is subject to constitutional scrutiny. Some courts have found that the FBAR penalty is wholly remedial and beyond the reach of the Excessive Fines Clause, but this Note argues that such an interpretation is inconsistent with the history and case law …

Taxes And Tournaments, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

What is the best way to reduce economic inequality? Economists, lawyers, political philosophers, and politicians have pondered this question for decades. Yet there is another group of savvy and highly motivated individuals who have been thinking about redistribution for just as long. Commissioners of the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball, together with team owners and player unions, have been inventing and reinventing ways to redistribute resources, and they continue to do so today. The same is true of the President of National Collegiate Athletic Association, along with the heads of …

Antitransgender Legislation And Needs Of Transgender Floridians, 2018–2024, Callan Hummel, Kim-Phuong Truong-Vu, Kathryn Nowotny, Ashley Mayfaire, Beaux Ramos, Jasmine Mckenzie, Charlton C. Copeland, Tiffany R. Glynn

Articles

Objectives. To document transgender Floridians’ service needs before and after antitransgender state legislation.

Methods. We conducted descriptive and change point analyses of intake survey data collected by a transgender-led community-based organization in Florida from 701 clients who requested services between 2018 and 2024.

Results. Findings show enrollment for services increased during the rise in antitransgender legislation, with pressing needs for legal and financial support for name changes and gender-affirming health care. The percentage of clients requesting sexual health resources increased, especially among Black clients.

Conclusions. Findings underscore the urgency of (1) understanding the impact of antitransgender legislation on service needs, …

How The Billable Hour Can Survive Generative Ai, Jonah Perlin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The legal profession is rapidly adopting generative AI technology. With this shift has come an increasingly common assumption that generative AI will significantly reduce or even bring an end to hourly billing. The logic underlying this conclusion seems intuitive: if AI reduces the time lawyers spend on certain tasks while eliminating others altogether, then the total number of billable hours will fall. That decline, in turn, could threaten the financial viability of hourly billing, despite its place as the dominant law firm compensation model over the past half century.

This Article challenges this assumption. It argues instead that the billable …

Fairer Public Benefit In Copyright Law, Amanda Levendowski Tepski

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1966, a court considered expressly whether a secondary use of copyrighted works served a public benefit. While public benefit has become a subfactor of the fair use doctrine, it remains undefined, uncodified, and undertheorized. Courts often invoked public benefit in pivotal cases involving novel technologies, from home video recorders to digital libraries to algorithms--but they did not need to. After the recent Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle, however, public benefit is unavoidable: The Court stated that “we must take into account the public benefits the copying will likely produce.” A qualitative analysis of key public benefit cases …

Law Grapples With Its Achilles’ Heel? Uncertainties, Digital Experiments, And The Ai Frontier, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The governance of digitalization— which encompasses developments such as artificial intelligence (AI) and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — confronts serious challenges. At the core of the challenges are uncertainties, which form the central obstacle to effective governance. These uncertainties range from cyber risks to shifting societal responses. Law, as an institutionalized framework of governance, faces mounting pressure and wrestles with a fundamental vulnerability: traditional legal frameworks struggle to address uncertainties in digitalization.

To tackle the pervasive challenges of uncertainties, this article addresses two connected questions: What uncertainties does law face in governing digitalization shaped by emerging technologies? How can …

Juxtaposing Approaches To Risk-Based Ai Governance In Different ‘Rights’ Contexts: A Comparative Analysis Between Singapore And The Eu, Jane Loo, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Comparative analysis of European and certain Asian approaches to governance often degenerates into simplistic dichotomies based on universal human rights assumptions. This chapter rejects such dualities, ill-informed by theory and historical reflection. The emerging argument is founded on a historical realist approach to theorising difference. Assisted by Polanyi’s double movement, the detailed substantive comparison is preceded by considerations of how recent trends in governing AI have uniformly adopted a countermovement against the dis-embedding of data and technology from the social leading to a risk/responsibility paradigm. From here, a more nuanced reflection of AI governance approaches in the EU and Singapore …

A Review Of The 2024/25 International Moots Season, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This is the 11th annual review of Singapore’s performance in international moot court competitions. In a nutshell, 2024/25 has been a tremendous, record-breaking season for Singapore – and a particular duck has finally been broken. In the highest-tier or Grand Slam competitions, Singapore Management University emerged world champions in the Jessup, Vis East, International Criminal Court, and Frankfurt competitions; the previous world record for most Grand Slam wins in a season was 2 (held by various universities), and this new record may well increase to 5, depending on whether SMU can successfully defend its world championship at the Lachs Space …

The Excellent Legal Scholar, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Excellent Legal Scholar: This article considers how virtues pan out in the life of the legal scholar, bearing in mind the purpose of legal scholarship and the identity of the legal scholar, who plays multifarious roles in today's research landscape. I consider how vision is important for the excellent legal scholar, bearing in mind that an aretaic account should be attentive to eudaimonia. I conclude with soul-searching questions for the legal scholar who endeavours to live an examined life that stands up to aretaic appraisal.

Beneficial Ownership In Domestic Tax Legislation, Some Clarity, But Far From ‘Well Established’: Hargreaves Property Holdings Ltd V Hmrc [2024] Ewca Civ 365, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The concept of beneficial ownership is extensively used in domestic tax legislation, but several decades ofinconsistent case law have muddied the waters as to exactly what it means. With the leading casesstopping short of the apex court, it is difficult to reconcile the cases and come up with a clear definition ofbeneficial ownership. The recent Hargreaves decision by Falk LJ (with whom Nugee and Peter JacksonLJJ agreed) represents the most structured judicial attempt to rationalise the concept to date. This notesuggests that, contrary to Falk LJ’s statement that the concept is ‘well established’, the law pre-Hargreaveswas far from clear. This …

Out From The Shadows: Party Documents In Chinese Courts, Benjamin L. Liebman, Eva Gao, Xiaohan Wu, Rachel E. Stern, Margaret Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

The Communist Party’s influence over the Chinese legal system is generally assumed to be behind the scenes, largely invisible to outside observers. Since General Secretary Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, there has been renewed attention within and outside of China to the relationship between the Communist Party and the legal system. Much of this recent writing has emphasized the degree to which Xi’s efforts to affirm Party superiority and break down barriers between the Party and the State reflects a profound shift in governance and a reversal of a decades-long effort to distinguish between Party roles and those …

Security And Terrorism Vs Free Expression: Analytical Study On The European Court Of Human Rights, Mariam Adel Massoud

Theses and Dissertations

The 11 of September attacks provide a paradigm shift when it comes to protection of national security. It results in a trending vision that prioritized security over national security, which makes it essential to think about balancing national security with free expression as a pillar of democratization. This study focusses on how the balance between freedom of expression and national security interests is achieved. It studies the legal approached of the European court of human rights and its legal assessment to strike this balance. The findings of this analytical study asserts that in order for the ECtHR to achieve this …

Breaking Down Broken Banks: The Case For A New Regulatory And Supervisory Framework, Federico Curbelo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Bank failures are systemic breakdowns in regulatory and supervisory frameworks that threaten the financial bedrock of the United States economy and can potentially cause panic and contagion to the broader banking sector. Although banks function as standalone institutions, when one bank fails, it often takes down others with it. Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) was one such bank whose failure temporarily destabilized a whole sector and prompted important questions about the effectiveness of the current financial regulation and supervision scheme.

This Note argues that the current regulatory and supervisory categorization scheme that the Federal Reserve uses to keep banks in …

The Deferential Asian American: Low Racial Status And The Invisibility Of Asian Americans In Leadership And The American Narrative, Reginald Oh

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article will proceed in five parts. First, an important caveat. When the Article refers to Asian Americans, it refers to all Asian American subgroups except for South Asian Americans, because South Asian Americans are not perceived to be deferential in the same way as other Asian American subgroups. Consequently, their experience with leadership is unique among Asian Americans, and much of the analysis in this Article does not apply to them.

With that caveat, Part I will discuss the invisibility of Asian Americans generally, but particularly in leadership positions. Part II will discuss the concept of social status …

Amicus Brief In Support Of Ross Intelligence In Ross Intelligence V. Thomson Reuters, Jess Miers, Bryan L. Frye, Mateusz Blaszczyk

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This amici curiae brief, filed in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH and West Publishing Corp. v. ROSS Intelligence Inc. before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, argues that Thomson Reuters failed to state a viable claim for copyright infringement against ROSS Intelligence. The amici—law professors specializing in copyright and technology—contend that Westlaw’s headnotes are uncopyrightable factual summaries of judicial opinions and that the West Key Number System has long been in the public domain. The brief distinguishes between AI “pretraining” and “fine-tuning,” emphasizing that ROSS’s fine-tuning process relied on expert-created materials rather than wholesale copying. It cautions …

Brief For Amici Curiae Brian L. Frye, Jess Miers, And Mateusz Blaszczyk In Support Of Appellant, Bryan L. Frye, Jess Miers, Mateusz Blaszczyk

Scholarly Works

This is an amicus curiae brief filed by Brian L. Frye, Jess Miers, and Mateusz Blaszczyk in support of ROSS Intelligence, Inc., arguing that Thomson Reuters's claim for copyright infringement should be dismissed.

ความรับผิดทางแพ่งของบริษัทแม่ต่อผู้เสียหายที่ได้รับผลกระทบจากพื้นที่ปนเปื้อนสารอันตรายของบริษัทลูก (Parent Company’S Civil Liability To Victims Affected By A Subsidiary’S Hazardous Substance Contaminated Site), Patthanith Promarak

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

งานวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาความรับผิดทางแพ่งของบริษัทแม่ต่อผู้เสียหายที่ได้รับผลกระทบจากพื้นที่ปนเปื้อนสารอันตรายของบริษัทลูก โดยเป็นการศึกษาวิจัยเอกสารจากบทบัญญัติกฎหมาย คำพิพากษาศาล หนังสือตำรา และบทความเชิงวิชาการที่เกี่ยวข้อง ทั้งในประเทศและต่างประเทศ ผลการศึกษาพบว่า ปัจจุบันพระราชบัญญัติส่งเสริมและรักษาคุณภาพสิ่งแวดล้อมแห่งชาติ พ.ศ. 2535 ยังไม่มีบทบัญญัติให้บริษัทแม่เข้ามารับผิดชอบในความเสียหายจากพื้นที่ปนเปื้อนสารอันตรายของบริษัทลูก หากบริษัทแม่มีส่วนร่วมในแหล่งกำเนิดมลพิษหรือกำกับดูแลบริษัทลูก แต่ขาดการยึดถือแหล่งกำเนิดมลพิษทางกายภาพหรือเจตนาเพื่อตนอย่างใดอย่างหนึ่งไป อันไม่ครบองค์ประกอบของการเป็นผู้ครอบครองที่ต้องรับผิดตามมาตรา 96 หากบริษัทแม่มีการกระทำที่ไม่คำนึงถึงความเป็นนิติบุคคลของบริษัทลูกที่ไม่ใช่การกระทำละเมิด หากแต่เป็นการใช้โครงสร้างความเป็นนิติบุคคลของบริษัทลูกในทางมิชอบ อันได้แก่ การใช้นิติบุคคลเป็นเครื่องมือเพื่อหลบเลี่ยงหรือรับหน้าที่หรือความรับผิด และการมีทรัพย์สินปะปนกัน ดังนั้น จึงสมควรกำหนดบทบัญญัติที่เกี่ยวกับความรับผิดของบริษัทแม่ภายใต้พระราชบัญญัติดังกล่าว เพื่อให้ผู้เสียหายในคดีมลพิษจะได้รับความเป็นธรรมในการเยียวยา

ปัญหาของการตีความข้อยกเว้นด้านความมั่นคงตามมาตรา Xxi(B) ขององค์การการค้าโลก (Issues With The Interpretation Of Security Exceptions Under Article Xxi(B) Of The World Trade Organization), Nitinun Leethanakul

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

บทความวิจัยนี้ศึกษาพัฒนาการของการตีความมาตรา XXI(b) ขององค์การการค้าโลก (WTO) เกี่ยวกับข้อยกเว้นด้านความมั่นคง ตั้งแต่ยุค GATT จนถึงปัจจุบัน โดยวิเคราะห์แนวปฏิบัติและคำวินิจฉัยในการยกอ้างข้อยกเว้นนี้ ผลการศึกษาพบว่า ในยุค GATT และ WTO ตอนต้น การตีความมาตรา XXI ยังขาดความชัดเจน โดยมีการอ้างอิงข้อยกเว้นนี้น้อยมาก และในกรณีที่มีการอ้างอิง ส่วนใหญ่มักยุติด้วยการเจรจา ตกลงกันโดยไม่ผ่านกระบวนการวินิจฉัยที่จะก่อให้เกิดบรรทัดฐานหรือแนวปฏิบัติ อย่างไรก็ตาม นับตั้งแต่ยุคสงครามการค้า การอ้างอิงข้อยกเว้นนี้ตามมาตรา XXI(b) ได้แพร่หลายมากขึ้น และคณะกรรมการวินิจฉัยข้อพิพาทแห่ง WTO ได้แสดงแนวโน้มที่ชัดเจนยิ่งขึ้นในหลายประเด็น เช่น การให้รัฐใช้ดุลพินิจในส่วนของบทนำและเป็นอำนาจพิจารณาของคณะกรรมการวินิจฉัยข้อพิพาทในบทเฉพาะ การแบ่งองค์ประกอบของบทบัญญัติและการตีความ “ผลประโยชน์สำคัญในด้านความมั่นคง” แต่ยังคงมีประเด็นที่ไม่ชัดเจน โดยเฉพาะในเรื่องการตีความ “สถานการณ์ฉุกเฉินในความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างประเทศ” และขอบเขตการใช้ดุลพินิจของรัฐที่จะถูกตรวจสอบโดยคณะกรรมการวินิจฉัยข้อพิพาท

Accounting For Fetal Personhood: Confronting The Implications Of Fetal Personhood On Vital Statistics Law, Alix Rogers

San Diego Law Review

In February 2024, in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, the Alabama Supreme Court held that embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were legal persons. The national conversation about this ruling focused on the implications for IVF treatment. The impact of fetal personhood on the realm of vital records law has, to date, gone unnoticed. Vital records laws in the United States mandate the registration and collection of data for legislatively determined vital events. Vital records law influenced by fetal personhood, as well as broader trends to criminalize pregnancy, has profound and troubling implications for individuals experiencing spontaneous abortion …

Indigenous People Integration Into National Climate Decision Making Process, Omnia Ahmed Ayoub Ahmed

COP30

Our policy paper here is going to explore the urgent need to recognise and enhance the participation and integration of indigenous communities in global climate cases and discussions in decision making processes , despite their contribution now….we are focusing on their case now because they are the most Affected by its impacts , due to their strong connection to natural eco systems , their traditional knowledge and their practices are essential for the biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management but , unfortunately there was a systemic exclusion due to some factors and limiting and representation in in climate conferences such …

The Formalisation Of The Judiciary In The International Climate Governance Vis-À-Vis A Solution For The Accountability Gap In Political Institutions, Shristi Gautam

COP30

The international governance of climate change has historically been led by political institutions operating under multilateral frameworks, such as the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. Under these frameworks, the mitigation ambition and implementation of NDCs remain subject to state discretion, with no binding consequences for non-compliance, creating an enduring enforcement deficit. The paper examines the increasing judicialization of climate governance as a means of addressing this deficit, positioning the judiciary as an active enforcer rather than a passive adjudicator. Drawing on Urgenda v. The Netherlands, Leghari v. Pakistan, Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell, and the 2025 ICJ Advisory Opinion, the …

Rectifying The Disconnect Between The Policy Of The Doctrine Of Equivalents And Practice, Ian Moore

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The doctrine of equivalents began as a measure to protect inventors from unscrupulous copiers who would make substitutions to avoid liability under literal infringement claims. Prosecution history estoppel was established as a guardrail to the doctrine, as a method of bringing some certainty to the scope of patent claims. However, in the Supreme Court’s zeal to contain the doctrine, they over-curbed its efficacy.

In cases that hinged on the doctrine of equivalents, patentees were only successful 21% of the time in district court, and 22% of the time in the federal circuit. A much lower success rate compared to the …

You Can’T Handle The Obvious: Lkq And Testing For Nonobviousness In Design Patents, Frank Easterlin

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This Note traces the change from the rigid Rosen-Durling test for obviousness in design patents, to the Graham analysis in light of KSR v. Teleflex. The history of obviousness inquiries supported a more flexible approach and thus made Rosen-Durling unsupportable as anomalous. However, in abandoning a functional, if stiff, test for obviousness, the Federal Circuit both clarifies and clutters the law around obviousness. This Note follows that change, makes sense of what it can, and humorously criticizes the ambiguities and circularity of the court’s opinion. Ultimately, the new test opens up design patents to a wider array of attacks. This …

Controlling Private Economic Power: Lessons Learned From The Us Experience In The First Decades Of The 20th Century, Thierry Kirat, Frédéric Marty

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Concerns related to Big Techs have led to a proliferation of legislative initiatives to complete competition rules with regulatory devices that would lead gatekeepers to be subject to obligations to preserve an equality of opportunities on the market. Within this context, this contribution revisits American decision-making practice from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century to show how regulatory-type interventions and the enforcement of competition rules have been activated to control the strategies of firms acting as gatekeepers. What we can learn from this experience is that a big firm having private regulatory power …

Legal Realism, Legal Positivism, And Determinacy, Dan Priel

All Papers

It is a commonplace that the legal realists argued that law is deeply indeterminate. According to this familiar account, the legal realists insisted that legal materials don’t constrain judges, who are therefore free to decide cases in almost any way they want. An influential argument has argued that the only way to explain this view is by showing that the legal realists presupposed a legal positivist theory of law. This Essay offers a different understanding of the relationship between realism, positivism, and determinacy, challenging this interpretation of the realists as both historically false and as philosophically unwarranted. I provide many …

Space: The Final Frontier (For State Power): The History Of The East India Company And The Future Of Outer Space, Richard Culbert

International Law Studies

Outer space may be the last domain where States largely lack the capability to use coercive force as an instrument of State control. In all areas of the globe, major powers have militaries and police forces that far exceed the capability of even the largest corporations. As corporations take an increasingly large role in outer space commerce it is likely that these private actors will develop a capacity to use force that quickly surpasses even the most powerful States.

To date there has been little analysis of this future phenomenon by legal scholars. Perhaps as a result, the current international …