Digital Commons Network^™

Classical Liberalism And Property, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Classical liberalism is characterized by several key attributes. Its central normative criterion is the well‑being of the individual, not some aggregate like society or the nation‑state. Individuals are presumptively regarded as responsible actors, capable of judging their own best interests and accountable for their actions that interfere with the well‑being of others. Because individuals are presumptively regarded as responsible actors, there is a strong preference for imposing only minimal obligations on them through the power of the state, and these usually involve general negative duties that are universal in character, chiefly to forbear from using force or fraud to interfere …

There Is No Free Benchmark: An Institutional View Of Legal Ai Benchmarking, Neel Guha, Andy K. Zhang, Christine Tsang, Christopher D. Manning, Julian Nyarko, Daniel E. Ho

Faculty Scholarship

Despite substantial excitement around the use of AI in law, little information exists on the performance and associated risks of the domain’s widely marketed tools. Recent work, for instance, has demonstrated the significant potential for “hallucinations” — wherein models make up facts, law, and precedent — leading Chief Justice Roberts to spotlight this risk in his annual report on the judiciary. We argue that there is a need for public AI benchmarking in law. First, relative to other AI application domains, the legal AI ecosystem lacks legibility — there is little information about the design and performance of many commercial …

Presidential Immunity: Before And After Trump, Thomas P. Schmidt

Faculty Scholarship

“All the officers of government,” the Supreme Court said long ago, “from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.” Despite that ringing and categorical language, however, the Court has held that the President — the “highest” and most powerful of all government officers — is “immune” from judicial oversight in several respects. Indeed, when the Court held last Term that former presidents are presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for officials acts, the dissenters warned: “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

This Article …

The Contested Contingent Constitution: Plutocrats, Right-Wing Populists, And Labor Rights In The U.S., Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional labor rights have long been negligible in the United States. Now, with the ascendance of Donald Trump’s right-wing authoritarianism, even statutory labor rights are under threat. Yet there is an apparent paradox: While the Trump Administration seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional and has decimated federal workers’ rights, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement rose to power in part by invoking the plight of the American worker. The more populist wing of the American Right does not expressly challenge the constitutionality of labor law. Indeed, some right-wing populists urge an expansion of labor rights, emphasizing such goals as …

The Nonpartisan Case For Supreme Court Expansion, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

It should be a shared premise across the ideological spectrum that Supreme Court justices hold too much power. That is not to suggest any consensus that the Supreme Court as an institution holds too much power — some think it does, while others don’t. It is to say, rather, that we should all be able to agree that each individual justice on the Supreme Court exercises significantly more power than any one person in a democracy should.

The case for this proposition is overwhelming. There are just nine Supreme Court justices at any given time. These nine people intervene decisively …

A Language Model’S Capability To Make Reasoned Decisions In Administrative Law, Robert Diab

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper calls into question a common set of assumptions about the use of artificial intelligence in administrative law in Canada. While some assume that AI (AI) may be useful for assisting a decision-maker where core rights are affected, the prevailing view is that it cannot be relied upon to make final decisions, due mainly to functional limitations: AI cannot give reasons and its outcomes are fraught with bias and opacity that cannot be overcome. The prevailing view, however, took shape in response to earlier, more limited forms of AI. Large language models can be used in a way that …

Privacy, Paternalism, And Standing In Health Professions Regulation, Anthony Sangiuliano

Dalhousie Law Journal

When investigating whether a doctor has behaved unethically while treating a patient, professional regulatory colleges may search patients’ confidential medical records without patients’ consent. I argue that this practice is not paternalistic, nor does it usurp patients’ standing to decide for themselves whether to sacrifice their privacy to hold the doctor to account for professional wrongdoing. College investigations that non-consensually invade patient privacy do not express disrespect for patients’ agency because they aim to mitigate harm to the broader public. Unlike criminal prosecutions of doctors which uphold moral values pervading the public at large, college investigations enforce ethical standards within …

A Qualitative Study Of Key “Regulatory” Factors Influencing Patient Access To Medical Assistance In Dying In Canada, Ruthie Jeanneret, Eliana Close, Jocelyn Downie, Ben P. White

Dalhousie Law Journal

Medical assistance in dying (“MAiD”) was legalized federally in Canada after the landmark case, Carter v Canada (AG), 2015 SCC 5. Bill C-14 introduced a federal legislative framework for MAiD in 2016, which was amended by Bill C-7 in 2021. Some Bill C-7 amendments directly responded to the decision in Truchon c Canada (PG), 2019 QCCS 3792. Other amendments responded to several factors identified as barriers to patient access, including the requirement for two independent witnesses, the 10-day reflection period, and the requirement to provide final consent at the time of administration of MAiD medication. However, emerging literature identifies that …

Aboriginal Title In Former French Colonies: Reaching Back Before The Assertion Of French Sovereignty, Ghislain Otis

Dalhousie Law Journal

A substantial part of Canada was colonized by France well before the British arrival in the mid-eighteenth century. This article examines the effect of the assertion of French sovereignty on the Aboriginal title regime recognized under British-Canadian law.

In Part I, the author identifies a trend in the jurisprudence whereby courts assess the Indigenous territorial situation existing at the time of the British assertion of sovereignty, rather than at the time of French sovereignty, for the purpose of applying the exclusive control criterion underlying the recognition of Aboriginal title. The author then demonstrates that this approach creates significant difficulties for …

Operational Agency: A Permeable Legal Fiction For Tracing Culpability In Ai Systems, Anirban Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems act with a high degree of independence yet lack legal personhood—a paradox that fractures doctrines grounded in human-centric notions of mens rea and actus reus. This Article introduces Operational Agency (OA)—a permeable legal fiction structured as an ex post evidentiary framework—and Operational Agency Graph (OAG)—a tool for mapping causal interactions among human actors, organizations, and AI systems. OA evaluates an AI’s observable operational characteristics: its goal-directedness (as a proxy for intent), predictive processing (as a proxy for foresight), and safety architecture (as a proxy for standard of care). OAG operationalizes that analysis by embedding these …

Owning The Al Revolution, George S. Georgiev

Articles

No abstract provided.

Learning By Writing: Exploring Authentic Legal Learning Through Case Summaries, Ee-Ing Ong, Wei Yang Quek, Duan Ning, Magdeleine Lew

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

We use authentic learning as a pedagogical framework in a collaboration between our law school and the national Supreme Court of a Southeast Asian country, which facilitates law students’ development of their legal analytical and writing skills, and helps them better bridge the gap between existing legal curricula and the needs of legal practice. Akin to a writing apprenticeship, students write summaries on selected Supreme Court judgments, with their output reviewed by faculty as well as judicial law clerks from the court. The results are published on the court’s website and circulated to other stakeholders. In the post-exercise survey, participating …

Offshore Philanthropy: A Critical Look At Family Offices Using Hybrid Trusts, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Family offices manage substantial wealth and often undertake philanthropic initiatives as part of their broader objectives. These offices may assume a variety of legal forms, ranging from corporations, partnerships, trusts administered by private trust companies or a combination of these forms. This article is concerned with family offices which use trusts administered by private trust companies in offshore jurisdictions. In response to competition for global wealth, several offshore jurisdictions have enacted trust laws that relax traditional doctrinal constraints to accommodate the needs of family offices. These include the creation of discretionary trusts for hybrid purposes in perpetuity ie trusts that …

Mapping Minority Investigative Powers In Congress, David Rapallo

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Shut down the Senate . . .” “Roll over and play dead . . .” In the first hundred days of President Donald Trump’s second term, these were the rallying cries of two far ends of a debate among Democrats about how to respond to the administration’s unprecedented actions. This debate, which rages on today, has been marked by a lack of specificity about the various oversight tools available to members of the minority party in Congress, particularly when they investigate whether the Executive Branch is faithfully executing the laws Congress passes. Scholarship too has focused little on the full …

Counterclaims In Investor-State Arbitration: A Call For Clear Thinking, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

As exemplified by the agenda of UNCITRAL Working Group III, the focus of ongoing debates over reform of the current investor-State dispute resolution (ISDS) system has been on procedural reform, broadly understood. The debates thus sideline the substantive aspects of ISDS, i.e. the rights and obligations of investors and States.  Within this structure, the place of counterclaims by States in investor-State arbitration is uncertain. To be sure, the question of counterclaims is basically a procedural one, for, by definition, counterclaims represent a vehicle by which a respondent State may assert a claim against an investor in a proceeding initiated by …

Editorial Foreword Ijsls Volume 5 Number 2, Sulistyowati Irianto

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

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Can The Epa Withdraw The Endangerment Finding?, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

The Trump administration has made repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases the centerpiece of its environmental deregulation agenda. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US, and more,” proclaimed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin when announcing the agency’s plan to reconsider the finding in March 2025. Since then, the agency has followed through, pushing endangerment finding repeal ahead of other, more traditional, deregulatory efforts. While politically popular with parts of President …

Dari Coattail Ke Midterm Check: Pergeseran Patologi Presidensialisme Dan Rekayasa Baru Keserentakan Pemilu, Fitra Arsil

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article offers a reinterpretation of the concurrent election practice in a multiparty presidential system. Traditionally, concurrent elections were designed as a constitutional mechanism to prevent political deadlock by aligning executive power with legislative support. However, the dynamics of contemporary presidentialism have raised a new problem: the threat to democracy now often comes from a president who is too powerful because he or she has succeeded in drawing nearly all political forces into an oversized coalition. This massive coalition ultimately becomes a tool of executive domination that legally narrows the space for opposition and undermines the oversight function of parliament. …

Konstitusionalitas Kebijakan Penanaman Modal Asing Sebagai Penerapan Konsep Hak Menguasai Negara Menurut Uud Nri 1945, Rico Novianto, Satya Arinanto, Fatmawati Fatmawati

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article analyzes how the state position in foreign investment as an instrument for realizing public prosperity. Throughout the history of Indonesian governance, foreign capital has been a tool that can be used and has its own constitutional basis. However, if it is too large and the lack of adequate regulation of foreign investment to maintain the investment climate, it has become one of the causes of the economic and multidimensional crisis, especially around 1998 in Indonesia. In fact, the constitution has mandated an economic system based on the concept of state control, the principles of economic democracy, and the …

การบังคับใช้กฎหมายว่าด้วยหนี้ในทางปฏิบัติให้เสร็จสิ้นครบถ้วนตามกระบวนการแห่งกฎหมายวิธีพิจารณาความแพ่ง (Practical Enforcement Of The Law Of Obligations: Ensuring Complete Execution Under The Civil Procedure Law), Jutaporn Chaidejsuriya

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

บทความวิจัยนี้มุ่งศึกษาความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างหลักกฎหมายว่าด้วยหนี้ตามประมวลกฎหมายแพ่งและพาณิชย์ กับหลักเกณฑ์การเสนอคดีตามประมวลกฎหมายวิธีพิจารณาความแพ่ง อันเป็นกลไกสำคัญในการบังคับใช้สิทธิของเจ้าหนี้ในทางปฏิบัติ เนื่องจาก “หนี้” เป็นบุคคลสิทธิ เจ้าหนี้จึงไม่อาจบังคับชำระหนี้ได้ด้วยตนเอง แต่ต้องเสนอคดีต่อศาลเพื่อบังคับให้ชำระหนี้ การวิจัยนี้เป็นการวิจัยเชิงหลักกฎหมาย (Doctrinal Legal Research) โดยวิเคราะห์ประเด็นสำคัญเกี่ยวกับหนี้ 7 ประการ ได้แก่ การบอกกล่าวลูกหนี้กับอำนาจฟ้อง การบังคับชำระหนี้ การเรียกดอกเบี้ยกรณีลูกหนี้ผิดนัด การใช้สิทธิเรียกร้องของลูกหนี้ การโอนสิทธิเรียกร้อง การเพิกถอนการฉ้อฉล และอายุความบังคับจำนอง ทั้งนี้ ผู้วิจัยได้จำแนกบทบัญญัติว่าด้วยหนี้ออกเป็น 3 ประเภท ได้แก่ (1) บทบัญญัติที่มีเนื้อหาไม่ครอบคลุมเกี่ยวกับการเสนอคดี (2) บทบัญญัติที่กำหนดวิธีไว้แต่ไม่ครบถ้วนหรือมีปัญหาในการตีความ และ (3) บทบัญญัติที่ไม่สอดคล้องกับกฎหมายวิธีพิจารณาความแพ่ง แล้วนำมาวิเคราะห์เชื่อมโยงกับบทบัญญัติในประมวลกฎหมายวิธีพิจารณาความแพ่ง รวมถึงศึกษาจากตำราและแนวคำพิพากษาศาลฎีกา ผลการศึกษาพบว่า การบังคับใช้กฎหมายว่าด้วยหนี้ให้มีประสิทธิภาพ จำเป็นต้องตีความและบังคับใช้สอดคล้องกับกฎหมายวิธีพิจารณาความแพ่ง ซึ่งผลลัพธ์ของงานวิจัยนี้จะช่วยลดปัญหาทางปฏิบัติและเสริมสร้างความเข้าใจที่ถูกต้องแก่ผู้ศึกษากฎหมายและผู้ปฏิบัติงานในคดีแพ่ง

Syarat Usia Presiden Dan Wakil Presiden Dalam Perspektif Konstitusi Dan Konstitusionalisme: Makna Dan Kriteria, Ardhes Blandhivay Leuanan, Mei Susanto

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

In order to investigate the inconsistent interpretations of the Constitutional Court regarding the age requirements for presidential and vice-presidential candidates, this study will analyze the dynamics of determining age requirements from the perspective of the 1945 Constitution and the principles of constitutionalism. A socio-legal approach is used in the normative research method to analyze the Constitutional Court's decisions in light of the social and political factors that shaped them. According to the results, Constitutional Court Ruling No. 90/PUU-XXI/2023 marks a turning point in the evolution of Indonesian constitutional law. Initially, there was no strict interpretation of the age limits for …

Penolakan Penghapusan Kolom Agama Pada Kartu Tanda Penduduk: Krítík Terhadap Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 146/Puu-Xxii/2024, Krisna Bagas Purwopangestu, Nicholas Gerard Felix Simeone

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article examines the Constítutíonal Court (MK) Decisíon No. 146/PUU–XXII/2024 which rejected the request to delete the religion column on the Identity Card (KTP). The Decision affirms that every Indonesian citizen must declare their religion or belief in God as expected by Pancasila and the constitutional mandate. The Constitutional Court stated that “not having a religion or belief in God cannot be considered as freedom of religion”. The Constitutional Court Decision has revived the dispute on the urgency of including religion identity on the KTP, especially about the relation between administrative requirements, the legal system of Indonesia, and protection of …

Reorientasi Kebijakan Pelindungan Anak Terhadap Adiksi Internet Dalam Perspektif Pemenuhan Hak Konstitusional Di Indonesia, I Kadek Agus Aditya Firmantara, Bagus Hermanto

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article examines the paradigm shift in child protection policy in the digital environment through Government Regulation Number 17 of 2025 concerning the Governance of Electronic System Providers for Child Protection (PP TUNAS) from the perspective of fulfilling children's constitutional rights in Indonesia. The study is motivated by the increasing use of the internet by children, which not only exposes them to risks such as harmful content, sexual exploitation, and misuse of personal data, but also creates the risk of internet addiction that may adversely affect children's health, education, and overall development. Despite these concerns, internet addiction has not been …

ความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลในประเทศฝรั่งเศส: วิวัฒนาการและความสำคัญทางหลักกฎหมายของแนวคิด “Personnes Morales” (Corporate Criminal Liability In France: The Evolution And Jurisprudential Significance Of The Personnes Morales Concept), Rose Charmette

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

บทความนี้ศึกษาวิวัฒนาการของความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลในประเทศฝรั่งเศสผ่านแนวคิด personnes morales ซึ่งบัญญัติไว้ในมาตรา 121-2 แห่งประมวลกฎหมายอาญาฝรั่งเศส โดยศึกษาแนวคิดนี้ภายใต้กรอบของความรับผิดของนิติบุคคลต่ออาชญากรรมร้ายแรง โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งในบริบทของกฎหมายอาญาระหว่างประเทศ ซึ่งโดยหลักแล้วกำหนดความรับผิดแก่บุคคลธรรมดาเท่านั้น คำถามวิจัยหลักของการศึกษานี้คือ แนวคิด personnes morales ของฝรั่งเศสช่วยอุดช่องว่างของความรับผิดทางอาญาในกรณีที่นิติบุคคลได้เข้ามามีส่วนร่วมในการกระทำความผิดอาญาร้ายแรงตามธรรมนูญกรุงโรมได้หรือไม่ และแนวคิดนี้สามารถนำมาใช้กับความรับผิดทางอาญาระหว่างประเทศได้เพียงใด บทความได้วิเคราะห์คดีสำคัญ เช่น คดีอื้อฉาวทางเภสัชกรรม Mediator คดี Lafarge S.A. ในซีเรีย และคำพิพากษา Association Sportive ซึ่งตัดสินโดยศาลอาญาของฝรั่งเศส โดยที่ศาลได้วางหลักเกี่ยวกับเจตนาของนิติบุคคล (corporate mens rea) ผสมผสานกับความรับผิดโดยอาศัยการเป็นตัวแทนและความรับผิดโดยอิสระขององค์กร รวมถึงวิธีที่ศาลฝรั่งเศสบังคับใช้บทลงโทษกับนิติบุคคลได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ นอกจากนี้ ยังมีการอ้างอิงเปรียบเทียบกับสหราชอาณาจักรและสวีเดนเพื่อแสดงให้เห็นแนวทางทางเลือกอื่น ๆ และเน้นย้ำว่าระบบฝรั่งเศสมีส่วนช่วยในการพัฒนาแนวคิดความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลอย่างไร ท้ายที่สุด บทความนี้ชี้ให้เห็นว่าหลักคำสอนของ personnes morales ไม่เพียงแต่เป็นกรอบแนวคิดเชิงปฏิบัติเท่านั้น แต่ยังเป็นแนวทางเชิงทฤษฎีที่สามารถแก้ไขปัญหาช่องว่างของความรับผิดในกฎหมายอาญาระหว่างประเทศได้และเสนอข้อคิดสำคัญสำหรับการปฏิรูปในอนาคตเพื่อเสริมสร้างความรับผิดชอบของภาคธุรกิจในระดับข้ามเขตอำนาจศาล

Women’S Participation In Middle Eastern Politics: Between Cultural Norms And Democratic Aspirations, Siham Abidi, Thomas Sheku Marah

Journal of Middle East and Islamic Studies

Women’s political participation in the Middle East remains shaped by the complex interaction of cultural norms, religious interpretations, and democratic reform processes. While existing scholarship has examined these factors extensively, limited attention has been devoted to explaining why women’s political participation varies across states with broadly similar socio-cultural and religious contexts. This study addresses this gap through a qualitative comparative analysis of Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Guided by Feminist Institutionalism and Political Opportunity Structure theory, the study draws on secondary data from peer-reviewed literature, legal documents, and policy reports. The findings demonstrate that women’s political participation is not determined …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

Aligning Artificial Intelligence To The Law, Jack Boeglin

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Protecting Dependent Children In Bankruptcy, Michael D. Sousa, L. Alexis Whitley Esq.

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Lessons From Eugenics: Safeguarding Autonomy In Procreation, Claire Bass

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Periodic Adjustments — Treaties And Other Issues, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Jeffery M. Kadet

Articles

In his May article, Michael McDonald, a former managing director at Ernst & Young and current adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, criticized the IRS’s recently announced method for applying the commensurate with income (CWI) requirement that addresses the widespread underpricing of intangibles.1 His analysis questioned the IRS’s interpretation of section 482. McDonald argues that, until 2025, Treasury and the IRS applied CWI in a manner consistent with the arm’s-length principle despite congressional misgivings about the arm’s-length principle that were not only expressed in the legislative history of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 but were …