Digital Commons Network^™

Whatever Happened To Queenie's Law?, Virginia C. Thomas

Library Scholarly Publications

This column illustrates how the history of a specific legislative measure that has been introduced over multiple legislative sessions can deepen our understanding of its legislative purpose.

State And Federal Constitutional Right To Counsel In An Age Of Case Specific Inadequacies, Brent R. Appel

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Money Problem, Brian D. Galle, Aziz Z. Huq

University of Chicago Law Review

We consider three aspects of the constitutional status of the U.S. Federal Reserve in this Article. Under the Supreme Court’s contemporary approach to constitutional meaning, there is a surprising degree of doubt about whether key aspects of the Federal Reserve (or the Fed)—its independence from Congress and the President, and even its power to create money—are constitutional. We suggest this is reason to believe the Court’s dominant interpretive approaches generate implausible results, but identify a previously overlooked source of constitutional grounding for the Fed that better supports its authority and structure. We further sketch the potential limits, costs, and benefits …

Regionalism And The Federal Reserve Banks, Kathryn Judge, Lev Menand

University of Chicago Law Review

Regionalism is central to our country’s central banking system. Rather than rely on a single organization to set monetary policy and oversee banks, Congress created a multiplicity of bodies including twelve Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs), each designed to operate in a different part of the country. These FRBs are an early and undertheorized example of how the federal government uses regional bodies to formulate and administer federal policy. When they were first authorized in 1913, their regional character assuaged concerns about centralizing power over the economy. Today, the FRBs continue to play a number of important roles, helping to shape …

Financial Stability And Bank Agency Discretion, Christina Parajon Skinner

University of Chicago Law Review

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, new mandates to address “financial stability” and “systemic risk” expanded financial regulators’ discretion considerably. By predicating action upon these terms, the banking agencies took up issues beyond the express terms of their statutory mandates. Given the vagueness of the terms, actions taken on the basis of financial stability could easily evade congressional scrutiny and accompanying accountability. As a result, the pursuit of financial stability goals over the past fifteen years has fueled the perception that a regulatory “expertocracy” governs the field of banking, rather than market forces.

This Essay discusses four areas where financial …

Securities Regulation And Administrative Law In The Roberts Court, David Zaring

University of Chicago Law Review

This Essay compares a judicial revolution that is happening to one that is not. Both the change and the status quo are being managed by the current Supreme Court. That Court has, when it comes to administrative law, shown a capacity to revisit everything. But when it comes to securities regulation, it has resisted change. What is the explanation for this divergent approach between general regulation, which the Court has sought to police, and securities regulation, which the Court has left alone? Some scholars have argued that the Supreme Court is simply uninterested in securities regulation, but the Court now …

Financial Hardship And Forum Selection Clauses, John F. Coyle

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strategy For Strategy’S Sake, Edith Beerdsen

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Zero-Sum Environmentalism: Competing Tax Incentives For Solar Farms And Wildlife Conservation Land, Nathaniel Swigart

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

H.B. 76’S Trojan Horse: An Analysis Of Certificate Of Need Reform In North Carolina, Morgan W. Lee

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Undeterred: On The North Carolina General Assembly’S Decision To Double Down On Criminalizing The Opioid Epidemic, Drew Alexander

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Hardest Thing I'Ve Ever Done: Reentry Realities Of Criminalized Survivors, Emunah Evans, Marsha Weissman, Deborah M. Weissman

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Extraordinary Drought Provision And The Future Of The Rio Grande Water Deliveries Under The 1944 Us–Mexico Water Treaty: An Exploratory Policy Analysis, Rosario Sanchez, Stephen P. Mumme, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

The ‘extraordinary drought’ provision contained in the legal framework governing water allocation between Mexico and the United States has been applied differently on the Colorado River, Upper Rio Grande, and Lower Rio Grande. While the provision has been interpreted to require proportional water allocation reductions during droughts for both parties on the Colorado and Upper Rio Grande, it has been applied very differently on the Lower Rio Grande where it binds Mexico to make up delivery shortfalls in subsequent cycles. Given climatic, economic, and population pressures in the Lower Rio Grande basin, application of the ‘extraordinary drought’ provision requires reconsideration.

Public Funds, Public Functions, Private Actors: The Cognitive Dissonance Of Us Health Law, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter begins with the evolution of American medicine from a “sovereign” self-regulating profession focused on direct patient service to a large industry that serves the social sector but that, because of its professional heritage, receives extensive public subsidies without equivalent public accountability. Next, the chapter identifies regulatory dynamics in American health care governance that structurally discourage movement from the prevailing, if dissonant, private law framework to one explicitly grounded in public law. The chapter concludes by highlighting the challenges and opportunities inherent in a private law approach to what is intuitively a public law domain.

Optimal Real-Time Review Standards: Implications For Law Enforcement And Competitive Games, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Real-time review systems are frequently used in various sports to monitor the decisions of referees and correct their mistakes. Interventions through these systems cause delays in games, which are perceived as being costly. This makes it optimal for these review systems to interfere with the decisions of the referee less frequently than would minimize the costs of decision errors, which I formalize through an analysis of the VAR system in football. This analysis also reveals that optimal review standards ought to be laxer when an important event (e.g., a goal) occurs between the position in which the potential error took …

Sentencing Vulnerability: An Empirical Study Into The Role Of Personal Characteristics And The Foreseeable Experience Of Confinement At The Sentencing Of Older Adults, Adelina Iftene, Allison Hearns

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article presents and analyzes findings from a qualitative and quantitative review of reported Nova Scotia sentencing decisions (2013–2020) of aging individuals. The goal is twofold. First, by investigating the judicial discourse around personal characteristics at sentencing aging individuals, we specifically seek to understand where aging, and characteristics that interplay with aging, fit into current sentencing practices and the potential benefits and challenges of considering these factors. Secondly, and more generally, through the case study of older offenders, this article seeks to contribute to the largely theoretical scholarship that has engaged with the need for a methodical inclusion of a …

Shadow Banking And Securities Law, Gabriel V. Rauterberg, Jeffery Yufeng Zhang

Articles

Shadow banking may be the single greatest challenge facing financial regulation. Financial institutions that function like banks, but fall outside the scope of banking regulation—aptly termed “shadow banks”—were at the heart of the Global Financial Crisis and most episodes of serious financial stress since then. Scholars have largely focused on one response to this problem: extending traditional banking regulation to shadow banks. Yet more than fifteen years after the crisis, major regulatory efforts along this route have stalled.

In this Article, we explore the uneasy case for greater regulation of shadow banking through a different route—securities law. Our first contribution …

Land Banking For Large-Scale Land-Based Investment: A Responsible Investment Perspective, Anna Bulman, Thierry Berger, Esther Akwii, Grace Brennan

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Public banking of land for private investment appears to have emerged since the 2007–2008 global financial crisis as a common yet under-researched policy mechanism. A snapshot investigation revealed that a number of countries, particularly low- and middle-income countries (including Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, and Tanzania), have attempted or are pursuing land banking policies to encourage large-scale land-based investment (LSLBI). Information about these mechanisms, including their existence and efficacy, is scant. If not done responsibly, land banking for this purpose could have far-reaching implications for local communities and risks perpetuating the same problems associated with LSLBI that decades of …

Trauma-Informed Judicial Practice Meets Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Compassionate Written Judgments In Child Protection Cases, Shelley Kierstead

Articles & Book Chapters

Trauma arises from profoundly distressing life events, and manifests in a range of often overwhelming physical and psychological symptoms. The legal community is increasingly recognizing that clients living with trauma need trauma-informed services—that is, services that “recognize, understand and minimize” the long-term impact of trauma. A trauma-informed approach acknowledges that “effective interventions with people require both the avoidance of retraumatization and the presence of respectful and supportive interventions that help people rebuild their lives.”

Climate Change Litigation In New York, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Numerous lawsuits have been brought in the federal and state courts in New York concerning climate change. Some were under two important state statutes on the subject – the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA)and New York Climate Superfund Act of 2024. Others are brought under various common law, consumer protection, securities, and other theories. This column describes the most important of these cases.

Existential Threats And Deterrence: Japan’S Legal Pathway To Enhanced Collective Security In Asia, Nobuhisa Ishizuka

Faculty Scholarship

With the Japanese Cabinet’s decision in December 2022 to comprehensively upgrade Japan’s security posture, and its rapid build-up of its defense capabilities, Japan’s role in Asia’s security architecture has been undergoing a fundamental shift. This article places Japan’s 2015 Peace and Security Legislation in the context of the U.N. collective security system and argues that its most significant achievement has been to expand Japan’s power to engage more proactively in the Asian collective security order. To date, commentators have focused on the legislation’s role in expanding the Japanese constitution’s limitations on the use of force to permit collective self-defense. This …

Shadow Investment Companies, William A. Birdthistle, Gabriel Rauterberg, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to track the value of fiat currency, most commonly the U.S. dollar. Over the past decade, they have grown from a niche innovation into the primary gateway between crypto markets and the traditional financial system, with daily trading volumes exceeding $100 billion. Despite their scale and centrality, stablecoin issuers occupy an uncertain and increasingly contested regulatory space.

This Article argues that the largest stablecoin issuers — such as Circle and Tether— are best understood not as banks or payments firms, but as investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. As a matter of statutory …

J Mich Dent Assoc March 2025

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Each month, The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association provides news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. It stands as the primary publication reaching Michigan dentists. This month’s issue offers an insightful article on general-purpose AI to boost creativity and efficiency in dental practice. Helpful tips on protecting your reputation are provided in an article on Myths, Tips, and Tricks to manage online reviews. Readers then learn that ADA Commons provides much more than access to current and past articles and issues of the Journal of the Michigan Dental …

Participatory Defense And Three Pillars Of Criminal Injustice, Isis Misdary

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Real Concerns For An Artificial Threat: Artists, Ai, And The Battle To Script Hollywood’S Future, Evan Sommer

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bringing Together The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities And The Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples In Canada, Constance Macintosh

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article explores the relationship between the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) with regards to the situation of Indigenous persons with disabilities living in Canada. In particular, it considers how the obligations and responsibilities identified under the UNDRIP and the CRPD can be interpreted and realized in a manner that is complementary and may amplify the likelihood of the goals of each instrument being realized. An explicit goal is avoiding the exclusions and erasures which arise when single identity politics dominate, which …

Interveners’ Ideas As Influence: Revisiting Ktunaxa Nation, Danielle Mcnabb, Minh Do

Dalhousie Law Journal

With the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, including the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and provisions delineating the rights of Indigenous peoples, the Supreme Court of Canada inherited profound political powers. The number of non-governmental actors “intervening” in cases sharply increased. Judicial review produced a democratizing effect because a new “window of opportunity” for marginalized groups to enact social change through the Court was opened. However, several scholars suggest that in practice, the Constitution has led to “very few gains” for Indigenous peoples. To better understand the nature of Indigenous intervener participation, and to assess …

Conference Report: Attribution Science And Climate Law, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This report provides a summary of proceedings from the Attribution Science and Climate Law conference hosted at Columbia University on January 9-10, 2025. The conference brought together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to share insights on the status of climate change attribution research and its relevance to climate law and policy. Participants included physical scientists, public health researchers, economists, social scientists, legal scholars, and legal practitioners. The core goals of the event were to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion, advance substantive knowledge in this field, and promote ongoing collaboration between the scientific, legal, and policy-making communities.

Efta Coverage Of Modern Consumer Wire Transfers: Consumer Financial Regulation In The Wake Of Loper Bright, Benjamin Gygi

Fordham Law Review

The rise of online banking has led to a proliferation of consumer fraud. Schemes aimed at stealing consumer funds using wire transfers executed through online banking portals have proven particularly devastating to consumers because of a perceived loophole in the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) that leaves consumers with full liability for funds stolen through wire transfers. Consumer advocacy groups, and most notably the New York Attorney General, have recently argued that this loophole does not really exist; they claim that the EFTA’s text conclusively covers certain parts of modern wire transfer processes initiated through online banking portals. Considering the …

Jewish Lawyers And The Labor Movement, Catherine L. Fisk

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.