Digital Commons Network^™

Editorial Foreword Ijsls Volume 4 Number 1, Sulistyowati Irianto

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

The late “Ibu” Keebet von Benda-Beckmann made a significant contribution to the development of legal anthropology, particularly in Indonesia, where she is regarded as a pioneer of the field. Together with her husband, Franz von Benda-Beckmann, she conducted research in Indonesia for more than 40 years, inspiring and laying the foundation for many Indonesian legal scholars to conduct research in legal anthropology and socio-legal studies. The Benda-Beckmann's works have become key references for legal anthropologists, proponents of legal pluralism, and socio-legal scholar around the world, to the extent that their theories and methodologies—particularly those related to the concept of legal …

Civil Servant Disobedience: An Alternative Legal Strategy To Prevent Bureaucratic Pathology, Richo Andi Wibowo

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This paper seeks to provide conceptual and empirical justifications for civil servants to engage in disobedience to curb bureaucratic pathology. Various civil servants have long complained that they face illegal instructions from their superiors. The cases discussed here are from public procurement, which has a dimension of political corruption, a recurring problem in many places in Indonesia. Thus, the problem shall be seen as a bureaucratic pathology rather than as maladministration. As the reporting of superiors to legal enforcers may be too risky, the disobedience can be accomplished by refusing to cooperate with superiors who give illegal instructions. The term …

Transforming The World With Reparations, Ingrid Wuerth Brunk, Monica Hakimi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This special issue of the American Journal of International Law—devoted entirely to reparations in international law—offers a range of perspectives on reparations for large-scale harms relating to colonialism, slavery, industrialization, and transboundary pollution. As the symposium authors describe, the gap between the reparations that justice might demand and the ones that international law provides is enormous. The international law for reparations does not come close to remedying such harms and is not poised to do so anytime soon.

Is There Life In The Ruins? A Look At Post-Sveen Contract Clause Jurisprudence, James W. Ely, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Seven years ago, in Sveen v. Melin, the Supreme Court applied the prevailing multipart test and rejected a contract clause claim. The result was hardly a surprise. The Court has not invoked the contract clause to invalidate a state law in more than forty years. The decision broke no new ground and seemingly signaled that the Court was content with the current multipart test, one that appears calculated to uphold state regulatory authority rather than vindi- cate the rights of contracting parties. Justice Neil Gorsuch force- fully dissented in Sveen, insisting that the multifactor test "seems hard to square with …

Do Representative Payments Matter?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Colton Cronin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For many decades, courts have awarded the representative plaintiffs who bring class actions an extra payment when the actions recover something for the class. It has long been thought that the payments are necessary to induce a class member to step forward and serve as a representative, and, without them, many class actions would go away. Indeed, we show that the payments had become all but ubiquitous in non-securities class actions. In 2020, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit became the only circuit to hold the payments unlawful. We test whether the Eleventh Circuit's decision …

Reimagining U.S. Tort Law For Deepfake Harms: Comparative Insights From China And Singapore, Huijuan Peng, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Article explores how U.S. tort law can respond more effectively to the distinct harms posed by deepfakes, including reputational injury, identity appropriation, and emotional distress. Traditional tort doctrines, such as defamation, the right of publicity, and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED), remain fragmented and ill-suited to the speed, scale, and anonymity of deepfake dissemination. Using a comparative functionalist approach, the Article analyzes how China and Singapore respond to deepfake harms through structurally divergent but functionally instructive frameworks. China’s model combines codified personality rights with intermediary obligations under a civil law regime, while Singapore adopts a hybrid approach that …

The Regulatory Challenges Raised By The Evolution From Open Banking To Banking-As-A-Service, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In May 2024, a company in California suddenly made headlines across the financial press. Synapse Financial Technologies, once hailed as a pioneer in the next wave of financial innovation, filed for bankruptcy. The company had promised to revolutionize banking by providing “Banking-as-a-Service” (BaaS): an invisible layer of technology that allowed apps to plug directly into the financial system.

A Settlement By “Any Other Name”: Evaluating The Sustainability Of Settlement Mechanisms, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Private settlements have been consistently encouraged by the Singapore civil justice system. Depending on the context, the settlement may take on many forms, including consent orders and settlement agreements. This begs the question of whether the exact form of settlement matters, or whether a settlement “by any other name” suffices. This article proposes the concept of “sustainable settlements” – comprising the measures of ease of enforcement, finality, and confidentiality – to holistically appraise the effectiveness of settlement mechanisms. The assessment of six settlement mechanisms using these measures clearly indicates that not every mechanism is equally sustainable. Exploring settlement amidst the …

Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Journal, Volume 14, William & Mary Law School

Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Journal

Gideon Kanner Remembrance

September 12-13, 2024

Restructuring Property: A Tribute to Lee Fennell

Background Principles, General Law, & Constitutional Property

Roundtable: Unfinished Business & Emerging Issues

Property Rights and Housing In Crisis

Government Trespass: The Fourth Amendment "Open Fields" Doctrine Turns 100

Editorial Foreword Ijsls Volume 4 Number 2, Sulistyowati Irianto

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This edition features a variety of articles on legal issues and policies, and their implementation. These articles enrich interdisciplinary legal studies. Topics covered include inheritance governance in Malaysia, the institutionalised mediation of family legal matters in Bangladesh, the strategies employed by female heads of households in Indonesia to survive through self-organisation, the collapse of democracy in Indonesia after 38 years of reform, and the country's role as a transit point or destination for refugees and the problems this poses.

Pizarro V. State Of Nevada, 141 Nev. Adv. Op. 44 (Sept. 18, 2025), Charnel Gibson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

CLARIFYING THE STANDARD AND BURDEN OF PROOF FOR ADMISSION TO NEVADA’S GAMBLER’S DIVERSION COURT UNDER NRS 458A.220; THE NEVADA SUPREME COURT HELD THE DISTRICT COURT DETERMINES A DEFENDANT’S ADMISSION INTO GAMBLER’S DIVERSION COURT AND HAS WIDE DISCRETION IN MAKING THIS FINDING. FURTHER, IT IS THE DEFENDANT WHO BEARS THE BURDEN OF PROVING ELIGIBILITY FOR PLACEMENT INTO THE SPECIALTY COURT.

Trump Epa’S Proposed Revocation Of Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding Raises Tangle Of Legal Issues, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

On July 29, 2025, at an auto dealership in Indiana, Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced a proposal to withdraw the Endangerment Finding for greenhouse gases (GHGs), which has been EPA’s legal basis for using the Clean Air Act to fight climate change. This action, which will surely be fought in court once it becomes final, raises a host of legal issues. This article discusses the legal basis for and significance of the Endangerment Finding; Zeldin’s principal arguments for revoking it, and challenges that will be raised to them; the range of possible outcomes in …

Dean’S Report: Detroit Mercy Dental - Dental Schools — Safeguarding The Future Of Oral Health, Mert N. Aksu Dds, Jd, Mhsa, Cert. Dph

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This report from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry highlights its mission to prepare students as clinicians, leaders, and advocates for public health and equitable access to care, emphasizing evidence-based practices and community service. It addresses critical public health measures like community water fluoridation and HPV vaccination, advocating for policies that protect oral health. The report notes concerns over proposed Michigan Medicaid dental program changes that could burden dental schools with increased uncompensated and emergency care. Initiatives to meet workforce needs include the new Detroit Mercy Dental Vermont Track and community-based education programs, which provided care to over …

Mmu: 09/01/25–09/07/25, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

Saint of the Week

General Announcements

Law Library Blog (September 2025): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Stakeholder Views On Lessons Learned For The Antimicrobial Resistance Panel From Previous International Science Panels [Version 1], Iruka N. Okeke, Ayodele A. Akinyele, Javier Guzman, Kevin Outterson

Faculty Scholarship

The United Nations General Assembly called in September 2024 for the establishment of an independent panel for actionable evidence against antimicrobial resistance (IPEA). The task of designing the panel was given to the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat (QJS) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) with a delivery timeline of 15 months. To promote stakeholder thought and input around what this panel should look like and how it should work, which could feed into the QJS’s consultation process, we independently commissioned seven papers to examine lessons that could be learned from other high-level scientific panels. We then called a convening of stakeholders that were …

Mitigating Firearm Suicide With Trusted Messengers In Health Care, Michael Ulrich, Cassandra Devaney

Faculty Scholarship

Voluntary firearm safety actions avoid Second Amendment scrutiny, but rely on individuals recognizing their own risks. This could be aided by a network of healthcare professionals that have received proper training and information about all available tools to help prevent firearm-related suicide attempts, and combining the trust of clinicians and firearm owners could represent an opportunity to inform and educate in a manner that will engage patients.

Amicus In Trump V. Cook: The Fed, Offices As Property, And The Meaning Of “Cause”, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Reserve Act states that “each member shall hold office for a term of fourteen years from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the President.” 12 U.S.C. § 242. Based on the historical record, when Congress creates an office with a fixed term of years and protects against removal without “cause,” Congress has both granted “a constitutionally protected property interest” under the Fifth Amendment (that cannot be taken away without “due process”) and extended a statutory entitlement to receive fair notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond before any removal may …

Organizing For Abolition In Ice Custody, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

The final Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) detainees were released from the Irwin County Detention Center in early September 2021.² A court did not order the end of ICE detention at Irwin. A social movement, led by people detained at Irwin, had a pronounced impact on the epistemological landscape and changed both normative principles and public opinion.³ Those detained at Irwin organized and acted to create new understanding of law and protect their rights in ways that courts and legislatures could not. This Essay tells the story of that demosprudential project; a dialectic between legal elites and people …

Categorial Declinations & Democracy, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

The most contentious action taken by reform prosecutors has been the issuance of categorical declination policies. Opponents decry this as bureaucratic nullification of democratically enacted offenses, while the prosecutors themselves counter that they are responding to the will of their local electorate. Democracy claims, it appears, have taken center stage in this debate, and they are deployed by both sides. How should we think about democracy and categorical declinations? The most comprehensive scholarly work on this subject is a 2021 article by Professor Kerrel Murray. In this essay, I hope to continue the work begun by Murray, offering additional insights …

Against Activist Cooperation Agreements, Jennifer O'Hare

Faculty Publications

Shareholder activism is at record levels. In a typical campaign, the activist threatens to launch a proxy fight unless the board of directors agrees to take certain actions to increase shareholder value, such as selling off company assets or replacing the CEO. Increasingly, however, there are no proxy fights. Instead, the activist and the board, behind closed doors, quickly agree to settle. The activist withdraws the proxy fight threat, and, in return, the board appoints individuals designated by the activist to sit on the company board. This "Cooperation Agreement" allows the incumbent di- rectors to keep their positions and allows …

Stand-In Standing, Matthew I. Hall

Scholarly Works

When the interests of a state, or of the federal government, are at issue in a lawsuit, those interests are typically represented by the Executive branch. But not always: The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that states, and the federal government, may delegate their claims to non-governmental litigants in some circumstances. But the Court has never defined the exact boundaries of when stand-in standing is permitted. And states have recently begun to exploit this doctrinal uncertainty, by enacting laws that are arguably, and in some cases flagrantly, unconstitutional, but outsourcing the enforcement of those laws to private individuals. The avowed …

Government Vicarious Liability And The Concept Of Deemed Equality With Private Persons, Gary K. Y. Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The immunity against Crown liability was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1948 based on the Diceyan notion of rule of law and deemed equality under the law between public officials and private persons. This paper analyses government vicarious liability in respect of the acts and omissions of public officers under the Singapore Government Proceedings Act with reference to the concept of deemed equality. We will discuss the scope of the statute in light of recent common law developments in vicarious liability, statutory exceptions to government vicarious liability that may be justified by the functions of the government in the …

Death Penalty For Drug Offenders In Southeast Asia: Weakening Of Resistance To Change?, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Although the global movement towards abolition of the death penalty has been supported by an increasing number of countries in the world, the number of persons executed for drug offences actually increased in the last few years. Known executions for drug offences now account for more than 40 per cent of all global executions. Most such executions take place in Asia. Of the 34 countries in the world that still retain the death penalty for drug offenders, all nine of those identified as “high application states” (China, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Vietnam) are found …

(When) Can Trade Wars Be Good?, Henry S. Gao, Weihuan Zhou

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

‘Trade wars are good, and easy to win,’ tweeted Donald Trump in 2018. The US–China trade war that followed proved otherwise – especially when confronting a major economic power. Yet, can trade wars ever be good? While the academic consensus holds they harm all participants, we argue that under certain circumstances they can produce positive outcomes. Set against the backdrop of the Liberation Day tariffs announced on April 2, 2025, this paper examines the limits of the Ricardian free trade model underpinning the current multilateral trading system, identifies when trade wars may serve strategic goals, and explores alternative rules to …

Bridging The Great Wall: China’S Evolving Cross-Border Data Flow Policies And Implications For Global Data Governance, Sheng Zhang, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Despite the rapid expansion of the digital economy, the global regulatory framework for data flows remains fragmented, with countries adopting divergent approaches shaped by their own regulatory priorities. As a key player in the Internet economy, China’s approach to cross-border data flows (CBDF) not only defines its domestic digital landscape but also influences emerging global norms. This paper takes a comprehensive view of the evolution of China’s CBDF regime, examining its development through both domestic and international lenses. Domestically, China’s regulation of CBDF has evolved from a security-first approach to one that seeks to balance security with economic development. This …

How To Strengthen The International Competitiveness Of Capital Markets, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global capital markets are undergoing profound transformation. Over the past decade, there has been a marked decline in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in most advanced economies, including those with highly developed capital markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Interestingly, during the same period, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and particularly China have witnessed a significant increase in the number of listed companies, contributing to making Asia home to approximately 55 percent of all listed companies worldwide (OECD, 2025). Much of the decline in IPO activity in many advanced economies can be attributed to the expansion of …

Strengthening The International Competitiveness Of Capital Markets: Global Insights And Local Strategies, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global capital markets are undergoing a profound transformation. Over the past decade, there has been a marked decline in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in most advanced economies, including those with highly developed capital markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Interestingly, during the same period, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and particularly China, have witnessed a significant increase in the number of listed companies, contributing to making Asia home to approximately 55% of all listed companies worldwide. The decline in IPO activity has prompted many countries and regions around the world, including the United Kingdom, the United …

A Commitment Rule For Insolvency Forum: A Response To Critics, Anthony J. Casey, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez, Robert K. Rasmussen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

On September 14, 2023, we sent a letter to the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) Working Group V (Insolvency) expressing our concern about the concept of “Center of Main Interest” (“COMI”) adopted in the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (“Model Law”).1 We noted that the concept of COMI presents various weaknesses.

Fichte’S Conception Of Law And Its Foundations, Mahmoud Saraya

Theses and Dissertations

The question concerning the true nature of law has frequently arisen throughout the history of philosophy, and many different answers have been given to it. This thesis examines Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right (1796–1797), which exemplifies an approach to understanding the nature of law by inquiring into its metaphysical foundations. Fichte provides a conception of law founded upon the possibility of the existence of an external world, individuality, and intersubjectivity. Law, as a moment of human self-consciousness, becomes a necessity, a condition of self-consciousness, and the ultimate foundation of human existence. Fichte’s theory shows the preconditions for establishing …