Digital Commons Network^™

Manhattan The Vast Wasteland Revisited, Cass R. Sunstein

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No abstract provided.

Parenthood Divided: A Legal History Of The Bifurcated Law Of Parental Relations, Jill Elaine Hasday

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No abstract provided.

Ethics, Race, And Reform, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

The Value Of Rational Nature, Donald H. Regan

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Kant tells us in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that rational nature is an end in itself; that it is the only thing which is unconditionally valuable; and that it is the ultimate condition of all value.1 A striking trend in recent Kant scholarship is to regard these value claims, rather than the formalism of universalizability, as the ultimate foundation of Kant’s theory.2 But does rational nature as Kant conceives it deserve such veneration? Can it really carry the world of value on its shoulders? I think not. As will become clear, I do not doubt the value …

A Very Brief Primer On Bayesian Methods In Evidence, Richard D. Friedman

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I have been asked to write an extremely short explanation of the Bayesian approach to evidentiary issues, for the benefit of those who regard themselves as probabilistically challenged. Although the application of Bayesian probability to evidence has generated a good deal of debate, its use as a heuristic device should not be particularly controversial. Evidence concerns propositions that are uncertain. Accordingly, some concept of probability must play a role. Standards of persuasion, such as "more likely than not" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" are clearly probabilistic, and the definition of relevant evidence, as expressed in Fed. R. Evid. 40 I, …

Default Rules In Sales And The Myth Of Contracting Out, James J. White

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In this article, I trace the dispute in the courts and before the ALI and NCCUSL over the proper contract formation and interpretation default rules. In Part II, I consider the Gateway litigation. In Part III, I deal with UCITA and the revision to Article 2. In Part IV, I consider the merits of the competing default rules.

Who Cares?, Adam C. Pritchard

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Jim Cox and Randall Thomas have identified an interesting phenomenon in their contribution to this symposium: institutional investors seem to be systematically "leaving money on the table" in securities fraud class actions. For someone who approaches legal questions from an economic perspective, the initial response to this claim is disbelief. As the joke goes, economists do not bend over to pick up twenty-dollar bills on the street. The economist knows that the twenty dollars must be an illusion. In a world of rational actors, someone else already would have picked up that twenty-dollar bill, so the effort spent bending over …

Characterization Of An Acyl-Coa Thioesterase That Functions As A Major Regulator Of Peroxisomal Lipid Metabolism, Mary Hunt, Karianne Solaas, Bengt F. Kase, Stefan E H Alexson

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Peroxisomes function in b-oxidation of very long- and long-chain fatty acids, dicarboxylic fatty acids, bile acid intermediates, prostaglandins, leukotrienes, thromboxanes, pristanic acid and xenobiotic carboxylic acids. These lipids are mainly chain-shortened for excretion as the carboxylic acids or transported to mitochondria for further metabolism. Several of these carboxylic acids are slowly oxidized and may therefore sequester coenzyme A (CoASH). To prevent CoASH sequestration and to facilitate excretion of chain-shortened carboxylic acids, acyl-CoA thioesterases, which catalyze the hydrolysis of acyl-CoAs to the free acid and CoASH, may play important roles. We have here cloned and characterized a peroxisomal acyl-CoA thioesterase from …

The Established And Potential Mediating Variables In The Child's Understanding Of Advertising Intent: Towards A Research Agenda, Margaret-Anne Lawlor, Andrea Prothero

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This paper aims to explore in detail the issue of advertising intent, with particular reference to the child. The literature review examines the importance of age, and cognitive and social development in this field, and considers whether or not children can distinguish between television programming and advertising. What the literature review illustrates is that research studies thus far have conflicting viewpoints on these areas. Within the research to date, there are also a number of important issues which do not seem to be addressed. Most notably, there is little research which considers the impact of advertising upon children, from the …

Community Prosecutors, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

What's Special About Meditation? Contemplative Practice For American Lawyers, William S. Blatt

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No abstract provided.

Property In Writing, Property On The Ground: Pigs, Horses, Land, And Citizenship In The Aftermath Of Slavery, Cuba, 1880-1909, Rebecca J. Scott, Michael Zeuske

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In the most literal sense, the abolition of slavery marks the moment when one human being cannot be held as property by another human being, for it ends the juridical conceit of a "person with a price." At the same time, the aftermath of emancipation forcibly reminds us that property as a concept rests on relations among human beings, not just between people and things. The end of slavery finds former masters losing possession of persons, and former slaves acquiring it. But it also finds other resources being claimed and contested, including land, tools, and animals-resources that have shaped former …

Probability And Statistics In The Legal Curriculum: A Case Study In Disciplinary Aspects Of Interdisciplinarity, Michael Townsend

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This Article considers interdisciplinarity and the legal curriculum in the context of probability and statistics. Section D of Part II begins the discussion by sketching some multidisciplinary, pluridisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Part III is the workhorse of this Article. The particular example used here is the well-known jury discrimination case of Castaneda v. Partida as described in Section A. This "case study" provides the basis for a crossdisciplinary experience that offers students an opportunity to think about law as a discipline. It is difficult for students to step back and look at law as a discipline when there is …

Defeating Environmental Law: The Geology Of Legal Advantage, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My talk today will: (1) introduce the metaphor of geology, (2) suggest to you that complexity has "gainers" as well as "losers," and (3) show you how environmental laws can be defeated by these twin engines of complexity and clever human adversaries.

[Third Annual Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture on Environmental Law, Pace University School of Law.]

Growth And Form: Indian Tribes, Terrorism, And The Durability Of Environmental Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My target audience is the body of extraordinary law students here at the Vermont Law School who will define the shape and direction of tomorrow's environmental law. My plan is to derive five virtues of significant achievement—genius, high-leveraging, symbolism, optimism, and courage—and to convince you that the Indian tribes of the United States are fortuitously blessed with these capacities for positive change.

I am obliged to defend my five virtues against the charge that they are "gray" virtues, mere tactics of opportunity open to use by the forces of hatred and destruction as freely as those of nurturing and protection. …

Lesbigay Identity As Commodity, David M. Skover, Kellye Y. Testy

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This Essay explores the deep dissonance that exists today between the validation of American LesBiGays in the commercial marketplace and their devaluation in political and legal arenas, and questions the failure of legal scholars and civil rights activists to account meaningfully for this dissonance in their theories and practices. I

n America's popular culture, LesBiGay identities abound. In its political culture, however, they emerge more tentatively. The commercial and entertainment industries increasingly commodify and celebrate LesBiGay identities. The courts and legislatures generally discount and condemn them. Thus, there is a deep dissonance between the validation of LesBiGay identities in the …

Linking Progressive Corporate Law With Progressive Social Movements, Kellye Y. Testy

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Professor Testy critically assesses what has been termed a "new" corporate social responsibility project After noting the hegemony of shareholder primacy in corporate law, she critiques four major counter-hegemonic discourses: team production theory, corporate social accountabiity, stakeholder theory, and corporate social responsibility (or progressive corporate law). Finding the first three ineffective foils for the problems of corporate power that have spurred calls for reform, she turns to an examination of the progressive corporate law project. That project, presently poised at a defining juncture as it attempts to use the "master's tools" to "dismantle the master's house," nonetheless holds promise for …

Economic Rationality, Empathy, And Corporate Responsibility, Jeanne L. Schroeder

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Judge Richard A. Posner - the doyen of the law and economics movement - is probably the leading proponent of the hypothesis that legal subjects act as if they were economically rational. Over the years, however, Posner's conception of rationality has devolved from end-means reasoning by a conscious individual human actor, to unconscious instinct which is, nevertheless, beneficial to an individual subject (animal or human) to the mechanistic reproductive activity of individual genes which may or may not be beneficial to either the organism of which the gene is a part - or even to the gene itself. Indeed, all …

Street Crime, Corporate Crime, And Theories Of Punishment: A Response To Brown, Kyron J. Huigens

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In this response to Darryl Brown's important article, Street Crime, Corporate Crime, and the Contingency of Criminal Liability, Professor Huigens argues that Brown has chosen the wrong theory of punishment on which to rest his case for a more regulatory, less punitive, approach to street crime. Brown has chosen the best, most sophisticated consequentialist theory of punishment, as developed principally by Dan Kahan. However, consequentialist punishment theory of any kind has a significant drawback: it has no plausible conception of criminal fault. As a result, Brown is constrained to argue that the language of desert and retribution should be muted …

The Future Of The Forestry Sector In Ireland, Siobhan Mccarthy

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The most recent government strategy statement on forestry sets a planting target of 20,000 hectares annually for the Republic of Ireland, but in recent years this target has not been met. Public afforestation is now limited to the management and replacement of existing forests, so private afforestation must increase if this target is to be achieved. This article quantifies the relative importance of competing forestry and agricultural policy incentives in explaining trends in private afforestation. Several policy reforms to encourage forestry planting are proposed, including greater integration of forestry with the Rural Environment Protection Scheme and increasing the upfront payments …

On The Choice Between The Stocking Rate And Time In Range Management, Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Basudeb Biswas, E. Bruce Godfrey

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A long standing question in range management concerns the relative importance of the stocking rate versus the length of time during which animals graze a particular rangeland. We address this question by analyzing the problem faced by a private rancher who wishes to minimize the long run expected net unit cost (LRENC) from range operations by choosing either the stock rate or the length of time during which his animals graze his rangeland. We construct a renewal-theoretic model and show that, in general, this rancher's LRENC with an optimally chosen stocking rate is lower than his LRENC with an optimally …

The Symbiosis Of Constitutionalism And Technology, John O. Mcginnis

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Technology does not change the essential problems that constitutionalism seeks to address because these problems are rooted in the enduring nature of man. Technological change, however, can transform man's environment. A different environment, in turn, may require substantially modified forms of constitutionalism even if the underlying objectives remain constant. As the great political philosopher Edmund Burke recognized, the key to sound structures of governance in every age and place is to understand the intersection of man's enduring nature with his particular circumstances. Because technology increasingly shapes the circumstances of modem man, technology is becoming progressively more important to constitutionalism.

Representational Standing: U.S. Ex Rel. Stevens And The Future Of Public Law Litigation, Myriam E. Gilles

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In May 2000, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. U.S. ex rel. Stevens, a seemingly predictable 11th Amendment case. In upholding the plaintiff's Article III standing to bring that case, however, the Court suggested a theory of "representational standing" that holds the potential to radically transform the entire body of law governing the ability of private citizens to seek, through the federal courts, the vindication of broadly-held public interests.

Over the past 30 years, the Court's increasingly restrictive standing jurisprudence has effectively precluded private citizens from playing a meaningful role in public …

Economics V. Equity Ii: The European Experience, Stephen M. Johnson

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Lawmakers in the European Union and its member states, like their counterparts in the United States, increasingly are using economic tools to protect the environment while reducing their focus on command and control regulation. The reliance on economic approaches to environmental protection may disproportionately impact low income and minority communities. Although evidence of environmental injustice in Europe is not as strong as in the United States, several recent studies demonstrate that traditional environmental protection measures in Europe have disproportionately funneled pollution to low income communities. Economic-based environmental measures can only exacerbate that trend.

Private Plaintiffs, Public Rights: Article Ii And Environmental Citizen Suits, Stephen M. Johnson

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This Article will focus on the Take Care Clause of Article II, the most serious of the Article II challenges to the environmental citizen suit provisions. Justice Scalia and legal commentators have argued that Article II prohibits a citizen from suing to enforce federal laws unless the citizen has suffered a concrete and personal ("individuated") injury as a result of the action that he is challenging. Professor Cass Sunstein and others have dissented, and have suggested that Congress can authorize citizens to sue to enforce federal laws even when the citizens have not suffered individuated injuries.

The first Part of …

Interpretive Communities: The Missing Element In Statutory Interpretation, William S. Blatt

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No abstract provided.

Application Of Digital Image Processing To Marker-Free Analysis Of Human Gait, Jane Courtney, David Burke, Annraoi Depaor

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The standard method of human gait analysis in use in gait laboratories today invariably involves marker-based motion tracking systems. Although somewhat effective, these methods require accurate placement of awkward external markers. We report on an enhanced approach being researched and developed at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, Dublin based on marker-free motion tracking incorporating advanced digital image processing techniques.

Intellectual Property: Old Boundaries And New Frontiers, Richard A. Epstein

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No abstract provided.

Life In No Trump: Property And Speech Under The Constitution, Richard A. Epstein

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No abstract provided.

Law And The Emotions, Eric A. Posner

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No abstract provided.