Digital Commons Network^™

A Law And Economics Perspective On Terrorism, Francesco Parisi, Nuno Garoupa, Jonathan Klick

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This paper reviews the existing law and economics literature on crime, noting where various models might apply to the terror context. Specifically, it focuses on two strands of the literature, deterrence and incapacitation. It considers anti-terror measures enacted by different countries, highlighting how the details of the laws correspond to the insights from economic models of crime. In conclusion, the paper proposes an efficient sorting mechanism in which individuals will be provided with incentives to reveal their type to law enforcement authorities.

Land Use And Housing Policies To Reduce Concentrated Poverty And Racial Segregation, Myron Orfield

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No abstract provided.

The Regulatory Void Of Contingent Work, Stephen F. Befort

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No abstract provided.

Political Violence And Gender In Times Of Transition, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

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At the heart of transitional justice discourse is an ongoing conversation about accountability for human rights violations that occur in a context of regime repression or violent conflict. That accountability dialogue has generally been preoccupied with attempts to define the forms of political violence that should be addressed by various formal and informal mechanisms, such as trials and other truth-seeking processes. This Article will examine the multiple ways in which transitional justice processes have conceptualized political violence, and how that maps onto a gendered understanding of violence experiences and accountability mechanisms in a transitional context.

When Quitting Is Fitting: The Need For A Reformulated Sexual Harassment/Constructive Discharge Standard In The Wake Of Pennsylvania State Police V. Suders, Stephen F. Befort, Sarah J. Gorajski

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The legal landscape with respect to constructive discharges resulting from sexually harassing conduct has been mired in confusion for the past two decades. Courts generally have applied a multi-step analysis that requires plaintiffs to establish both the existence of severe or pervasive sexual harassment as well as additional aggravating factors warranting an employee's resignation. The courts, however, have had a difficult time in defining the contours of the separate harassment and constructive discharge tests. The Supreme Court has weighed in on several occasions, but rather than opt for clarity, the Court has created new tests and new terminology that have …

Modern Public Trust Principles: Recognizing Rights And Integrating Standards, Alexandra B. Klass

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The public trust doctrine has a long history from its beginnings as an obligation on states to hold lands submerged under navigable waters in trust for the public, to its resurgence in the 1970s as a protector of natural resources, to its influence on state statutory and constitutional law as the public embraced environmental protection principles. However, many have argued that the public trust doctrine has not lived up to its potential as a major player in environmental and natural resources law. This article proposes a new framework for the public trust doctrine as a state tool for environmental protection …

Foreword: Daimlerchrysler V. Cuno, Daimlerchrysler V. Cuno And The Constitutionality Of State Tax Incentives For Economic Development, Kristin E. Hickman, Sarah L. Bunce

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In 2004, in Cuno v. DaimlerChrysler, Inc., 386 F.3d 738 (6th Cir. 2004), the Sixth Circuit invalidated the Ohio investment tax credit on dormant Commerce Clause grounds while upholding a property tax waiver by the City of Toledo and local school boards against a similar challenge. The Supreme Court granted DaimlerChrysler's petition for certiorari on the Ohio investment tax credit issue only while ordering the parties to brief whether the Cuno plaintiffs have standing to sustain their challenge. The Cuno plaintiffs' petition for certiorari on the property tax waiver issue remains pending. On October 7, 2005, scholars and other experts …

The Role Of Status Quo Bias And Bayesian Learning In The Creation Of New Legal Rights, Francesco Parisi, Robert L. Scharff

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We consider the role of status quo bias and Bayesian learning on the creation of new legal rights utilizing a model of legal evolution in which judges have limited discretion to create new precedent based on personal values, but, in the long run, are constrained by efficiency criteria. Our model demonstrates that status quo bias may effectively transform an ex ante inefficient rule into an ex post efficient rule. Because these legal rights are internalized over time through a process of Bayesian learning, new precedent is vulnerable to reversal until the new right has been sufficiently recognized and accepted.

International Customary Law And Articulation Theories: An Economic Analysis, Francesco Parisi, Vincy Fon

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No abstract provided.

Institutional Review Boards, Regulatory Incentives, And Some Modest Proposals For Reform, Dale Carpenter

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It is time to rethink the role of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) in approving social science research. While most law professors conduct their research in an almost unregulated environment - pouring through cases, statutes, and each other's articles, all without the kind of human interaction subject to IRB regulation - their colleagues elsewhere in the university have been coping for decades with an increasingly intrusive bureaucracy that sometimes undermines basic academic values. Three things seem very clear. First, there are a lot of IRBs - at least 4,000 - and their numbers are growing. Second, they have recently "increased their …

Quit The Sticks In 2006, Wendy Dimatteo

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No abstract provided.

Twisted Solenoids And Maps Of R2 Whose Minimal Sets Are Cantor Sets, William Basener, Carl V. Lutzer

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We construct homeomorphisms of R2 that have a Cantor set which is a minimal set. Some of these homeomorphisms are proven to be C^(infinity), while the others are conjectured to be nondifferentiable (Refer to PDF file for exact formulas).

Xbrl: Origins, Implementation And Acceptance, Phillip Kloeden

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A brief overview of the origins of modern accounting are examined with it’s genesis in the Italian Renaissance. During this time period, trade and commerce expanded and new methods for tracking and recording transactions became necessary. Double entry bookkeeping was first documented by Luca Pacioli in 1458. Innovative Italian merchants and scholars of this time period have become known as the fathers of modern accounting. eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is currently the revolutionizing concept in the modern accounting world. Originally, known as Extensible Financial Reporting Markup Language (XFRML) in 1998, it was a prototype language created by the early …

Deaf People And World War Ii, Patricia Durr

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Newsletter article and website about deaf people and World War II. The website is the result of several years of gathering materials about Deaf people’s experiences related to World War II for Deaf Studies courses taught at NTID/RIT. The site focuses on three spheres of the world involved in this conflict. Deaf Americans, Deaf Europeans, and Deaf Asians people’s lives are examined before, during and after the war. It also features videotape clips and full testimonies, articles, scripts, artwork, books and links to other related sites.

Can I Tell?, Bruce Pemberton

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No abstract provided.

Xbrl In The Accounting Curriculum: A Survey Of Ais Faculty, Ashutosh Deshmukh, Khondkar Karim, Jeffrey Romine, Robert W. Rutledge

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The purpose of this paper is to assess the challenges and opportunities associated with introducing XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) into the accounting curricula. XBRL is an electronic format for simplifying the flow of financial information between software programs. It is a complex, rapidly changing language that is multi-disciplinary in nature. This poses difficult pedagogical questions. The primary question is whether XBRL should be covered in the curriculum or not. If answered affirmatively, the issues related to which topics should be covered and to what extent become pertinent. The concurrent problems of faculty preparation and availability of instructional materials also …

The Need For Mead: Rejecting Tax Exceptionalism In Judicial Deference, Kristin Hickman

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This Article takes the controversial position that Treasury regulations are entitled to judicial deference under the Chevron doctrine, as clarified by the Supreme Court in the more recent Mead case, whether those regulations are promulgated pursuant to specific authority delegated in a substantive provision of the Internal Revenue Code or in the exercise of general authority granted in Code Section 7805(a). The Article attributes the unwillingness to concede Chevron's applicability to tax exceptionalism, the erroneous perception of many scholars that tax is different from other areas of the law, which in the context of this Article translates into the idea …

How Did We Get Here Anyway?: Considering The Standing Question In Daimlerchrysler V. Cuno, Kristin Hickman

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n granting certiorari in the case of DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, the Supreme Court asked the parties to brief whether respondents have standing to challenge Ohio's investment tax credit. Looking at the posture of the case, this essay argues that the Supreme Court is likely sending a signal that it hopes to overturn the Sixth Circuit decision on standing grounds and avoid the more difficult question of whether the tax credit is unconstitutional based on the dormant Commerce Clause. This essay applies modern standing doctrine to the Cuno case and concludes that the Cuno plaintiffs do not have standing to …

Domestic Violence Matters: The Case For Appointed Counsel In Protective Order Proceedings, Beverly Balos

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A conventional reading of United States Supreme Court rulings on the right to counsel in civil cases would conclude that petitioners in protective order proceedings would have no right to appointed counsel. This article challenges this view and shows how Supreme Court jurisprudence, in fact, supports the conclusion that due process requires victims of domestic violence to have the benefit of appointed counsel.

Unanimously Wrong, Dale Carpenter

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The Supreme Court was unanimously wrong in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Though rare, it's not the first time the Court has been unanimously wrong. Its most notorious such decisions have come, like FAIR, in cases where the Court conspicuously failed even to appreciate the importance of the constitutional freedoms under attack from legislative majorities. In these cases, the Court's very rhetoric exposed its myopic vision in ways that now seem embarrassing. Does FAIR, so obviously correct to so many people right now, await the same ignominy decades away? FAIR was wrong in tone, a dismissive vox populi, adopted by a Court …

A Cognitive Theory Of Trust, Claire Hill, Erin O'Hara O'Connor

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Interpersonal trust is currently receiving widespread attention in the academy. Many legal scholars incorrectly assume that interpersonal trust is an unmitigated good (or bad) and that legal policy should therefore be crafted to maximize (or minimize) trust. A more nuanced understanding of trust indicates instead that it should be promoted or discouraged, depending on the context. Such an understanding needs to reflect the fact that trust and distrust can, and often do, coexist. In most relationships, the parties trust one another with regard to some matters and yet distrust one another with regard to other matters. More specifically, developing a …

Diverging Perspectives On Electronic Contracting In The U.S. And Eu, Jane K. Winn, Brian H. Bix

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Electronic Contracting - understood broadly to include both the Internet downloading of free or purchased software and the use of rolling contracts (shrink-wrap or terms in the box) in the sale of computers or the lease of software - has raised problems, based in part on the novelty of the transactional forms, and in part on the now-standard issue of unread terms in standardized contracts. This article, part of a conference relating to the legal regulation of new property and new technologies, offers an overview of the distinctly different approaches to Electronic Contracting of the U.S. and the European Union. …

Robert Alexy, Radbruch's Formula, And The Nature Of Legal Theory, Brian H. Bix

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Gustav Radbruch is well known for a formula that addresses the conflict of positive law and justice, a formula discussed in the context of the consideration of Nazi laws by the courts in the post-War German Federal Republic, and East German laws in the post-unification German courts. More recently, Robert Alexy has defended a version of Radbruch's formula, offering arguments for it that are different from and more sophisticated than those that were adduced by Radbruch himself. Alexy also placed Radbruch's formula within a larger context of conceptual analysis and theories about the nature of law. Both Radbruch and Alexy …

Extraordinary Rendition: A Human Rights Analysis, David Weissbrodt, Amy Bergquist

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This article describes extraordinary rendition, the practice of seizing terror suspects and transporting them to third countries for detention and interrogation. The article examines this practice in light of several human rights instruments and demonstrates that extraordinary rendition violates international human rights and humanitarian law. The article is the first in a series of three articles by the co-authors to explore the practice of extraordinary rendition.

Forty Years Of Codification Of Estates And Trusts Law: Lessons For The Next Generation, Mary Louise Fellows, Gregory S. Alexander

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In this paper we develop two theses. First, we argue that uniform law proposals that ask courts and practitioners to abandon revered legal traditions and ways of thinking about estates and trusts, even when they are intent-furthering proposals, face resistance until in time the glories of the past and the risks of a new legal regime fade in importance in legal thought. Second, we argue that, especially within an environment in which states seek to gain competitive advantage over their counterparts in other states, the glories of the past and the risks of a new legal regime fade fastest when …

Extraordinary Rendition And The Torture Convention, David Weissbrodt, Amy Bergquist

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Extraordinary Rendition and the Convention Against Torture examines the U.S. policy of abducting terror suspects abroad and transferring them to third countries where they are likely to be subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The article notes that extraordinary rendition has evolved from a process by which persons were brought to the U.S. to stand trial, into a means of incapacitating suspects while keeping them out of reach of the U.S. legal system. Part I of this Article describes the Convention Against Torture and its provisions, and then examines the scope of the prohibition on torture under U.S. …

Usability Testing And Instruction Librarians: A Perfect Pair., Stephanie J. Graves, Margie D. Ruppel

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This study examines how librarians are experiencing usability testing and how their observations are influencing library instruction. A survey of instruction librarians illustrates how usability testing and library instruction are connected. Survey results prove instruction librarians are involved in usability testing. Furthermore, their participation in usability studies has led instruction librarians to alter their instructional methods. An overwhelming majority changed one or more instructional tools as a result of usability testing, and many reported creating new instructional resources. The authors add their own insights as both instruction librarians and participants in usability testing.

A Parent-Centered Radial Layout Algorithm For Interactive Graph Visualization And Animation, Andrew Pavlo, Christopher Homan, Jonathan Schull

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We have developed (1) a graph visualization system that allows users to explore graphs by viewing them as a succession of spanning trees selected interactively, (2) a radial graph layout algorithm, and (3) an animation algorithm that generates meaningful visualizations and smooth transitions between graphs while minimizing edge crossings during transitions and in static layouts. Our system is similar to the radial layout system of Yee et al. (2001), but differs primarily in that each node is positioned on a coordinate system centered on its own parent rather than on a single coordinate system for all nodes. Our system is …

Junking The Junk Science Law: Reforming The Information Quality Act, Stephen M. Johnson

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In addition, the law contributes to the ossification of rulemaking agencies; encourages agencies to make decisions informally through guidance documents and policies rather than rules; and encourages agencies to avoid using electronic dialogues and disseminating information to the public. This Article examines the problems created by the IQA suggests repeal of the law or some reforms to address those problems.

Part II of this Article examines the shift in environmental policymaking from command and control regulation to information disclosure programs and economic based programs. It also examines the strengths limitations of information disclosure programs. Part III reviews the and the …

Classifying E-Algebras Over Dedekind Domains, Brendan Goldsmith, R. Gobel

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An R-algebra A is said to be a generalized E-algebra if A is isomorphic to the algebra EndR(A). Generalized E-algebras have been extensively investigated. In this work they are classified ‘modulo cotorsion-free modules’ when the underlying ring R is a Dedekind domain.