Digital Commons Network^™

A Brief History Of Bioperl, Colin Crossman, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

Large-scale open-source projects face a litany of pitfalls and difficulties. Problems of contribution quality, credit for contributions, project coordination, funding, and mission-creep are ever-present. Of these, long-term funding and project coordination can interact to form a particularly difficult problem for open-source projects in an academic environment.

BioPerl was chosen as an example of a successful academic open-source project. Several of the roadblocks and hurdles encountered and overcome in the development of BioPerl are examined through the telling of the history of the project. Along the way, key points of open-source law are explained, such as license choice and copyright.

The …

Medical Malpractice And The Tort System In Illinois (Report To The Illinois State Bar Association, May 2005), Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

A report to the Illinois State Bar Association of a study examining the incidence, frequency, size of verdicts and other aspects of the medical malpractice system in Illinois. The study looked at statewide data where available, concentrating on Cook and DuPage counties, and Madison and St. Clair counties. The study concludes that the Illinois tort system does not appear to be the cause of the undisputed fact that doctors' liability insurance premiums showed dramatic rises.

Book Review, Just Trade, Joost H. B. Pauwelyn

Faculty Scholarship

Reviewing, Frank J. Garcia, Trade, Inequality and Justice: Toward a Liberal Theory of Just Trade (2003)

Proprietary Rights And Collective Action: The Case Of Biotechnology Research With Low Commercial Value, Arti K. Rai

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Sutherland Report: A Missed Opportunity For Genuine Debate On Trade, Globalization, And Reforming The Wto, Joost H. B. Pauwelyn

Faculty Scholarship

In January 2005, at the 10th anniversary of the organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued the long-awaited high-level panel report on The Future of the WTO. This essay explains why the so-called Sutherland Report, named after one of its authors, is likely to be regarded by history as a missed opportunity. The report was written by insiders, focuses on insider problems and offers what are essentially insider-based solutions. The essay addresses two specific foundational problems skirted in the Sutherland report: (i) the WTO's protectionist/producer bias and (ii) the question of coordination and coherence with other international organizations. It also …

Creating Markets For Ecosystem Services: Notes From The Field, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

Created by the interactions of living organisms with their environment, ecosystem services support our society in many critical ways, from providing clean air and water, decomposing waste, and pollinating flowers, to regulating climate, and pacifying floodwaters. Interest in ecosystem service markets has recently exploded, with a cover article in The Economist just a few months ago. Scholarship in the field, though, is still quite young. Despite their immense practical value, with rare exception, ecosystem services are neither prized by markets nor explicitly protected by the law. In recent years, an increasing number of initiatives around the world have sought to …

Precautionary Regulation In Europe And The United States: A Quantitative Comparison, Jonathan B. Wiener, James K. Hammitt, Brendon Swedlow, Denise Kall, Zheng Zhou

Faculty Scholarship

Much attention has been addressed to the question of whether Europe or the United States adopts a more precautionary stance to the regulation of potential environmental, health, and safety risks. Some commentators suggest that Europe is more risk-averse and precautionary, whereas the US is seen as more risk-taking and optimistic about the prospects for new technology. Others suggest that the US is more precautionary because its regulatory process is more legalistic and adversarial, while Europe is more lax and corporatist in its regulations. The flip-flop hypothesis claims that the US was more precautionary than Europe in the 1970s and early …

Book Review, Jonathan B. Wiener

Faculty Scholarship

Reviewing, Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking, 2005)

Introductory Report On The World Trade Organization, Joost H. B. Pauwelyn

Faculty Scholarship

Presented at Palma Workshop, 20-21 May 2005, on Unity and Fragmentation in International Law.

The Globalization Of Private Knowledge Goods And The Privatization Of Global Public Goods, Jerome H. Reichman, Keith H. Maskus

Faculty Scholarship

Global trade and investment have become increasingly liberalized in recent decades. This liberalization has lately been accompanied by substantive new requirements for strong minimum standards of intellectual property (IP) protection, which moves the world economy toward harmonized private rights in knowledge goods. While this trend may have beneficial impacts in terms of innovation and technology diffusion, such impacts would not be evenly distributed across countries. Deep questions also arise about whether such globalization of rights to information will raise roadblocks to the national and international provision of such public goods as environmental protection, public health, education, and scientific advance. This …

Exiting Treaties, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

This Article analyzes the under-explored phenomenon of unilateral exit from international agreements and intergovernmental organizations. Although clauses authorizing denunciation and withdrawal from treaties are pervasive, international legal scholars and international relations theorists have largely ignored them. This Article draws upon new empirical evidence to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework for understanding treaty exit. It examines when and why states abandon their treaty commitments and explains how exit helps to resolve certain theoretical and doctrinal puzzles that have long troubled scholars of international affairs.

Common-Law Disclosure Duties And The Sin Of Omission: Testing The Meta-Theories, Kimberly D. Krawiec, Kathryn Zeiler

Faculty Scholarship

Since ancient times, legal scholars have explored the vexing question of when and what a contracting party must disclose to her counterparty, even in the absence of explicit misleading statements. This fascination has culminated in a set of claims regarding which factors drive courts to impose disclosure duties on informed parties. Most of these claims are based on analysis of a small number of non-randomly selected cases and have not been tested systematically. This article represents the first attempt to systematically test a number of these claims using data coded from 466 case decisions spanning over a wide array of …

The Use Of Prebirth Parentage Orders In Surrogacy Proceedings, Mary P. Byrn, Steven H. Synder

Faculty Scholarship

Prebirth parentage orders are often sought by parties to surrogacy agreements to formalize the intent of the parties to the agreement before the child is born. Such orders declare the intended parents to be the legal parents of the child. This article discusses the benefits of such orders, as well as the difficulties in obtaining them. The availability and efficacy of prebirth parentage orders depends on many factors including the type of surrogacy arrangement, the state law that governs the proceeding, and whether the parties are in unanimous agreement. This article analyzes the various factors which impact whether obtaining a …

Reforming Child Protection: A Public Health Perspective, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Questioning The Rule Of Capture Metaphor For Nineteenth Century Public Land Law: A Look At R.S. 2477, James R. Rasband

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Permissible Scope Of Legal Limitations On The Freedom Of Religion Or Belief In The United States, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

This article summarizes the law of legal limitations on religious freedom in the UnitedStates, including sources and hierarchies of applicable law, structural limitations on religious freedom, grounds for limiting such freedom, an analytical description oflimitations, and background influences on limitations law, and applies this law to hypothetical situations.

Federal judicial decisions interpreting the Religion Clauses are the principal source oflimitations law in the United States. RLUIPA and RFRA, federal anti-discrimination statutes, and executive orders are other important sources of religious freedom law. State constitutions, statutes, and regulations are important sources law when federal sources are absent or inapplicable. International human …

Four Questions On Critical Race Praxis: Lessons From Two Young Lives In Indian Country, Christine Zuni Cruz

Faculty Scholarship

The Critical Race Lawyering Symposium in New York City brings me from Albuquerque, New Mexico. As I travel the day before the symposium, I reflect on the amount of time it will take. I leave Albuquerque at 8:23 a.m. and I am scheduled to arrive in New York City at 4:05 p.m., via Chicago. Given the two-hour time difference between the East Coast and the Rocky Mountain regions, I begin my day boarding the plane as the sun is rising in the morning sky and end it at my destination where the sun is setting. Even in this day and …

Representing Children In Families, Bruce A. Green, Annette R. Appell

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ingando Solidarity Camps: Reconciliation And Political Indoctrination In Post-Genocide Rwanda Note, Chi Adanna Mgbako

Faculty Scholarship

This Note, based primarily on interviews with ingando participants, government officials, journalists, and genocide survivors conducted in Rwanda in January 2004, evaluates the merits and limits of government-run ingando solidarity camps as a means of fostering reconciliation in the complicated social landscape of post-genocide Rwanda. Focusing on ingando for ex-combatants, ex-soldiers, students, and released genocidaires, this Note argues that much of the ingando project is focused on the dissemination of pro-RPF ideology, a dangerous undertaking in a country in which political indoctrination and government-controlled information were essential in sparking and sustaining the genocide. Furthermore, a successful reconciliation program must take …

Critical Race Feminism Empirical Research Project: Sexual Harassment & (And) The Internal Complaints Black Box, A Defining The Voices Of Critical Race Feminism, Tanya K. Hernandez

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I present a Critial Race Feminism (CRF) empirical sexual harassment project I recently conducted as a case study of how empirical research can be valuable to the future of CRF. Part I introduces the sexual harassment study and discusses the empirical questions it sought to explore. Part II then presents the empirical research design and the general trends that the data provided. Part III analyzes the key findings of the study and how it contributes to an understanding of how the application of sexual harassment law implicates race. The statistical analysis of survey responses from a group …

The Simplification Of International Data Privacy Rules, Joel R. Reidenberg

Faculty Scholarship

The variation and complexity of national data privacy rules pose significant challenges for international data flows. Data protection laws range from ad hoc narrow legal rights, like those found in the United States, to comprehensive fair information practice statutes like those found in Europe. Because data processing frequently occurs across national borders, multiple data protection laws might apply simultaneously to international data flows. At the same time, data protection regimes may prohibit the circumvention of national standards by processing personal information at a foreign site. Global information processing thus presents a data controller with important burdens and obstacles related to …

Decline And Fall Of Legislative History - Patterns Of Supreme Court Reliance In The Burger And Rehnquist Eras, The, James J. Brudney, Corey Distlear

Faculty Scholarship

Reliance on legislative history in the Court's majority opinions has fallen from nearly 50 percent during the Burger era to less than 30 percent since 1985.

Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Transformation Of World Trade, Joost H. B. Pauwelyn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Alchemy Of A Moral Discourse About The Biology Of Gender: Historical Sensitivity, Genetic Literacy, And The Will To Imagine A Different Equality, Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lawrence V. Texas And The Refinement Of Substantive Due Process, Matt Coles

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Culture Of Health Care: How Professional And Organizational Cultures Impact Conflict Management, Debra Gerardi

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Healthier Hospitals?, Debra Gerardi, Dorrie K. Fontaine

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Manage Conflict Creatively, Debra Gerardi, Virginia L. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The 800 Pound Gorilla Sleeps: The Federal Government's Lackadaisical Liability And Compensation Policies In The Context Of Pre-Event Vaccine Immunization Programs, Michael Greenberger

Faculty Scholarship

On July 21, 2004, President Bush signed the Project Bioshield Act, which authorizes the spending of $5.6 billion to advance the development and acquisition of vaccines and other countermeasures to biological agents. While the funding and progress are welcome signs for our national biodefense strategy, the failure of the federal Phase I smallpox vaccination program demonstrated that other serious obstacles remain to the implementation of a successful pre-event vaccine immunization program. Specifically, as demonstrated by a field study of several states' health departments, performed at the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, the federal government's inability to provide both sufficient liability …