Digital Commons Network^™

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)

The Limits Of Lawyering: Legal Opinions In Structured Finance, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

Significant controversy surrounds the issuance of legal opinions in structured finance transactions, particularly where accountants separately use these opinions, beyond their traditional primary use, for determining whether to characterize the transactions as debt. Reflecting at its core the unresolved boundaries between public and private in financial transactions, this controversy raises important issues of first impression: To what extent, for example, should lawyers be able to issue legal opinions that create negative externalities? Furthermore, what should differentiate the roles of lawyers and accountants in disclosing information to investors? Resolution of these issues not only helps to demystify the mystique, and untangle …

Rejoinder: The War On Terrorism: International Law, Clear Statement Requirements, And Constituitional Design, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Film Review: The President Versus David Hicks, Scott L. Silliman

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 …

The Discrete Roles Of General Counsel, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This essay focuses on the position of general counsel within a publicly-held business corporation when the general counsel is an employee-officer of the corporation charged with overall responsibility for how the corporation's legal matters are handled. So situated, a general counsel's roles include furnishing legal advice to the corporation's board of directors, CEO, and other senior executives. But a contemporary general counsel often occupies other roles as well, each complex and additionally interlinked in many ways. These linkages may be beneficial to a corporation and society more generally. Nonetheless, general counsel's position has often been characterized as ambiguous, a characterization …

Captured By Evil: The Idea Of Corruption In Law, Laura S. Underkuffler

Faculty Scholarship

Corruption is one of the most powerful words in the English language. When it comes to the treatment of corruption by law, however, corruption is a troubled concept. With increasing recognition of the costs of corruption for economic development, democratic governance, international aid programs, and other world goals, attempts to articulate what this destructive force is have led to an avalanche of theoretical writing. In the last fifteen years, corruption has been variously defined as the violation of law, a public servant's breach of public duty, an agent's betrayal of a principal's interests, the pursuit of secrecy, the denial of …

Thoughts On ‘Smith’ And Religious-Group Autonomy, Laura S. Underkuffler

Faculty Scholarship

Reconciling the federal constitutional guarantee of religious free exercise with the collective interests of civil society has long been a difficult problem for First Amendment jurisprudence. For many years, the United States Supreme Court protected claimed religious exercise if it was required by a central religious belief, was substantially burdened by government action, and was not outweighed by a compelling state interest. The last prong of this test, in particular, afforded substantial protection to claimed religious exercise when pitted against state laws. In Employment Division v. Smith, decided little more than a decade ago, the Court abruptly shifted course. Citing …

Constitutional Issues Posed In The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention And Consumer Protection Act Of 2005, Erwin Chemerinsky

Faculty Scholarship

The stated purpose of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 ("BAPCPA") is to "improve bankruptcy law and practice by restoring personal responsibility and integrity in the bankruptcy system and ensure that the system is fair for both debtors and creditors." Its legislative history stretches over almost a decade, but each iteration of it continued the same core features, the most predominant of which is a complex "means test" to determine whether a debtor may file a Chapter 7 case. This Article seeks to identify the constitutional issues most likely raised by BAPCPA. It cannot identify all …

A Prescription For Perilous Times (Reviewing Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech In War Time From The Sedition Act Of 1798 To The War On Terrorism (2004)), Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I argue that Professor Stone has written an important work of constitutional history, not only because of what he has to say, but also because of the time in which he says it. The tragedy of September 11, 2001 generated reactions by every branch of the federal government, as well as by the general public and a host of public-regarding institutions in American society. Each of those reactions has implicated the balance between liberty and security that historically has been tested in this country during times of crisis. 'Perilous Times' lucidly conveys the nation's accumulated lessons of …

The What And Why Of Claims Resolution Facilities, Francis Mcgovern

Faculty Scholarship

"Claims resolution facility" is a generic term used to describe a wide range of entities that process and resolve claims made against a potential funding source. In the context of a natural disaster, for example, there might be facilities to process claims based upon insurance policies, federal or state statutory or administrative rights, international relief efforts, contractual obligations, or any other basis for receiving economic or noneconomic benefits. These facilities are generally characterized by a large number of claims that are in need of rapid and efficient resolution. In certain instances, however, the positive connotations of the term have been …

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)

Foreword: The Klein Criteria Project, Mitu Gulati, Paul S. Edwards

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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 Framework Of Full Faith And Credit And Interstate Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriages, William A. Reppy Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This article considers whether a Massachusetts same-sex marriage or a Vermont same-sex civil union is entitled to full faith and credit in other states by virtue of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV of the United States Constitution ("the Clause") and, under a statute enacted by Congress to implement that clause, Section 1739 of the Federal Judicial Code.

Using Liability Rules To Stimulate Local Innovation In Developing Countries: Application To Traditional Knowledge, Jerome H. Reichman, Tracey Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

When economists speak of an underlying legal structure that imposes an "absolute permission" requirement on access to, and use of, knowledge goods protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs), they typically have in mind the domestic patent and copyright laws. Under these and related intellectual property regimes, one cannot normally make use of a protected invention or creative work of authorship for specified purposes and for limited periods of time without prior authorization of the rights holder, typically in the form of a license.

When economists speak of liability rules, in contrast, they envision an underlying legal structure that permits third …

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.

The Economics Of Limited Liability: An Empirical Study Of New York Law Firms, Kimberly D. Krawiec, Scott Baker

Faculty Scholarship

Since the rapid rise in organizational forms for business associations, academics and practitioners have sought to explain the choice of form rationale. Each form contains its own set of default rules that inevitably get factored into this decision, including the extent to which each individual firm owner will be held personally liable for the collective debts and obligations of the firm. The significance of the differences in these default rules continues to be debated. Many commentators have advanced theories, most notably those based on unlimited liability, profit-sharing, and illiquidity, asserting that the partnership form provides efficiency benefits that outweigh any …

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.

Deep-Water Sinkholes And Bioherms Of South Florida And The Pourtalés Terrace-Habitat And Fauna., John K. Reed, Shirley A. Pomponi, Doug C. Weaver, Charles K. Paull, Amy E. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Only a small percentage of deep-water reefs have had their benthic and fish resources characterized. This study surveyed eight deep-water, high-relief, hard-bottom sites off south Florida using human occupied submersibles to characterize habitat and describe the fish and macrobenthic communities: the Naples deep-water sinkhole on the southwest Florida shelf, Jordan and Marathon deep-water sinkholes on the Pourtalès Terrace, and five high-relief bioherms on the Pourtalès Terrace. These submersible dives were the first to enter and explore any of these features. The upper sinkhole rims ranged from 175 to 461 m in depth and had a maximum relief of 180 m. …

Religious Experience In The Age Of Digital Reproduction, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Roger Hendrix

Faculty Scholarship

A religious experience is an extraordinary event that occurs against the backdrop of ordinary life, infusing that life with a meaning it would not otherwise have. Mass culture is now replete with portrayals of such experiences. Spiritually-themed television shows, movies, books, music, and fashion are now common and even popular. This is not necessarily good news for religion and religious experience. What mass culture portrays as sacred may be merely an imitation, resembling more the ubiquitous feel-good self-affirmance of popular psychology than authentic communion with the divine.

On the other hand, the appropriation and portrayal of religious experience by mass …

The New Textualists' New Text, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

There Ought To Be A Law: The Disclosure Focus Of Recent Legislative Proposals For Nonprofit Reform, Dana Brakman Reiser

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Punishment Decisions At Conviction: Recognizing The Jury As Fault-Finder, Michael T. Cahill

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.