Digital Commons Network^™

Lurking In The Shadows: The Hidden Issues Of The Securities And Exchange Commission's Regulation Fd, Marc I. Steinberg, Jason B. Meyers

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article explores key issues likely to arise under Regulation FD, including some that the Commission may not have envisioned in promulgating the Regulation. The first part begins by reviewing the scope of the Regulation in the ensuing discussion. In Part II, the Article addresses how well the Regulation fits with the policies underlying the federal securities laws. Focusing on issues related to an issuer's duty to disclose, the efficiency of capital markets, and the Commission's predominant emphasis on fairness in promulgating the Regulation, the authors note that in many ways Regulation FD provides an awkward fit with the general …

After Be & K: The Difficult Constitutional Question Of Defining The First Amendment Right To Petition Courts, Carol Rice Andrews

Articles

No abstract provided.

Common Law And Statutory Restrictions On Access: Contract, Trespass, And The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

Is copyright law relevant to the terms of access to information? Certainly, few would seriously contend that breaking into a locked filing cabinet to obtain access to a manuscript is not sanctionable, even if the intruder had some purpose that copyright law would applaud with respect to the information contained in the manuscript itself. Many instinctively believe that one must pay the asking price and respect the terms that accompany a copyrighted work or face the consequences under some set of laws like copyrights or contracts. In short, society likely generally believes that market forces regulate the conditions of access …

Ndsu Magazine : Fall 2002

NDSU Magazine

No abstract provided.

Osad Moralny A Teoria Prawa (Moral Judgment And Legal Theory), David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

My theme is the role of moral judgment in legal theory. My thesis is that moral judgment provides an important constraint on various aspects of legal theory. I shall illustrate that thesis by discussing, first, the so-called "separation" of law and morals (Section I); secondly, legal interpretation (Section II); and thirdly, the "rule of law" ideal (Section III).

The Managing Lawmaker In Cyberspace: A Power Model, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about power - the ability to gain obedience whether by captivating followers, persuading skeptics or awarding and withdrawing economic benefits. The purpose of this Article is to analyze how the power of the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers ("ICANN") was created, augmented, strengthened and reined in. Many controversies surround ICANN, including the very foundation of its existence - the need for a single "root" in the Internet naming infrastructure - its organizational form and accountability, and the utterances, policies and actions of its management.

The purpose of this Article is not to argue and prescribe but …

Regulation And Investors' Trust In The Securities Market, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

The subject of investor confidence in the securities markets has received wide attention recently as details of fraud and avarice continue to emerge. Investors' trust in the securities markets is important for the reasons discussed in Professor Stout's marvelous paper.¹ This Comment focuses on the relationship between investors' trust and government regulation of the markets. By regulation I mean congressional legislation and actions by federal agencies. I exclude the courts mainly because their lawmaking is not primarily policy-based, and my aim is to sound the alarm for legislative and regulatory policy-directed actions. Many an economist and academic have argued …

Not In Our World: A Perspective Of Community Organizing Against Hate, Bill Wassmuth, M J. Bryant

Journal of Hate Studies

On Sept. 11, 2001, Americans were brutalized by an undeniable statement of hatred that made an indelible impression on not just its thousands of victims, but on the consciousness of the whole world. The terrorist attacks that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and destroyed part of the Pentagon Building in Washington D.C., defiled symbols of American enterprise and military might, and robbed us of any complacency we felt as a nation immune to attack.

The Vindication Of Hate Violence Victims Via Criminal And Civil Adjudications, Brian Levin

Journal of Hate Studies

Attempts by victims of hate violence to vindicate their claims through civil courts have a long history in the United States that predates the Civil War. The most notorious Supreme Court decision in American history commenced auspiciously in a St. Louis, Missouri county circuit court in two racially based tort actions on April 6, 1846. Slaves Dred and Harriet Scott petitioned Judge John Crum for permission to sue their owner and for “reasonable liberty” to effectively pursue their case. In an action remarkable for its time, Judge Crum granted the motions and stipulated that neither slave be removed from the …

Polystyrene/Graphite Nanocomposites: Effect On Thermal Stability, Fawn Marie Uhl, Charles A. Wilkie

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

Nanocomposites consisting of polymer and clay have been shown to exhibit a significant reduction in flammability and an increase in mechanical properties. This work examines the effect of thermal stability and mechanical properties of nanocomposites prepared from potassium graphite and styrene. Synthesis of nanocomposites was accomplished by using potassium graphite (KC₈) as the initiator in the polymerization of styrene. A slight increase in thermal stability is observed but mechanical properties are decreased.

Preparation Of Pvc- Clay Nanocomposites By Solution Blending, Dongyan Wang, Charles A. Wilkie

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

PVC-clay nanocomposites have been prepared by solution blending of the polymer with both sodium montmorillonite and an organically modified clay. The nanocomposites have been characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy; in all cases the materials are best described as mixed immiscible—intercalated nanocomposites, Thermogravimetric analysis shows that, in some cases, the onset temperature of the degradation is enhanced, and the fraction of nonvolatile residue is always decreased. This decrease in the amount of char indicates a significant change in the degradation pathway of the polymer, caused by the presence of the clay. For some preparations, the tensile strength and …

Preparing For The Clothed Public Square: Teaching About Religion, Civic Education, And The Constitution, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Although law and religion scholars have long argued about whether American culture marginalizes religious belief, many important indicators suggest that religion indeed plays a prominent role in contemporary American life. America is an extremely religious nation. Polls consistently show that about ninety percent of Americans continue to believe in God, and both church attendance and membership remain at high levels. This religiosity, moreover, spills out into the public square. A great many Americans rely on religious reasons when thinking and talking about public issues. Ninety percent of the members of Congress, by one report, consult their religious beliefs when voting …

Russian Compliance With Articles Five & Six Of The European Convention Of Human Rights As A Barometer Of Legal Reform & Human Rights In Russia, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Note examines two of Russia's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): the Article 5 right to liberty and security, and the Article 6 right to a fair trial to gauge Russian compliance with European human rights norms. These articles lie at the heart of systematic legal reform in the Russian Federation. This Note defends the thesis that the agonizingly slow progress of judicial reform and the advancement of human rights in Russia is a function of the inevitable lag of conceptual norms behind institutional reform. Part I explores the weak place of the rule of law …

Patent Settlement Agreements: Preliminary Views, Joseph F. Brodley, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

Settlements between S competitors in patent cases raise important and sensitive antitrust issues. Patent settlement agreements may create or maintain a monopoly in technology or innovation markets and may also effectuate a monopoly or cartel in related goods markets. Indeed, absent the patent rights, certain terms of patent settlement agreements may be per se antitrust violations. Further, anticompetitive patent settlements-unlike most antitrust conspiracies-are enforceable in court, providing the parties with an effective means of preventing the cheating that is the bane of cartels. Thus, the antitrust risk that a settlement agreement may operate as a disguised cartel has long been …

Federalism, Democratization, And The Rule Of Law In Russia, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Combining the approaches of three fields of scholarship - political science, law and Russian area studies - the author of this 2002 Oxford University Press book explores the foundations and future of the Russian Federation. Russia's political elite have struggled to build an extraordinarily complex federal system, one that incorporates eighty-nine different units and scores of different ethnic groups, which sometimes harbor long histories of resentment against Russian imperial and Soviet legacies. This book examines the public debates, official documents and political deals that built Russia's federal house on very unsteady foundations, often out of the ideological, conceptual and physical …

Putin's Federal Reforms: A Legal-Institutional Perspective, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The first year of Putin's presidency proved to be the most concerted and fundamental shake-up of federal relations in Russia since the 1993 Constitution. This paper examines this transition in detail, focusing attention on the legal-institutional aspects of this dramatic shift in policy. First, the end of Yeltsin's 'parade' - of sovereignties, bilateral treaties and special agreements - is examined. Next, attention is paid to Putin's early decrees: 'positive' decrees creating the seven federal districts and federal envoys, and 'negative' decrees that annulled regional laws and legal acts judged by him not to be in conformity with federal law. Finally, …

Bicentennial Man - The New Millennium Assimilationism And The Foreigner Among Us, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Excuse And Justification In The Law Of Fair Use: Commodification And Market Perspectives, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Over twenty years ago, the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. reprinted my article, "Fair Use as Market Failure" (82 Columbia Law Review 1600 (1982), available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3577724. That 1982 piece suggested that an underlying pattern governs the protean forms of "fair use", and I employed the notion of market failure to reveal and explain how the pattern functioned. Since then, some misunderstandings of my argument have arisen.

I am pleased to publish in this, the Fiftieth Anniversary issue of the Journal of the Copyright Society, a clarification – and partial amendment – of my position. As …

Framing The Public Square, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

For at least the past decade or so, law-and-religion scholars have vigorously debated the issue of whether it is proper for American citizens to rely on religious reasons when talking about and reaching decisions on issues of public concern, including law. Those who argue that religion should be kept out of such decisionmaking and discourse contend that reliance on religious reasons: (1) violates principles of separation of church and state, (2) unfairly excludes nonbelievers from meaningful participation in public discourse, (3) creates unacceptable divisiveness, and (4) risks the domination of Christian beliefs in public discourse to the detriment of religious …

Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control: Lessons From The Icann Dispute Resolution Process, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Some people have argued that the uniform dispute resolution process used by ICANN to resolve domain name disputes would be a good model for internet disputes generally. This article argues the opposite: the UDRP teaches sobering lessons about the consequences of privatized dispute resolution processes. The lessons include: the questionable legitimacy of privately-adopted substantive standards; the danger of unprincipled choice of law decisions to fill in the gaps in that private law; unreconciled splits among arbitrators as to the meaning of the standards; and a tendency to expand beyond the narrow jurisdictional limits of the policy. The UDRP also demonstrates …

Authors, Publishers And Public Goods: Trading Gold For Dross, Wendy J. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The article seeks to clarify what is at stake - and what is not - in the litigation challenging the constitutional validity of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). First, the article distinguishes between the CTEA's retrospective term extension of copyright term and the retrospective extensions enacted by prior Congresses. The article suggests that the CTEA provisions are constitutionally questionable in ways that earlier retrospective extensions may not have been. To hold the CTEA unconstitutional would not make all other term extensions vulnerable.

Second, the article shows how non-creative physical activities such as digitization and film preservation have …

Short-Form Mergers In Delaware, Marc I. Steinberg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article analyzes the ramifications of the Delaware Supreme Court's decision in Glassman v. Unocal Exploration Corp. that limited a minority shareholder's remedy in the short-form merger context normally to that of appraisal. This decision stands in marked contrast to the invocation of the entire fairness test that applies in parent-subsidiary long-form mergers. Nonetheless, important issues remain outstanding after Glassman, including the continued critical role of adequate disclosure, the determination of fair value, the viability of the "loss state remedy" theory, a parent corporation's increased use of the tender offer as a means to consummate a short-form merger, and the …

Protecting The Endangered Human: Toward An International Treaty Prohibiting Cloning And Inheritable Alterations, George J. Annas, Lori B. Andrews, Rosario M. Isasi

Faculty Scholarship

We humans tend to worry first about our own happiness, then about our families, then about our communities. In times of great stress, such as war or natural disaster, we may focus temporarily on our country but we rarely think about Earth as a whole or the human species as a whole. This narrow perspective, perhaps best exemplified by the American consumer, has led to the environmental degradation of our planet, a grossly widening gap in living standards between rich and poor people and nations and a scientific research agenda that focuses almost exclusively on the needs and desires of …

Bioterrorism, Public Health, And Civil Liberties, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

The prospect of having to deal with a bioterrorist attack, especially one involving smallpox, has local, state, and federal officials rightly concerned. Before September 11, most procedures for dealing with a bioterrorist attack against the United States were based on fiction. Former President Bill Clinton became engaged in the bioterrorism issue in 1997, after reading Richard Preston's novel The Cobra Event. In Tom Clancy's 1996 Executive Orders, the United States is attacked by terrorists using a strain of Ebola virus that is transmissible through the air. To contain the epidemic, the President declares a state of emergency, orders that …

Lawyer Ethics Code Drafting In The Twenty-First Century, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

In 1997, the American Bar Association ("ABA") created the Commission on the Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct otherwise known as the Ethics 2000 Commission ("Commission"). The Commission was charged with conducting a comprehensive review of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct ("Model Rules") to determine what changes were necessary to update the Model Rules and make them relevant to the practice of law in the twenty-first century? In August 2001, the Commission issued a 300-page report recommending numerous changes to the Rules. These recommendations have been considered by the ABA House of Delegates and were largely approved. As …

Mycobacterium Mucogenicum Isolated From A Patient With Granulomatous Hepatitis, Mark R. Goldblatt, Julie A. Ribes

Student Publications

Mycobacterium mucogenicum is a recently characterized, rapid-growing mycobacteria rarely seen in human infections. We describe the case of a 51-year-old man with rapidly progressive granulomatous hepatitis caused by M mucogenicum. Although premortem evaluation failed to identify an etiologic agent, autopsy liver cultures produced smooth, rapid-growing mycobacterial colonies. Biochemical, growth, and cell wall fatty acid characteristics were consistent with the identification of M mucogenicum.

Dear President Bush, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Tobias offers advice on judicial selection philosophy for the newly-elected President George W. Bush.

Rhode Island Latinos: A Scan Of Issues Affecting The Latino Population Of Rhode Island, Miren Uriarte, María Estela Carrión, Juan Carlos Gorlier, Charles Jones, Natalie Carithers, Juan Francisco García

Gastón Institute Publications

The Latino Population has grown dramatically in Rhode Island in the last two decades. This has been particularly the case in Central Falls and Providence where Latinos make up 48% and 30% of the population, respectively. This influx has created a shift in the racial/ethnic make up of these cities and in the cultural background of large sectors of the residents.

The arrival of large numbers of persons who do not speak English and who are not familiar with the structure and practice of public services would, under any circumstance, present a challenge. But the fact that they are recent …

Latino Students In Lawrence: An Educational Profile, Lorna Rivera

Gastón Institute Publications

With financial support from the National Council of La Raza, the Gastón Institute is developing "Educational Profiles" for the sixteen Massachusetts public school districts with the highest Latino student enrollments: Boston, Springfield, Lawrence, Worcester, Holyoke, Lowell, Lynn, Chelsea, New Bedford, Brockton, Fitchburg, Salem, Chicopee, Framingham, Haverhill, and Somerville. The profiles present basic data provided by the Massachusetts Department of Education including information on student enrollment, MCAS results, dropout rates, and student aspirations. We hope this information will be used by Latino students, parents, educators, and policy-makers to make informed decisions and improve public education for Latino students in Massachusetts.

From Hit Man To Encylcopedia Of Jihad: How To Distinguish Freedom Of Speech From Terrorist Training, Rodney A. Smolla

Law Faculty Publications

Late last summer, Professor F. Jay Dougherty invited me to participate in "Tune In, Turn On, Cop Out? The Media and Social Responsibility," the Fourth Annual Entertainment Law Symposium sponsored by Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. I learned that one of the issues to be examined was media liability for violent audience behavior, exploring from both social science and legal perspectives the alleged link between violent speech and violent conduct. Little did I or Professor Dougherty or anyone connected to the conference then know that within weeks a catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States-an attack largely spurred by …