Law Commons^™

Occupation Failures And The Legality Of Armed Conflict: The Case Of Iraqi Cultural Property, Mary Ellen O'Connell

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the looting of the Iraqi National Museum in April 2003 by remarking, “stuff happens.” In doing so, he gave an early indication that in planning to invade Iraq, the Bush Administration failed to take seriously the legal obligations of an occupying power. Occupying powers have a variety of binding legal obligations, including obligations to stop looting, protect cultural property, and protect persons in detention. Yet, the Administration sent a wholly inadequate force to fulfill those obligations, and, more seriously, the force received no direct and imperative orders to do so. As a result, …

A Comparative Assessment Of Eu, Uk, French, Australian And Japanese Responses To Auditor Independence: The Case Of Non-Audit Tax Services, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Auditor independence was a global concern of financial regulators in the 1990's. Some observers saw this in a positive light, a natural development. Adjusting auditor independence rules was a manifestation of global convergence in corporate governance structures. New rules, especially rules leaning toward a harmonized system were welcome.

There was a more sobering view. This view held that global regulators were less concerned with convergence than they were with a sense of impending disaster. Things had gone too far. Significant, maybe even radical change was needed. The independence of corporate auditors had eroded; trust had been fundamentally compromised in the …

Between Dialogue And Decree: International Review Of National Courts, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Recent years have seen dramatic growth in the number of international tribunals at work across the globe, from the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Claims in Switzerland and the International Criminal Court. With this development has come both increased opportunity for interaction between national and international courts and increased occasion for conflict. Such friction was evident in the recent decision in Loewen Group, Inc. v. United States, in which an arbitral panel constituted under the North American Free Trade Agreement found …

On The Design Of Efficient Priority Rules For Secured Creditors: Empirical Evidence From A Change In Law, Clas Bergström, Theodore Eisenberg, Stefan Sundgren

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article assesses the effect of a reduction in secured creditor priority on distributions and administrative costs in liquidating bankruptcy cases by reporting the first empirical study of the effect of a priority change. Priority reform had redistributive effects in liquidating bankruptcy. As expected, average payments to general unsecured creditors were significantly higher after the reform than before the reform and payments to secured creditors decreased. Reform did not increase the size of the pie to be distributed in bankruptcy. Nor did it increase the direct costs of bankruptcy.

Private Law And Public Stakes In European Integration: The Case Of Property, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

In European legal discourse, the old public/private divide is experiencing a revival and a transformation. Member States used to claim autonomy in private law matters. Now private law is subsumed into a functionalist logic and can presumptively be harmonised if so demanded by the goal of market integration. States or local constituencies can only resist harmonisation by highlighting the connection between their private laws and those ‘public’ matters still immune from Europeanisation. Property law can effectively illustrate this phenomenon. The written pledge of non-interference with States’ property systems, restated both in the TEC and in the draft Constitution, cannot be …

Section 4: International Law At The U.S. Supreme Court, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

No Way To Deal With Slums, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Looking For Law In China I: Themes And Issues In Western Studies Of Chinese Law, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

I have been studying Chinese law since the early 1960s – some have said that I began before there was any. The field has expanded so far beyond its narrow scope at that time that this overview will illustrate an old Chinese saying: "riding a horse and looking at flowers." I will first review the growth of this scholarly field, because it is necessary to understand that there are layers of scholarship that reflect first the paucity of formal legal institutions in Maoist China, then the appearance of first shoots of new or rebuilt institutions, and only recently the publication …

Looking For Law In China Iii: How Foreign Investors And Business Have Faced Legal Uncertainty In China, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

This last of the three talks I will have given here at Oxford looks at yet another aspect of what I have called "looking for law in China." Today I will look at Chinese law from the perspective of foreign investors that have had to cope with the uncertainty of a business environment in which legal institutions have been vague, incomplete and weak. I speak to you today from under two hats, that of a scholar and that of practicing lawyer, since for over thirty years I have combined those two careers. My observations here, then, are not just those …

Looking For Law In China Ii: China’S Legal Reforms After Mao: Accomplishments And Future Prospects, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

In this talk I intend to summarize major accomplishments of Chinese law reform since 1978; and speculate on the future of Chinese law reform

• In the course of this talk, I will note where China began when legal reform was first undertaken in 1979, and the enormous size and scope of the task that was undertaken.
• I hope to give an indication both of the progress China has made, and of major obstacles to future reforms;
• I have chosen one area to emphasize because it may light the way for further meaningful reforms: administrative law
• I have also noted influences …

Other People's Patriot Acts: Europe's Response To September 11, Kim Lane Scheppele

All Faculty Scholarship

After September 11, many countries changed their laws to make it easier to fight terrorism. They did so in part because the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1373 under its Chapter VII powers. The resolution required all Members of the United Nations to criminalize terrorism, to prevent their territory from being used to plan or promote terrorism, to crack down on terrorism financing, to tighten up immigration and asylum procedures and to share information about terrorists and terrorist threats with other states. This article examines what happened to the Security Council mandate when it got to Europe by first …

Cuba And Good Governance, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

The idea of “good governance” embraces the concept that economic success is inextricably linked to democratic and just governance. This essay explores how Cuba fares in light of good governance standards. At the outset, an overall observation is appropriate: if one considers the traditional criteria, to talk about Cuba and good governance might simply be an impossible task-- indeed an oxymoron--if we use as the starting point of analysis the existing definitions of governance. Therefore, in order to engage this thesis, I will deconstruct the idea of good governance into two parts--processes and outcomes. First, I explore the theoretical origins, …

Grutter's First Amendment, Paul Horwitz

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Most of the reaction to the Supreme Court's decision affirming the law school affirmative action policy at issue in Grutter v. Bollinger has focused on its Fourteenth Amendment implications. But Grutter also raises significant First Amendment issues. By reaffirming a First Amendment value of "educational autonomy," the Grutter Court raised a host of questions with implications not only for the constitutional law of academic freedom, but for First Amendment jurisprudence generally. This article therefore puts the Fourteenth Amendment to one side and provides a detailed analysis of the First Amendment implications of Grutter.

Some of the consequences of the Court's …

The Hollowness Of The Harm Principle, Steven D. Smith

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

Among the various instruments in the toolbox of liberalism, the so-called “harm principle,” presented as the central thesis of John Stuart Mill’s classic On Liberty, has been one of the most popular. The harm principle has been widely embraced and invoked in both academic and popular debate about a variety of issues ranging from obscenity to drug regulation to abortion to same-sex marriage, and its influence is discernible in legal arguments and judicial opinions as well. Despite the principle’s apparent irresistibility, this essay argues that the principle is hollow. It is an empty vessel, alluring but without any inherent legal …

Generic Constitutional Law, David S. Law

University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series

This paper seeks to articulate and explore the emerging phenomenon of generic constitutional law, here and in other countries. Several explanations are offered for this development. First, constitutional courts face common normative concerns pertaining to countermajoritarianism and, as a result, experience a common need to justify judicial review. These concerns, and the stock responses that courts have developed, amount to a body of generic constitutional theory. Second, courts employ common problem-solving skills in constitutional cases. The use of these skills constitutes what might be called generic constitutional analysis. Third, courts face overlapping influences, largely not of their own making, that …

A Realpolitik Defense Of Social Rights, Kim Lane Scheppele

All Faculty Scholarship

Social rights are controversial in theory, but many constitutions feature long lists of social rights anyway. But how can poor states ever hope to realize these rights? This article examines the practical bargaining over social rights that occurs when countries go broke and international financial institutions step in to direct internal fiscal affairs. Constitutional Courts can give their own governments leverage in bargaining with the IMF by making strong decisions defending social rights just at those moments. Because of the IMF's commitment to the rule of law, it is hard for the IMF to insist as part of the conditionality …

Introduction To Comparative Legal Cultures: The Civil Law And The Common Law On Evidence And Judgment (Oral Presentation Of The Book By Antoine Garapon & Ioannis Papadopoulos, Juger En Amerique Et En France : Culture Judiciaire Française Et Common Law, Ioannis Papadopoulos

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

This book is the fruit of a basic idea, namely that comparative law is meaningless if it is regarded as the sole study of juxtaposed legal systems, regardless of their cultural dimension. The book’s main aim is to identify and analyze the basic cultural differences between the two great legal traditions of the West, the Continental and the Anglo-American one, through a thorough examination of the trial, and of judicial institutions more widely, as these are organized in France and the United States. For that purpose, after an introduction to the concept of legal culture and the basic notions of …

Two Early Codes, The Ten Commandments And The Twelve Tables: Causes And Consequences, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

Comments on the legal history of the ten commandments and the Roman Twelve Tables, and a comparison of the two legal collections. This paper also discusses the peculiarities in the traditions behind the collection of these laws; and the rules of behavior between humans covered by these laws.

The Common Core Of European Private Law: The Project And Its Books, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Dialogue For Legal Multiculturalism, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Taxation Of Spin-Off – U.S. And German Corporate Tax Law, Stefan W. Suchan

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

Corporate law provides for a transaction commonly referred to as “spin-off”. The corporate enterprise is divided in (at least) two corporations. The stock of a controlled subsidiary will be distributed pro rata by a parent corporation to its shareholders which end up owning a brother/sister pair of corporate enterprises.

The Internal Revenue Code (IRC) in § 355 provides special rules for the distribution of stock and securities of a controlled corporation. The transaction is known as a “D reorganization”, if such a distribution follows the transfer by a corporation of all or a part of its assets to another corporation, …

Post-Enron: U.S. And German Corporate Governance, Stefan W. Suchan

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

Only five years after Henry Hansmann and Reinier Kraakmann announced "the End of History of Corporate Law" – borrowing the words of Francis Fukuyama–, this observation seems at least questionable. Following two major failures of the “American Model” with the bankruptcy of Enron and WorldCom, the question of the "right" Corporate Governance regime is again under discussion.

Legislators around the globe assume that further development of Corporate Governance is necessary. There is consent for the need of improvement, but no clear answer on how to improve. A first step to solving the arising problems might be to evaluate the reasons …

The Jekyll And Hyde Story Of International Trade: The Supreme Court In Phrma V. Walsh And The Trips Agreement, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

The paper analyses the international impact of the approval by the United States Supreme Court to use indirect price control mechanisms to tackle public health and Medicaid issues. It traces similarities in policies implemented by the United States and those it opposed within developing nations. For example, the recent use by the developed nations of compulsory licensing and price control mechanisms, which they opposed as violating TRIPS when used by developing nations, underlines a poverty penalty suffered by developing nation signatories of TRIPS. In effect, TRIPS exempts developed nations from fulfilling obligations developing nations were forced to fulfill and thus …

Australia And The United States: Two Common Criminal Justice Systems Uncommonly At Odds, Paul Marcus, Vicki Waye

Faculty Publications

At first glance the criminal justice systems of Australia and the United States look strikingly similar. With common law roots from England, they both emphasize the adversary system, the roleof the advocate, the presumption of innocence, and an appeals process. Upon closer reflection,however, they appear starkly different. From both Australian and U.S. perspectives, the authorsexplore those differences, examining important features such as the exclusion of evidence, rules regarding interrogation, the entrapment defense, and the open nature of trials. The Article concludes with an analysis of the reasons for those differences, reasons that heavily relate back to the founding of the …

Free Exercise Of Religion In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor Edward Eberle provides a comparative overview of constitutional safeguards affecting religious freedom in Germany and the United States. Specifically the author analyzes the German and American approaches to the free exercise of religion within their respective constitutional systems. The result is an illuminating exposition that provides much insight for comparative and constitutional scholars.

In the years following the Second World War, religious freedoms in Germany developed along similar, individualist paths to those found in the United States Constitution. However, unlike the Constitution, the Basic Law's provisions touching on religious liberty are detailed and quite elaborate and …

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle: How Children's Literature Reflects Motherhood, Identity, And International Adoption, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

Children's books are "a source of law" for children because "[children] are constantly trying to make sense of what is going on around them, and although literature itself is only a constituent of life experience, as a constituent it is potentially of the greatest importance." As adults and lawyers, we can also read children's books as a source of law because they reflect patriarchal ideologies about the family and stigma surrounding adoption. Like other myths, children's books tell stories about origins and constitute not only subjects but are also the foundation of law by reflecting legal norms and projecting legal …

Legal Title To Land As An Intervention Against Urban Poverty In Developing Nations, Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

One intervention intended to ameliorate poverty and its subsidiary effects is the distribution of legal title to land to poor urban dwellers, otherwise known as land titling. Given the billions of dollars that the World Bank, country-based development agencies, regional development banks, and developing countries themselves have spent on land titling programs, it has become one of the most important property law issues confronting the developing world. Several countries have undertaken comprehensive urban land titling programs to transform the dwellings of those who live in the squalor of squatter settlements into assets recognized by the formal sector. This Article accepts …

The European Origins And The Spread Of The Corporate Board Of Directors, Franklin A. Gevurtz

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Innovative German Approach To Consumer Debt Relief: Revolutionary Changes In German Law, And Surprising Lessons For The United States, 24 Nw. J. Int'l L. & Bus. 257 (2004), Jason Kilborn

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Authority Heuristics, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

Language plays two roles in acquiring knowledge of foreign law. One is obvious - it provides access to information. Language also performs, however, a second function that is less frequently acknowledged, but no less important: it shapes what we know. This knowledge-shaping (or "cognitive") role conditions all knowledge of foreign law, and it is seldom explored. This article focuses on one aspect of this cognitive role of language. It examines the ways in which assumptions about the authority of legal language shape and often fundamentally distort our knowledge of foreign law and foreign legal systems. My central claim is that …