Law Commons^™

Bridging The Gap Between Intent And Status: A New Framework For Modern Parentage, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the conceptualization and methodologies of determining legal parentage in the U.S. and other countries in the western world. Through various sociological shifts, growing social openness and bio-medical innovations, the traditional definitions of family and parenthood have been dramatically transformed. This transformation has led to an acute and urgent need for legal and social frameworks to regulate the process of determining legal parentage. Moreover, instead of progressing in a piecemeal, ad-hoc manner, the framework for determining legal parentage should be comprehensive. Only a comprehensive solution will address the differing needs of today’s …

From Baby M To Baby M(Anji): Regulating International Surrogacy Agreements, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

In 1985, when Kim Cotton became Britain’s first commercial surrogate mother, Europe was exposed to the issue of surrogacy for the first time on a large scale. Three years later, in 1988, the famous case of Baby M drew the attention of the American public to surrogacy as well. These two cases implicated fundamental ethical and legal issues regarding domestic surrogacy and triggered a fierce debate about motherhood, child-bearing, and the relationship between procreation, science and commerce. These two cases exemplified the debate regarding domestic surrogacy - a debate that has now been raging for decades. Contrary to the well-known …

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Future Strategies For Improving Consent In Electronic Contracting, Ran Bi

Ran Bi

China's economy has been running deep into an exciting phrase called “Internet +”. In North America, most businesses have online presence and conduct numerous transactions online. Unprecedentedly, electronic contracts have been governing more Individuals and corporations’ legal relationships in a growing proportion of businesses and everyday life.

E-contracts, usually with no physical architecture, are easy to “sign”—people just click one or two icons on a computer / smartphone screen after “reading” (scroll down) the contents. However, e-contracts are standard form contracts which are provided by vendors . Users are easy to become victims of exploitative terms, because their consent has …

Future Strategies For Improving Consent In Electronic Contracting, Ran Bi

Ran Bi

China's economy has been running deep into an exciting phrase called “Internet +”. In North America, most businesses have online presence and conduct numerous transactions online. Unprecedentedly, electronic contracts have been governing more Individuals and corporations’ legal relationships in a growing proportion of businesses and everyday life.

E-contracts, usually with no physical architecture, are easy to “sign”—people just click one or two icons on a computer / smartphone screen after “reading” (scroll down) the contents. However, e-contracts are standard form contracts which are provided by vendors1. Users2 are easy to become victims of exploitative terms, because their consent has been …

Toward A New Language Of Legal Drafting, Matthew Roach

Matthew Roach

Lawyers should write in document markup language just like web developers, digital publishers, scientists, and almost everyone else.

Invisible Labor, Invisible Play: Online Gold Farming And The Boundary Between Jobs And Games, Julian Dibbell

Julian Dibbell

When does work become play, and play work? Courts have considered the question in a variety of economic contexts, from student athletes seeking recognition as employees to professional blackjack players seeking to be treated by casinos just like casual players. Here I apply the question to a relatively novel context: that of online gold farming, a gray-market industry in which wage-earning workers, largely based in China, are paid to play online fantasy games (MMOs) that reward them with virtual items their employers sell for profit to the same games’ casual players. Gold farming is clearly a job (and under the …

Artificial Insemination From Donor (Aid) – From Status To Contract And Back Again?, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

The last few decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the institutions of family and parenthood and an abandonment of the historical emphasis on their bionormative structures. These changes are the result of societal shifts with respect to public openness and technological innovations that segregate marital relations from sexuality and fertility. The resultant parenthood structures, which depart from traditional spousal and parental models, intensify the ability and need to determine legal parenthood in numerous unprecedented contexts. Sir Henry Maine famously stated that mankind is pacing from status toward contract. This theme has had particular resonance during the past half century in …

Commodification Of The Female Egg: Stem Cell Technology And The Future, Rachel Rose Ostrander

Rachel Rose Ostrander

As the science of stem cell research progresses it is difficult to tell what implications it will have on our society and for women. I will begin this discussion by examining how science has viewed women in the past, and use this as a basis to conjecture about how they will be viewed and treated in the future. Prevalent gender bias in scientific writing should be a cause for concern as the science of stem cell research and commodification of the female egg becomes more of a reality.

The process of egg donation has stirred much debate in the feminist …

Flawed Transparency: Shared Data Collection And Disclosure Challenges For Google Glass And Similar Technologies, Jonathan I. Ezor

Jonathan I. Ezor

Current privacy law and best practices assume that the party collecting the data is able to describe and disclose its practices to those from and about whom the data are collected. With emerging technologies such as Google Glass, the information being collected by the wearer may be automatically shared to one or more third parties whose use may be substantially different from that of the wearer. Often, the wearer may not even know what information is being uploaded, and how it may be used. This paper will analyze the current state of U.S. law and compliance regarding personal information collection …

The New Frontier Of Advanced Reproductive Technology: Reevaluating Modern Legal Parenthood, Yehezkel H. Margalit Dr., John D. Loike Dr., Orrie Levy Adv.

Hezi Margalit

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have challenged our deepest conceptions of what it means to be a parent by fragmenting traditional aspects of parenthood. The law has been slow to respond to this challenge, and numerous academic articles have proposed models for adapting parentage laws to ARTs. In the coming years, however, scientific advancements in reproductive technologies, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer and stem cell technologies, will challenge both parentage laws and proposed legal models for traditional ARTs in new and fascinating ways. For instance, these advanced technologies could allow two women to create a child without any male genetic …

Towards Determining Legal Parentage By Agreement In Israel, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

In Israel as in other parts of the world, families, parenthood, and relations between parents and children have changed dramatically over the past few decades. So, too, developments in modern medicine have enhanced the ability to separate sexuality from fertility and parenthood. Many researchers feel that the legal system has not kept pace with these changes, and that traditional models of familial relationships no longer provide adequate tools for dealing with them. In order to bridge the gap between a desired social status and current law, a growing number of parents seek to regulate the status, rights, and obligations of …

Determining Legal Parenthood By Agreement As A Possible Solution To The Challenges Of The New Era, Yehezkel Margalit

Hezi Margalit

Over the past decades, we witnessed changes in the matrimonial and parenting institutions. Medical innovations have further created ethical-legal dilemmas. It is, therefore, essential to create a theory and framework that will determine ways to deal with the resulting dilemma in a fully developed manner. This paper surveys the current, conflicting shifts in family structure and the definition of legal parenthood. In it, I deal with the importance and various aspects of defining legal parenthood. I will also focus on the singularity of this dilemma as it is increasingly apparent in the various fertility treatments. I present the sociological-legal roots …

Mental Budget And Inefficient Clauses: A Lesson From Behavioral Law Nand Economics, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper is an attempt to highlight how clauses, which are traditionally considered to be inefficient, may actually be desired by consumers. This anomaly originates in the fact that each individual builds a mental budget by dividing the money he has among the needs he intends to satisfy. According to consumers’ reasoning, money is not fungible, in the sense that amounts cannot be transferred from one expenditure to another. Consumers who behave in this way may sometimes find that they have depleted the amount they budgeted for an item while wanting to buy more of it. Since additional time, efforts …