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Full-Text Articles in Law

Avoid Or Compensate? Liability For Incidental Injury To Civilians Inflicted During Armed Conflict, Yael Ronen Jan 2009

Avoid Or Compensate? Liability For Incidental Injury To Civilians Inflicted During Armed Conflict, Yael Ronen

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Under international law, civilians suffering injuries that are incidental to a lawful attack on a military objective are left to bear the cost of their losses. In recent years there have been calls for a change in policy that would entitle victims of military attacks to compensation, even if their losses are incidental and non-fault-based. This Article explores the notion of such a quasi-strict liability rule, which is likely to disrupt the existing balance of powers and interests under the laws of armed conflict. Following an exploration of the conceptual basis for such an obligation, the Article examines the effect …


The End Of Objector Blackmail?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick Jan 2009

The End Of Objector Blackmail?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts and commentators have long been concerned with holdout problems in the law. This Article focuses on a holdout problem in class action litigation known as objector “blackmail.” Objector blackmail occurs when individual class members delay the final resolution of class action settlements by filing meritless appeals in the hope of inducing class counsel to pay them a side settlement to drop their appeals. It is thought that class counsel pay these side settlements because they cannot receive their fee awards until all appeals from the settlement are resolved. Although several solutions to the blackmail problem have been proposed, both …


Aggregate Litigation Across The Atlantic And The Future Of American Exceptionalism, Richard A. Nagareda Jan 2009

Aggregate Litigation Across The Atlantic And The Future Of American Exceptionalism, Richard A. Nagareda

Vanderbilt Law Review

In long-running debates over civil justice reform, two points remain broadly shared: the legal regime for civil litigation in this country is exceptional by comparison to European systems as a positive matter, and the United States is much the worse for it in normative terms. The positive dimension of this account pinpoints several exceptional features of the U.S. civil justice system: class actions, primarily on an opt-out basis; contingency-fee financing of litigation; rejection of Euro-style "loser-pays" rules that link responsibility for the fees of both sides to the outcome of the litigation; extensive reliance on juries as fact finders; costly …