Law Commons^™

Deep Sea Mining. A New Frontier For International Environmental Law, Antonino Troianiello

antonino troianiello

Abstract — This paper intends to explore the main issues of the recent Deep Sea mining rush, which indeed raises huge strategic, geopolitical and environmental concerns. It notes that most of these concerns are significantly linked to the obvious insufficiency of international regulation regarding seabed exploitation. It concludes by stressing the need to implement as soon as possible a global regulation dimension under the Economic Exclusive Zone’s regime.

From Coase To Cooter: The Criticisms To Pigou’S Ideas, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

The aim of this paper is at discovering the most profound divergences between Coase and Pigou. Coase is well known for his theorem, but in his article ”The Problem of social Cost” he wants to point all the convincing criticisms to Pigou way of reasoning or, it is probably more correct to say, to Pigou’s oral tradition. I have found at least four criticisms. The last one, that states that it is impossible to have a mechanism of internalization of all social costs , is probably the least appealing but that one that has the strongest roots. I have also …

Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Survey, Chesa Boudin

Chesa Boudin

This paper presents a summary of the findings from the first fifty-state survey of prison visitation policies. Our research explores the contours of how prison administrators exercise their discretion to prescribe when and how prisoners may have contact with friends and family. Visitation policies impact recidivism, inmates’ and their families’ quality of life, public safety, and prison security, transparency and accountability. Yet many policies are inaccessible to visitors and researchers. Given the wide-ranging effects of visitation, it is important to understand the landscape of visitation policies and then, where possible, identify best practices and uncover policies that may be counterproductive …

The Regulatory Challenges Of International Transplant Medicine: Developments In Singapore, Tracey E. Chan

Tracey E Chan

Transplant tourism is spurred by the global shortage of organs and the potential for regulatory arbitrage in purchasing an organ in jurisdictions that do not prohibit sale or lack effective regulatory mechanisms to enforce prohibition. Various nations once identified as transplant tourism hotspots have since enacted legislation prohibiting organ sales and emplaced regulatory oversight. However, concerns persist that the legitimisation of altruistic unrelated living donor transplants conceals underlying commercialism and unethical practices. These concerns are heightened when transplant candidates travel across borders in search of international transplant medicine. This article examines the regulatory challenges associated with differentiating international transplant medicine …

The Hand That Truly Rocks The Cradle: A Reprise Of Infant Crib Safety, Lawsuits And Regulation From 2007-2012, Richard J. Hunter Jr.

Richard J Hunter Jr.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of the thousands of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $900 billion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical, or mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products—such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals—contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated …

Facilitative And Mandatory Rules In The Corporation Law(S) Of The United States, Richard M. Buxbaum

Richard M. Buxbaum

No abstract provided.

The Importation Of The Rule Of Reason In European Competition Law: The Implications Of Economic And Behavioral Theories And The Case Of Port Services, Davide Maresca

Davide Maresca

The regulation of international markets is nowadays faced with an important debate emerging from the study that started long ago at the Chicago School, passed through behavioral theories, and arrived in the European Union model. Two main theories set against each other concerning the market and antitrust regulation. The first one, law and economics theory, is based on the economic analysis of the costs and benefits of restraint of trade, and justifies a restraint only for economic reasons. The second, behavioral law and economics theory, is based on the empirical analysis of the regulation through instruments taken from social sciences. …

Managed Cooperation In A Post-Sago Mine Disaster World, Patrick R. Baker

Patrick R. Baker

This article proposes a mandatory mediation process as a solution to solving the case backlog before the Federal Mine Safety Health and Review Commission (Commission). As a result of the Sago Mine disaster, cases before the Commission have skyrocketed because of tougher Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) oversight, increased penalties, and outdated procedures. From 2000 through 2005, approximately 2,300 cases were filed each year with the Commission. In 2011, the Commission’s case load exceeded 18,000. The system is currently in peril and significant reforms are needed if the current procedures are salvageable. This article has four central components. First, …

Incentivos Y Más Incentivos, Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Diversity Of The Depths: Environmental Regulation Of Bioprospecting And Marine Scientific Research Beyond National Jurisdiction, Robin M. Warner

Robin Warner

As scientific knowledge of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction increases and developments in oceans technology permit greater access to the high seas water column and the deep seabed, new and more intensive uses of these areas occur with consequential impacts on the marine environment. The discovery of hydrothermal vents in 1977 revealed communities of organisms with unique genetic and biochemical properties which can be used for a seemingly limitless catalogue of medical, pharmaceutical and industrial applications. Similar repositories of genetic and biochemical resources have been discovered in other deep sea environments such as cold water seeps and it is expected …

Hacer (Bien) Las Reformas, Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

No abstract provided.

Cyber-Threats And The Limits Of Bureaucratic Control, Susan W. Brenner

Susan Brenner

This article argues that the approach the United States, like other countries, uses to control threats in real-space is ill-suited for controlling cyberthreats, i.e., cybercrime, cyberterrorism and cyberwar. It explains that because this approach evolved to deal with threat activity in a physical environment, it is predicated on a bureaucratically organized response structure. It explains why this is not an effective way of approaching cyber-threat control and examines the two federal initiatives that are intended to improve the U.S. cybersecurity: legislative proposals put forward by four U.S. Senators and by the White House; and the military’s development of six distinct …

Protocolo De Madrid, Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

No abstract provided.

A Costly Illusion? An Empirical Study Of Taiwan’S Use Of Isolation To Control Tuberculosis Transmission And Its Implications For Public Health Law And Policymaking, Shinrou Lin

Shinrou Lin

The resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) and the emergence of multidrug-resistant TB have resulted in the detention of patients in a number of international jurisdictions since the 1990s, including in Taiwan. The Taiwanese government adopted isolation as an official policy to control TB’s spread in its 2006 Ten-Year Mobilization Plan, whose goal is to halve TB incidence from 66.7 per 100,000 persons to 34 per 100,000 persons. The isolation program allows treating physicians to nominate patients for isolation while public health officials may also isolate patients if necessary. Hospitals providing care to isolated patients would be reimbursed from the budget of …

Expropiaciones, Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

No abstract provided.

La Suprema Corte Y La Cofetel, Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

Alejandro Faya Rodriguez

No abstract provided.

Of Coal, Climate And Carp: Reconsidering The Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival

Robert Percival

This paper argues that the common law of interstate nuisance remains an essential tool despite the rise of the modern regulatory state. In the rare cases when existing regulatory authorities fail to address emerging environmental problems, federal common law can serve as a backstop. When federal regulatory authorities are capable of addressing transboundary problems, but fail to do so, common law actions based on the law of source states remain a viable means of redress for states suffering significant harm from such pollution. Reconnecting the law of interstate nuisance to its historical roots, the paper concludes that the common law …

Regulatory Effectiveness In Onshore & Offshore Financial Centers, Andrew P. Morriss, Clifford C. Henson

Andrew P Morriss

Onshore jurisdictions, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, are critical of offshore financial centers (OFCs), such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Channel Islands. Arguments against OFCs include claims that their regulatory oversight is lax, allowing fraud and criminal activity. In this article, we present cross-jurisdictional data, showing that OFCs are not lax. We also provide qualitative analyses of regulatory effectiveness, demonstrating that input-based measures of regulation are inappropriate metrics for comparing jurisdictions. Based on both quantitative input measures and a qualitative assessment, we reject the onshore critique of OFCs as bastions of laxity

Human Rights, Regulation, And National Security, Katina Michael, Simon Bronitt

Professor Katina Michael

Law disciplines technology, though it does so in a partial and incomplete way as reflected in the old adage that technology outstrips the capacity of law to regulate it. The rise of new technologies poses a significant threat to human rights – the pervasive use of CCTV (and now mobile CCTV), telecommunications interception, and low-cost audio-visual recording and tracking devices (some of these discreetly wearable), extend the power of the state and corporations significantly to intrude into the lives of citizens.

The Big Banks: Background, Deregulation, Financial Innovation And Too Big To Fail, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: The Big Banks: Background, Deregulation, Financial Innovation and Too Big to Fail

The U.S. economy is still reeling from the financial crisis that exploded in the fall of 2008. This article asserts that the big banks were major culprits in causing the crisis, by funding the non-bank lenders that created the toxic mortgages which the big banks securitized and sold to unwary investors. Paradoxically, banks which were then too big to fail are even larger today.

The article briefly reviews the history of banking from the Founding Fathers to the deregulatory mindset that has been present since 1980. It …

Non-Recourse Mortages – A Fresh Start, Ron Harris, Asher Meir

Ron Harris

In about a quarter of US states, all residential mortgages are essentially non-recourse, meaning that in case of default, the lender can only repossess the house but cannot collect on the private assets and future income of the borrower. This American innovation is now beginning to attract extensive interest abroad, but ironically in the US itself is getting a bad name. The law has been blamed for exacerbating the financial crisis, while stricken homeowners who take advantage of it have been scolded by lenders and even by the Secretary of the Treasury. We propose a fresh and more balanced look …

Law Of The Intermediated Information Exchange, Jacqueline Lipton

Jacqueline D Lipton

When Wikipedia, Google and other online service providers staged a ‘blackout protest’ against the Stop Online Piracy Act in January 2012, their actions inadvertently emphasized a fundamental truth that is often missed about the nature of cyberlaw. In attempts to address what is unique about the field, commentators have failed to appreciate that the field could – and should – be reconceputalized as a law of the global intermediated information exchange. Such a conception would provide a set of organizing principles that are lacking in existing scholarship. Nothing happens online that does not involve one or more intermediaries – the …

The Problem Of Policing, Rachel A. Harmon

Rachel A. Harmon

The legal problem of policing is how to regulate police authority to permit officers to enforce law while also protecting individual liberty and minimizing the social costs the police impose. Courts and commentators have largely treated the problem of policing as limited to preventing violations of constitutional rights and its solution as the judicial definition and enforcement of those rights. But constitutional law and courts alone are necessarily inadequate to regulate the police. Constitutional law does not protect important interests below the constitutional threshold or effectively address the distributional impacts of law enforcement activities. Nor can the judiciary adequately assess …

Regulatory Takings Claims And Coastal Management Of Sea Level Rise: Remembering Governments Are More Than Regulators, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Harmonising And Regulating Financial Markets, Mads Andenas

Mads Andenas

This paper discusses problems of harmonisation and regulation of the European Internal Financial Market. The argument is that the current division of powers between the EU and Member States is not achieving sufficient harmonisation to develop an internal market. The obstacles to the Internal Financial Market presented by national regulatory and supervisory regimes remain too high, and the EU minimum standards and mutual recognition regime has failed to lower these barriers sufficiently. There is a need for broader based regulatory and supervisory institutions, undertaking at a European level what cannot effectively be done at a national level, including providing a …

The Oil And Gas Evolution: Learning From The Hydraulic Fracturing Experiences In North Dakota And West Virginia, Joshua P. Fershee

Joshua P Fershee

This Article discusses major differences and similarities in U.S. oil and gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing through a comparison of the experiences in North Dakota and West Virginia. Although there are other parts of the country experiencing growth in oil and gas extraction, Pennsylvania and Texas as but two examples, North Dakota and West Virginia are particularly apt for comparison. Both states have relatively small populations, meaning that the impact of large-scale energy extraction in each state is likely to have a large impact on the state, economically, environmentally, and socially.

This Article focuses on three main areas of comparison. …

Message In A Mortgage: What Dodd-Frank's 'Qualified Mortgage' Tells Us About Ourselves, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

This essay outlines the ethics that shape federal housing finance policy and situates them in the context of the Dodd-Frank Act. In a way, however, it asks a simpler question: what do our mortgages tell us about our society? The essay proceeds as follows. First, it outlines three ethics that inform American housing finance policy generally. Second, it contrasts two mortgages: the one from the subprime boom of the early 2000s and the other from Dodd-Frank, the “Qualified Mortgage.” It concludes by using the three ethics to answer the question posed above and outlining what is at stake in the …

Interests In The Balance: Fda Regulations Under The Biologics Price Competition And Innovation Act, Parker Tresemer

Parker Tresemer

Recent biotechnology advances are yielding potentially life-saving therapies, but without FDA regulations designed to minimize product costs, patients will continue to be unable to afford these expensive biologic products. Many believe that these prohibitive costs stem from weak competition from generic biologic products, also known as follow-on biologics. To correct this deficiency, and to address the often conflicting regulatory and policy concerns associated with biologic products, Congress enacted the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act. The Act created an abbreviated approval pathway for biologic products and, if effective, could increase competition while driving down product costs. But legislation alone is …

The Immigrant And Miranda, Anjana Malhotra

Anjana Malhotra

The recent dramatic convergence of immigration and criminal law is transforming the immigration and criminal justice system. While scholars have begun to examine some of the structural implications of this convergence, this article breaks new ground by examining judicial responses, and specifically the sharply divergent approaches that federal appellate courts have used to determine whether Miranda warnings must be given to immigrants during custodial interrogations about their immigration status that have both criminal and civil implications.

Misbehaving Lawyers: Cross Country Comparisons, Leslie C. Levin

Leslie C. Levin

Lawyer misbehavior occurs in every country and regulators often struggle to address it effectively. This article looks at six case studies of disciplined lawyers in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It notes the similarities in the cases and to disciplined lawyers previously described in case studies in the United States. In particular, these case studies involved male lawyers predominantly working in solo or small firms who were insufficiently exposed to positive professional values early in practice. They were willing to lie to achieve their goals and were motivated, at least in part, by money. The …