Law Commons^™

Congress, The Fcc, And The Search For The Public Trustee, Neal Devins

Law and Contemporary Problems

The features of constitutional politics involving independent agencies are discussed through an examination of FCC efforts to repudiate regulatory initiatives designed to facilitate diversity in broadcasting.

The Environmental Laws And Policies Of Taiwan: A Comparative Law Perspective, Dennis T. Tang

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article discusses the development of environmental regulation and preservation in Taiwan in light of United States environmental law. The Article begins with a discussion of how few measures have been enacted to protect the Taiwanese environment. It then illuminates some of the problems with the Taiwanese environmental regulations that do exist. According to the author, some of these problems include: ambiguous and conflicting goals enunciated in the legislation; political pressures on the authorities influencing environmental policies; poor enforcement mechanisms; a legislative bias in favor of regulating new sources of pollution and against enforcing regulations in the case of old …

Preventing The Theft And Illegal Export Of Art In A Europe Without Borders, Kimberly A. Short

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The opening of internal borders within the European Community presents tremendous opportunity for European economic growth. Yet with all the potential benefits come many problems. Increased illegal art trafficking is one of these problems. This Note examines European treaties, laws of the individual EC Member States, and Community-wide treaties and regulations designed to prevent the theft and illegal export of art. The Note discusses how the differing interests of the Member States have prevented agreement on legislation to protect art and resulted in measures inadequate to protect Europe's vast art treasures. After analyzing the latest EC regulatory attempt to protect …

Law And Economics, Michael J. Trebilcock

Dalhousie Law Journal

Prior to 1960, most North American law schools paid attention only to anti-trust, public utility regulation, and perhaps tax policy from a law and economics perspective (sometimes referred to as the "old" law and economics). However, beginning in the early 1960's with pioneering articles by Guido Calabresi on tort law and Ronald Coase (the 1991 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics) on property rights, followed by prolific writings and a comprehensive text by Richard Posner on a vast range of legal issues, the field of law and economics has burgeoned with many lawyers and economists around the world now …

An Examination Of The Current Status Of Rating Agencies And Proposals For Limited Oversight Of Such Agencies, Francis A. Bottini Jr.

San Diego Law Review

This Comment analyzes the market for ratings of both financial securities and insurance companies, and finds significant problems with rating agencies, such as lethargy in changing ratings, political influence, unsolicited ratings, and inaccurate ratings. To ensure that the federal securities laws continue to protect investors, this Comment recommends limited oversight of rating agencies. It proposes that Congress enact legislation granting the Securities and Exchange Commission explicit authority to mandate that all nationally recognized statistical rating organizations register with the SEC, and to establish minimum standards for their designation. Finally, the Comment examines First Amendment concerns associated with the regulation of …

The Social Origins Of Property, Jack M. Beermann, Joseph William Singer

Faculty Scholarship

The takings clause of the United States Constitution requires government to pay compensation when private property is taken for public use.' When government regulates, but does not physically seize, property, the Supreme Court of the United States has had trouble defining when individuals have been deprived of property rights so as to give them a right to compensation. The takings clause serves "to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens that, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole."' To determine when a regulation amounts to a "taking" of property …

Innovative Approaches To Irrigation Conservation, Larry D. Simpson

Water Organizations in a Changing West (Summer Conference, June 14-16)

3 pages.

Book Review, Juanita V. Field, Thomas G. Field Jr.

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of: WESLEY A. MAGAT & W. KIP VISCUSI, INFORMATIONAL APPROACHES TO REGULATION. (MIT Press 1992) [274 pp.] Appendices, endnotes, illustrations, index, list of titles in the Regulation of Economic Activity series, list of tables and figures, preface, series foreword. LC 91-29483; ISBN 0-262-13277-X. [$32.50 cloth. 55 Hayward Street; Cambridge MA 02142.]

Multiple Sources Of Consumer Law And Enforcement (Or: "Still In Search Of A Uniform Policy"), Ralph J. Rohner

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reforming Fcc Regulation Of Dominant Telephone Carriers: Putting Some Teeth Into The Test For Predation, Thomas K. Gump

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note examines the ineffective protections against predatory pricing by AT&T contained in the price cap scheme. Part I outlines price cap regulation and explains how the FCC hopes that a test based on the average variable cost standard will detect predatory pricing. Part II argues that the FCC erred in adopting an average variable cost standard as the test for telecommunications predation because that standard ignores the high fixed costs common to all firms in the industry. Part II demonstrates that AT&T could engage in predatory pricing despite the protections contained in the regulatory scheme. Part II then examines …

Introductory Remarks To The Conference, Nathan M. Crystal, Gregory B. Adams

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of The Regulation Of Debtor-In-Possession Financing, George G. Triantis

Vanderbilt Law Review

The profile of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in public consciousness has surged recently. Other than the automatic stay on the enforcement of claims, the most publicized feature of bankruptcy reorganizations is debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing. Indeed, along with the bankruptcy stay, DIP financing is the motivation for many Chapter 11 filings. Under Section 364 of the Code, a firm in bankruptcy (the debtor in possession) can finance its ongoing operations and investments by issuing new debt that enjoys any one of various levels of priority, all of which rank higher than the firm's prepetition unsecured debt.' The debtor's financing …

Revitalizing Regulation, Daniel A. Farber

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector by David Osborne and Rethinking the Progressive Agenda: The Reform of the American Regulatory State by Susan Rose-Ackerman

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Extraterritorial Employment Standards of the United States: The Regulation of the Overseas Workplace

By James Michael Zimmerman

New York, New York: Quorum Books, 1992. Pp.206.

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Fact-Finding before International Tribunals

Edited by Richard B. Lillich

Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: Transnational Publishers Inc., 1992, Pp. 338.

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International Human Rights Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean

Edited by Angela D. Byre and Bevereley Y. Byfield

Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1991. Pp. 398.

Enforcement Of Tsca And The Federal Five-Year Statute Of Limitations For Penalty Actions, Teresa A. Holderer

Michigan Law Review

Many years prior to TSCA, Congress enacted a general five-year statute of limitations for actions for the enforcement of civil penalties, fines, and forfeitures, which, if applicable, would alleviate these problems. Although the Agency claims that no statute of limitations applies, this Note argues that the general five-year statute of limitations, found in section 2462 of title 28, should apply to EPA's administrative proceedings to assess penalties as well as to later collection actions in federal courts. Part I details TSCA's enforcement procedures, which create special difficulties when applying section 2462's statute of limitations. Part I also examines how EPA, …

Toward A Sustainable Maine : The Politics, Economics, And Ethics Of Sustainability, Richard Barringer (Ed.)

Maine Collection

Toward A Sustainable Maine : The Politics, Economics, and Ethics of Sustainability

Richard Barringer, editor, Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern Maine

Edmund S. Muskie Institute of Public Affairs, University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine, 1993.

The proceedings of a conference presented at Bowdoin College on March 19 and 20, 1993, by the Edmund S. Muskie Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Southern Maine, and by the Natural Resources Council of Maine. Ellen Baum, conference organizer.

Contents; Foreword by Richard Barringer / Welcome by Everett Carson / Global, Canadian, and Maine Perspectives / Sustaining Our Natural and …

Wild Dunes And Serbonian Bogs: The Impact Of The Lucas Decision On Shoreline Protection Programs, Richard C. Ausness

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, the United Supreme Court was forced once again to delve into the law of regulatory takings. This experience is seldom a pleasant one. Echoing the poet John Milton, an exasperated state court judge once described takings law as a “Serbonian Bog.” Unfortunately, the takings doctrine is only slightly more comprehensible after the Lucas decision than it was before. Nevertheless, progress in this area, however modest, deserves praise, and the Court is to be commended for clarifying one aspect of takings jurisprudence. As a result of Lucas a “categorical rule” has been announced …

Empowering The Russian Consumer In A Market Economy, James P. Nehf

Michigan Journal of International Law

One purpose of this article is to examine how the legislative product of a declining socialist state will benefit Russian consumers during the unusual circumstances characterizing the period of market transformation. A second purpose is to familiarize Western consumerists with the decidedly pro-consumer features of the Russian law. Part I analyzes the consumer law's provisions that elevate the legal status of consumers when they purchase goods and services. Part II examines the legislation from a different perspective - as a set of legal norms affecting the operation of consumer markets generally. Part III discusses the enforcement mechanisms established in the …