Law Commons^™

Where Ralls Went Wrong: Cfius, The Courts, And The Balance Of Liberty And Security, Christopher M. Fitzpatrick

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Asylum At Last: Matter Of A-R-C-G-'S Impact On Domestic Violence Victims Seeking Asylum, Johanna K. Bachmair

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Speech Integral To Criminal Conduct Exception, Eugene Volokh

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reporting Agency Performance: Behind The Sec's Enforcement Statistics, Urska Velikonja

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Can A State Sue The United States, Tara L. Grove

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judging Foreign States, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Famed foreign relations law principles, including the act of state doctrine, the public law taboo, and Zschernig’s foreign affairs preemption, rely on the notion that U.S. courts should not sit in judgment on foreign states. Judges in these cases, as well as scholars writing in the area, frequently suggest that U.S. courts should sit out of important disputes due to considerations of sovereign equality and international comity. Yet, in less attention-grabbing cases, U.S. courts routinely sit in judgment on foreign judgments, laws, legal systems, and interests, sometimes concluding that they do meet U.S. standards. The first goal of this project, …

Embedded Contracts And A Continuum Of Sovereign Debt, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What is the relationship of a government to its population as it pertains to sovereign debt? And how does this fit into the larger web of relationships and obligations that make up the international financial arena? These questions are incredibly difficult to think through – beyond the capacity of one author alone. I am therefore grateful to have the company of Yuri Biondi, Barry Herman, Tomoko Ishikawa, and Kunibert Raffer in beginning to consider them. In addressing their thoughtful and thought-provoking comments, I see this response less as an opportunity to answer every potential challenge or differential emphasis. Indeed, the …

Consenting To Computer Use, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) makes it a crime to “access a computer without authorization or exceed authorized access.” Courts and commentators have struggled to explain what types of conduct by a computer user are “without authorization.” But this approach is backwards; authorization is not so much a question of what a computer user does, as it is a question of what a computer owner allows.

In other words, authorization under the CFAA is an issue of consent, not conduct; to understand authorization, we need to understand consent. Building on Peter Westen’s taxonomy of consent, I argue …

Concerns Over The Expansion Of Artificial Intelligence In The Legal Field, Ben Einhouse

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

Advances in technology have surely made the practice of law more efficient, but looming advances in artificial intelligence should raise some concern about the price of this efficiency. Artificial intelligence programs already exhibit the capacity to replace the daily activities of some lawyers, which should raise some concern in the legal community, especially regarding legal ethics. Despite these concerns, the access to knowledge that artificial intelligence programs provide are a huge asset to the legal community, so we must regulate such programs properly. To frame this discussion, the type of artificial intelligence programs that are raising concern need to be …

Advanced Surveillance Technologies: Privacy And Evidentiary Issues, Tina Zheng

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

Surveillance technology, which encompasses a large array of technologies used to observe individuals’ activities and communications, has advanced at a rapid pace and is becoming more widely available in the general marketplace. This trend is potentially caused by increasing fears of terrorism following the September 11 attacks as well the ability of surveillance technology manufacturers to produce the technology at lower costs. Although surveillance technology has long been used by the military and government intelligence agencies, the use of this technology by law enforcement and now private individuals in areas not of national security concern is new and raises privacy …

Electronic Service Of Process: A Practical And Affordable Option, Annie Chen

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

It is not enough that courts have the ability to exercise control over persons and property. The Supreme Court has held that at a minimum, the due process requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment includes notice of the proceedings] Thus before a State can legitimately exercise such power its jurisdiction must be perfected by effectuated service of process. Service of process is the formal presentation of instruments that initiate legal action against a person or property. It is the method by which a defendant is formally notified that an action against her is pending and marks the beginning of a …

The New School Segregation, Erika K. Wilson

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Gridlock?, Josh Chafetz

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Common Law Of War, Jens D. Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In recent litigation before U.S. federal courts, the government has argued that military commissions have jurisdiction to prosecute offenses against the "common law of war," which the government defines as a body of domestic offenses, such as inchoate conspiracy, that violate the American law of war. This Article challenges that definition by arguing that stray references to the term "common law of war"in historical materials meant something completely different. By examining the Lieber Code, the writings of early natural law theorists, and early American judicial decisions, this Article concludes that the "common law of war" referred to a branch of …

The Mechanisms Of Derivatives Market Efficiency, Dan Awrey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

These are not your parents' financial markets. A generation ago, the image of Wall Street was one of floor traders and stockbrokers, of opening bells and ticker symbols, of titans of industry and barbarians at the gate. These images reflected the prevailing view in which stock markets stood at the center of the financial universe. The high point of this equity-centric view coincided with the development of a significant body of empirical literature examining the efficient market hypothesis (EMH): the prediction that prices within an efficient stock market will fully incorporate all available information. Over time, this equity-centric view became …

Unquantified Benefits And The Problem Of Regulation Under Certainty, Jonathan S. Masur, Eric A. Posner

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Don't End Or Audit The Fed: Central Bank Independence In An Age Of Austerity, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Empathy Bites Back: Cautionary Tales From Neuroscience For Capital Sentencing, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Amelia Courtney Hritz, Caisa Elizabeth Royer, John H. Blume

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The neuroscience of empathy provides one more reason to believe that the decision to sentence another human being to death is inevitably an arbitrary one, and one that cannot be divorced from either race or caprice. While we can tinker with aspects of capital trials that exacerbate caprice and discrimination stemming from empathy, we cannot alter basic neural responses to the pain of others and therefore cannot rationalize (in either sense of the word) empathic responses.

Don't End Or Audit The Fed: Central Bank Independence In An Age Of Austerity, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is the central bank of the United States. Because of its power and importance in guiding the economy, the Fed's independence from direct political influence has made it a target of ideologically motivated attacks throughout its history, with an especially aggressive round of attacks coming in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and ongoing today. We defend Fed independence. We point to the Fed's exemplary performance during and after the 2008 crisis, and we offer the example of a potential future crisis in which Congress falls to increase the debt ceiling to show how …

Recovering Socialism For Feminist Legal Theory In The 21 St Century, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a significant strand of feminist theory in the 1970s and 1980s — socialist feminism — has largely been ignored by feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialist feminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, and Iris Young, as well as their predecessors in the U.K., and in the …

Unique Identities And Vulnerabilities: The Case For Transgender Identity As A Basis For Asylum, Adena L. Wayne

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Striking The Right Chord: A Theoretical Approach To Balancing Artists' Intellectual Property Rights On Remix Audio-Sharing Platforms, Nicole Greenstein

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New School Segregation, Erika K. Wilson

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of The Quiet Power Of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, And The Rule Of Law, Sital Kalantry

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Legitimacy And Impartiality As Basic Principles For Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay suggests that attentiveness to the principles of legitimacy and impartiality may contribute to the instrumental success of any sovereign debt restructuring, and highlights institutional elements or practices often associated with these goals. An additional question can be raised as to whether these principles might have a further claim to special consideration, as part of emerging customary international law or general principles of law. Any determination along these lines is made difficult by the fact that legitimacy is a composite principle, constituted of multiple procedural and substantive norms, and perhaps lacks the necessary specificity to be a legal rule …

Rjr Nabisco And The Runaway Canon, Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In last Term’s RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, the Court finished transforming the presumption against extraterritoriality from a tool meant to effectuate congressional intent into a tool for keeping Congress in check. In the hands of the RJR Nabisco majority, the presumption has become less a method for interpreting statutes than a pronouncement on the proper scope of access to U.S. courts, a pronouncement that Congress must labor to displace. Besides the worrisome implications for separation of powers, the majority’s opinion was also disappointing on practical grounds. By applying the presumption too aggressively, the Court missed an opportunity to …

A Crisis Of Faith & The Scientific Future Of Patent Theory, Oskar Liivak

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The current reward framing for the patent system has resisted all attempts to either confirm or to refute the benefits of the system. Yet that should not surprise us. We should be surprised that we ever thought that the system could be justified at all. The reward framing has infected the patent system with pathological defects that make the system both unjustifiable and unfalsifiable. An alternate framing that focuses on ex ante technology transfer can support and explain many of the doctrinal features of the current patent system, but it can do so while avoiding the pathologies that plague today's …

One Size Does Not Fit All: The Shortcomings Of Current Negative Option Legislation, Sophia Wang

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Quintessential Law Library And Librarian In A Digital Era, Femi Cadmus

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Libraries, like most institutions and industries today, are faced with disruptive technologies that challenge their relevancy in a digital era. As a result, erstwhile notions and nostalgia associated with the quintessential library and librarian are changing rapidly.

This is a compelling era to reimagine the library, retaining essential traditions alongside the new technologies, which facilitate the preservation, discoverability, accessibility, and delivery of information. It is also an opportunity for libraries to respond creatively and innovatively to change. The quintessential law library and librarian cannot only survive but can also thrive in the digital era by continuing to demonstrate value through …

Vexatious Litigants And The Ada: Strategies To Fairly Address The Need To Improve Access For Individuals With Disabilities, Helia Garrido Hull

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

No abstract provided.