Law Commons^™

The U.S. Supreme Court Hears The Mickey Mouse Case, L. Ray Patterson

Popular Media

The case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, argued before the U. S. Supreme Court on October 9, 2002, is the most important copyright case since 1834, when the court decided its first, Wheaton v. Peters. In Wheaton, the court ruled that under the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution only Congress can grant copyright for published works. In Eldred, the court will decide the scope of Congress’ copyright power. May Congress grant, in the words of the Copyright Clause, copyright only for a "limited time" or may Congress extend the time already granted for existing copyrights? This is what Congress did …

Employee Interests In Bankrupcy: Lessons From Enron, Lorie Johnson

Popular Media

Enron employees lost over $1 billion in retirement savings when the company failed and filed for bankruptcy protection. Many of these employees also lost their jobs. Enron employees were both visible and vocal about their losses, quickly obtaining the support of both the AFL-CIO and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition in their fight to get some redress for their losses. Since Enron was current on its payroll at the time of the bankruptcy filing, employees’ losses consisted of severance payments totaling $145 million and the losses associated with investments in Enron stock through their 401(k) accounts.

Conflict Of Laws In The Enforcement Of Foreign Awards And Foreign Judgments: The Public Policy Defense And Practice In U.S. Courts, Anupama Parameshwaran

LLM Theses and Essays

Public policy is one of the defenses that a court or a party may invoke in order to resist enforcement of an unjust foreign award or judgment. The purpose of this study is to analyze the status of the public policy as a defense to enforcement in the U.S and to examine its success rate. The thesis will contain suggestions to make public policy a more meaningful defense with respect to the enforcement of foreign judgments and its role in bringing about uniformity in the field of foreign judgments will be analyzed.

International Corporate Governance Practices And Their Implications On Investors, Namwandi Hamanyanga

LLM Theses and Essays

Corporate governance has become a bonafide subset of company’s law that is concerned with who directs the company and for whose benefit. Its application varies in countries found in the main legal jurisdictions of common and civil law. This thesis identifies these differences by highlighting national corporate governance systems existing in Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States. Together, these countries represent systems adopted by several countries located on all continents. Increased cross border investment in this era of globalization has been significantly affected by these governance systems. The thesis shows the reasons why investors, multinational corporations and nations have …

Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law Editorial And Managing Boards 2002-2003, Georgia Journal Of International And Comparative Law

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Grade Distribution - Fall Semester 2002, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Student Organization Officers 2002-2003, Office Of Registrar

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Means/Ends Analysis In Copyright Law: Eldred V. Ashcroft In One Act, Dan T. Coenen, Paul J. Heald

Scholarly Works

Scene: The quiet hallway of a law school. A troubled young professor of Intellectual Property law stands in front of a senior colleague's office and studies a pencil sketch of Bushrod Washington taped to the door. After a moment's hesitation, he knocks and enters.

Class Schedule - Fall 2002, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Means/Ends Analysis In Copyright Law: Eldred V. Ashcroft In One Act, Dan T. Coenen, Paul J. Heald

Scholarly Works

The authors examine Eldred v. Ashcroft in a play setting where one of the characters plays a constitutional law professor and the other character plays an intellectual property professor.

Symposium On The Ilc's State Responsibility Articles: Introduction And Overview, Daniel M. Bodansky, John R. Crook

Scholarly Works

In August 2001, the International Law Commission (ILC) adopted its “Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts,” bringing to completion one of the Commission's longest running and most controversial studies. On December 12, 2001, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 56/83, which “commend[ed the articles] to the attention of Governments without prejudice to the question of their future adoption or other appropriate action.”

The ILC articles address the fundamental questions: when does a state breach an international obligation and what are the legal consequences? Rather than attempting to define particular “primary” rules of conduct, the …

The Dmca: A Modern Version Of The Licensing Act Of 1662, L. Ray Patterson

Scholarly Works

The thesis of this Article is that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) in the United States is a modern version of the Licensing Act of 1662 in England. The English censorship statute is sufficiently obscure to merit an explanation of why the similarity and why it makes a difference. The reasons can be simply stated. The statutes are similar because they represent the same goals: the control of access to ideas. The similarities make a difference because a legal construct to control public access to ideas undermines -- and will eventually destroy -- the right of free …

Sneak And Peak Search Warrants, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

In his recent article "Taking Liberty with Freedom," author Richard P. Moore reminds us that the USA Patriot Act, signed by President Bush last Oct. 26 in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "gives the government the kind of sweeping powers of arrest, detention, surveillance, investigation, deportation, and search and seizure that ... assault ... our most basic freedoms."

I want to examine here a single section of the USA Patriot Act--section 213, definitely one of the most sinister provisions of this monstrous statute.

Modernizing The Law Of Secured Transactions: Nonuniform Provisions Of Georgia's Revised Article 9, James C. Smith

Scholarly Works

Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code governs secured transactions in personal property and fixtures. In 1990, the sponsors of the U.C.C. launched a major revision project, which culminated in Revised Article 9. Judged by the marketplace of state legislatures, the project turned out to be a remarkable success story of law reform. Between 1998 and 2001, all fifty states plus the District of Columbia enacted Revised Article 9. In Georgia, the revision process began in 1999 with the State Bar of Georgia's appointment of the Revised Article 9 Subcommittee of the Business Law Section. The seventeen-member committee, composed of …

The Rehnquist Court, Structural Due Process, And Semisubstantive Constitutional Review, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

Semisubstantive review, as I use that label, entails four key features. First, the subject matter of judicial inquiry is not the process applied in adjudicating a discrete dispute; rather, the matter at hand is the constitutionality of a statute or other generalized expression of legal policy. Second, some procedural omission by the lawmaker -- rather than an incurably substantive flaw in the end product of its work -- lays the groundwork for a judicial intervention that invalidates the challenged rule or negates how that rule otherwise would operate. It may be, for example, that a federal statute read as a …

An Analysis Of The Duty To Negotiate In Good Faith: Precontractual Liability And Preliminary Agreement, Aarti Arunachalam

LLM Theses and Essays

Good faith is one concept that defies a clear definition and courts have struggled to understand and establish its scope and ambit. This paper just seeks to analyze the scope of the duty of good faith as understood at the stage when actually no contract has been formed. Despite considerable support for the existence of a duty of good faith, courts in US have not been very receptive in recognizing the duty of good faith especially in the precontractual stage, especially when parties enter into preliminary agreement. Courts have relied on the a number of factors to determine the enforceability …

Lawyers' Value In Mergers And Acquisitions Under The New World Of Multidisciplinary Practices, Yunling Wu

LLM Theses and Essays

Lawyers are facing strong competition from accounting firms in mergers and acquisitions. Finance and accounting globalization and multidisciplinary practice makes accounting firms more competent, challenging lawyers’ value. However, lawyers create enormous value in mergers and acquisitions, such as structuring the form of transactions, managing due diligence investigation, reducing the costs of acquiring and verifying information, ensuring corporations follow the relevant regulations preventing legal liabilities, and preventing antitrust issues or invoking antitrust challenge. Teamwork will facilitate mergers and acquisitions transactions. Restricted multidisciplinary practice will not affect lawyers’ and accountants’ ethics and independence. Legal education should be improved to help lawyers become …

Class Schedule - Summer 2002, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Secured Credit And Insolvency Law In Argentina And The U.S.: Gaining Insight From A Comparative Perspective, Guillermo A. Moglia Claps, Julian B. Mcdonnell

Scholarly Works

It is not the purpose of this study to argue for or against changes in the secured credit or insolvency law of Argentina or the U.S. The perpetual clash of interested noted by James Madison and the contemporary pressures of the global economy are likely to assure that these areas of law will be subject to continuing scrutiny in both countries. Instead, we first urge that the law governing the creation and enforcement of security devices and the way in which insolvency laws impact these devices be considered together as part of one system of financing. The power which secured …

Balancing Interests: Statute Of Limitations And Repose In Medical Malpractice Cases, Laurie L. Paterson

LLM Theses and Essays

In the 1970s a crisis occurred in the medical malpractice insurance industry. As tort law began to favor plaintiffs, the number and severity of medical malpractice claims increased. Insurance companies inundated with a deluge of claims correspondingly increased their premiums or pulled out of the malpractice insurance industry all together. Some physicians were unable to obtain medical malpractice insurance and others were faced with as much as a 300% rise in insurance premiums. As a result, the medical profession urged states to enact medical malpractice tort reform. Some states’ tort reform included legislation such as award caps, collateral source offset, …

Current Problems Of International Taxation Of Electronic Commerce, Nuran G. Kerimov

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis discusses the main problems that face tax authorities of many countries in the process of taxation of electronic commerce. It analyzes examples of problems posed by the growth of e-commerce in the context international direct and indirect taxation. Current international policy issues are the subject of discussion of the thesis. The thesis also analyzes some of the proposals regarding taxation of electronic commerce.

Grade Distribution - 2001 - 2002 Academic Year, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

Class Schedule - Spring 2002, Office Of Registrar

Semester Schedules and Information

No abstract provided.

On The Importance Of Institutions: Review Of Arbitral Awards For Legal Errors, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

In my view, legislatures, rather than courts or parties, should decide whether (and to what extent) courts should review arbitral awards for errors of law. The optimal legislative mechanism should not be compulsory but should offer parties the choice whether to "opt-in" to this regime of expanded review by inserting language to that effect in their arbitration agreement. A legislative solution with an "opt-in" feature has a sounder doctrinal foundation, better respects the distribution of power between various branches of government, involves a lower risk of error and minimizes transaction costs. From this position, two additional conclusions follow: first, courts …

Securing Justice For Women In The United Nations International War Crimes Tribunals And Beyond, Kelly Dawn Askin

Edith House Lectures

Askin is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University as well as a legal consultant to the United Nations and other world agencies in the areas of international humanitarian and criminal law. She has previously served as acting executive director of the War Crimes Research Office at the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law, American University. She teaches primarily in the areas of international humanitarian law and international gender issues. She is the author of War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals and chief editor of …

Congressional Power Over Presidential Elections: Lessons From The Past And Reforms For The Future, Dan T. Coenen, Edward J. Larson

Scholarly Works

Presidential election controversies are nothing new. They have plagued our republic since 1801, when the fourth election for the office ended in a muddle that nearly deprived the rightful winner of the presidency. Each controversy has led to calls for reform. In every instance, the cryptic and troublesome constitutional text has hampered congressional efforts to correct the problems. Simply stated, the Constitution offers little explicit guidance on when and how Congress can regulate the selection of the President. In this Article, we explore the implications of this textual deficiency, looking both at what Congress has done in the past and …

Federal Guilty Pleas Under Rule 11: The Unfilled Promise Of The Post-Boykin Era, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure governs perhaps the most essential and common practice in the federal criminal justice system--the guilty plea. Despite the public's focus on the excitement and drama engendered by real and fictional criminal trials, the overwhelming majority of criminal matters reach a negotiated resolution. Indeed, the importance of the guilty plea to the judiciary, prosecutors, and even defense attorneys cannot be overstated. Without guilty pleas, the criminal justice system would malfunction; the system is simply incapable of accommodating the constitutional exercise of a defendant's trial right in each instance.

The federal plea process …

2002-03 Faculty Appointments And Honors, Office Of Communications And Public Relations

Other Law School Publications

Dean David A. Shipley and the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Law are proud to announce faculty appointments, promotions and honors.

Joseph Henry Lumpkin Inn Of Court Team Members 2002-2003, Kellie Casey Monk

Materials from All Student Organizations

No abstract provided.

Privacy And Personal Data Protection In The Information Age: A Comparative Evaluation, Emeka B. Obasi

LLM Theses and Essays

The United States and European economies are both information economies, however, they have different approaches in protecting personal information. This study examines in as much detail as possible, the relevant privacy laws in the two economic regions. The Europeans have a comprehensive legislation regulating personal information that vests considerable control on the data subject. Europeans characterize personal data as a fundamental human right. Americans, on the other hand, protect personal information by legislating for specific industries as the need arises and do not recognize privacy of personal information as a fundamental right. This study concludes the European approach is preferable, …