Law Commons^™

Reflections On Environmental Justice, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental justice is a very hot topic. Yesterday's New York Times on the front page of the Metropolitan section had a story stating: Mid-Sized Plants Headed to Poor Areas. The story stated, "The Pataki administration acknowledges in its own study that the electric generators that it wants to install around New York City would go into poor heavily minority communities, a finding that supports some of the arguments of the project's opponents. This is quoting an unreleased environmental justice analysis that may or may not be valid, but it certainly shows how hot a topic it is. This morning …

Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Government Pac: The Beginning Of The End Of The Buckley Era?, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, the Supreme Court emphatically reaffirmed a key element of the campaign finance doctrine first articulated in Buckley v. Valeo a quarter-century earlier that governments may, consistent with the First Amendment, impose limitations on the size of contributions to election campaigns. Shrink Missouri was significant because the Eighth Circuit decision reversed by the Supreme Court had sought to strengthen the constitutional protection provided to contributions and had invalidated limitations on donations to Missouri state candidates that were actually higher than the limits on donations to federal candidates that the Supreme Court had previously …

The Methodological Commitments Of Contemporary Contract Theory, Jody S. Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

Autonomy and economic theories of contract seem to provide incompatible accounts of contract law. In this Chapter, I argue that what appear to be first-order disagreements over particular contract doctrines are really implicit second-order disagreements reflecting the divergent methodological commitments of autonomy and economic theories. I argue that autonomy theories accord priority to the normative project of justifying existing contract doctrine, treat contract law as consisting in the plain meaning of doctrine, require contract theory to explain the distinctive character of contract law, and take the ex post perspective in adjudication. In contrast, economic theories accord priority to the positive …

The Acquiescent Gatekeeper: Reputational Intermediaries, Auditor Independence And The Governance Of Accounting, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The role of "gatekeepers" as reputational intermediaries who can be more easily deterred than the principals they serve has been developed in theory, but less often examined in practice. Initially, this article seeks to define the conditions under which gatekeeper liability is likely to work – and, correspondingly, the conditions under which it is more likely to fail. Then, after reviewing the recent empirical literature on earnings management, it concludes that the independent auditor does not today satisfy the conditions under which gatekeeper liability should produce high law compliance. A variety of explanations – poor observability, implicit collusion, and high …

A Defense Of Shareholder Favoritism, Stephen J. Choi, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This paper considers the efficiency implications of managerial "favoritism" towards block shareholders of public corporations. While favoritism can take any number of forms (including the payment of green-mail, diversion of opportunities, selective information disclosure, and the like), each may have the effect (if not the intent) of securing a block shareholder's loyalty in order to entrench management. Accordingly, the practice of making side payments is commonly perceived to be contrary to other shareholders' interests and, more generally, inefficient. In contrast to this received wisdom, we argue that when viewed ex ante, permissible acts of patronage toward block shareholders may play …

Competition Among Securities Markets: A Path Dependent Perspective, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Today, there are an estimated 150 securities exchanges trading stocks around the world. Tomorrow (or at least within the reasonably foreseeable future), this number is likely to shrink radically. The two great forces reshaping the contemporary world – globalization and technology – impact the world of securities markets in a similar and mutually reinforcing fashion:

1. they force local and regional markets into more direct competition with distant international markets;
2. they increase overall market capitalization and lower the cost of equity capital, as issuers are enabled to access multiple markets; and
3. they permit order flow and liquidity to migrate quickly from …

Can Copyright Become User-Friendly? Review: Jessica Litman, Digital Copyright (2001), Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

In this review, I will first briefly address Professor Litman's evocation of the copyright law-making process. Her discussion of legislative history presents a valuable and compelling account, especially for those unfamiliar with copyright law. Nonetheless, it is not a principal focus of this review. For those who read the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (many of whom may well be copyright lawyers), the most provocative portions of the book, to which I will devote most attention, are likely to be the chapters in which Professor Litman (a) reviews and challenges various metaphors for copyright policy (Chapter 5, "Choosing …

Berne Without Borders: Geographic Indiscretion And Digital Communications, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

This lecture examines the role of borders in the Berne Convention at the time of the treaty's first passage in 1886, and today. The later 19th century was an era of increasing commerce and communication among countries whose domestic production and reproduction of works of authorship had vastly increased, thanks in part to new technologies, such as photography, lithography, and high-speed printing. But at that time, the frontiers between nations often frustrated authors' hopes for control over, or at least compensation for, the international exploitation of their works. Authors' rights ceased at their national boundaries; the world beyond foreboded not …

Unocal Fifteen Year Later (And What We Can Do About It), Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

The coincidence of the new millennium and the fifteenth anniversary of the Delaware Supreme Court's announcement of a new approach to takeover law provides an occasion to evaluate a remarkable experiment in corporate law – the Delaware Supreme Court's development of an intermediate standard of review for appraising defensive tactics. This assessment reveals that Unocal has developed into an unexplained and likely inexplicable preference that control contests be resolved through elections rather than through market transactions. In doing so, the remarkable struggle between the chancery court and the supreme court for Unocal's soul is canvassed. The author also maintains that …

Toward Supranational Copyright Law? The Wto Panel Decision And The "Three-Step Test" For Copyright Exceptions, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

A dispute resolution panel of the World Trade Organization in June 2000 held the United States in contravention of its obligation under art. 13 of the TRIPs accord to "confine limitations or exceptions to exclusive rights to certain special cases which do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder." In the dispute resolution proceeding, initiated by the European Union at the behest of the Irish performing rights organization, the contested exception, enacted in the 1998 "Digital Millennium Copyright Act," exempted a broad range of retail and …

Do Norms Matter?: A Cross-Country Evaluation, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This Article starts with the recognition that the average private benefits of control vary significantly across countries. But why? The simplest explanation ascribes this variation to differences in law between jurisdictions: for example, the law of jurisdiction X could privilege controlling shareholders by allowing them to extract benefits from their corporation in the form of above-market salaries or non-pro-rata payments in connection with self-dealing transactions. But, this explanation cannot fit all cases. To illustrate, if the substantive law is essentially similar between two jurisdictions while the private benefits of control appear to be significantly different, then some other explanation must …

Domestic Violence And Us Asylum Law: Eliminating The 'Cultural Hook' For Claims Involving Gender-Related Persecution, Anita Sinha

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In this Note, Anita Sinha examines the treatment of asylum claims involving gender-related persecution. Analyzing the three most recent decisions published by the Board of Immigration Appeals, Sinha illustrates that these cases have turned on whether the gender-related violence can be linked to practices attributable to non-Western,'foreign" cultures. Sinha argues that cases involving gender-related persecution can be given full consideration of asylum law only when their adjudication is based on an understanding of the political and institutional character of violence against women, rather than on" cultural" culpability. In making this argument, Sinha examines recent amendments to the regulations governing asylum …

Lessons From The Ngo Campaign Against The Second Review Of The World Bank Inspection Panel: A Participant's Perspective, Daniel D. Bradlow

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Disfavored Speech About Favored Rights: Hill V. Colorado, The Vanishing Public Forum And The Need For An Objective Speech Discrimination Test, Jamin B. Raskin, Clark L. Leblanc

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Reason, Justice And Love: The Constitutional Humanism Of Peter Cicchino, Jamin B. Raskin

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Publication Rules In The Rulemaking Spectrum: Assuring Proper Respect For An Essential Element, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Imagine a visitor who seeks to catalog the variety of written texts American government uses to communicate its powers and its citizens' rights and obligations. She might organize those texts into the following pyramid:

• A Constitution, adopted by "the people"

• Hundreds of statutes, adopted by an elected Congress

• Thousands of regulations, adopted by politically responsible executive officials

• Tens of thousands of interpretations and other guidance documents, issued by responsible bureaus

• Countless advice letters, press releases, and other statements of understanding, generated by individual bureaucrats

On inquiry she would find that we understand passably well the …

Information Technology And Non-Legal Sanctions In Financing Transactions, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay investigates the effect of advances in information technology on the private institutions that businesses use to resolve information asymmetries in financing transactions. The first part of the Essay discusses how information technology can permit direct verification of the information, obviating the problem entirely; the Essay discusses the example of the substitution of the debit card for the check, which provides an immediate payment that obviates the need for the merchant to consider whether payment will be forthcoming when the check is presented to the bank on which it is drawn.

The second part of the Essay discusses how …

An "Effective Death Penalty"? Aedpa And Error Detection In Capital Cases, James S. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

On June 11, 2001, the United States of America executed Timothy McVeigh. Dwarfed among the many unspeakable evils that Mr. McVeigh wrought is a speakable one I will address here, namely, the so-called Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA").

Abbreviated, AEDPA's political history is as follows: In November 1994, the "Gingrich Congress" was elected on its Contract with America platform. One of the planks of that platform – one of the few that actually ended up passing Congress – was the so-called "Effective Death Penalty Act." That proposal had little to do with the death penalty and, …

The Dynamic Analytics Of Property Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

The standard property trilogy of private, commons, and state has become so outdated that it now impedes imagination and innovation at the frontiers of ownership. This essay suggests two approaches – creating new ideal types and synthesizing existing ones – that may help update our static property metaphors. Using these dynamic approaches to property analytics, legal theory can move beyond polarizing oppositions that have made jurisprudential debates unsolvable and rendered concrete problems invisible.

A Human Rights Critique Of The Wto: Some Preliminary Observations, Padideh Ala'i

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Language And Formalities In Commercial Contracts: A Defense Of Custom And Conduct, David Snyder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article defends the decision to retain usage of trade, course of performance, and course of dealing in the revision of Article 1 of the Uniform Commercial Code. The article responds to recent neoformalist criticisms of the incorporation approach and offers a theoretical justification. Usage of trade and course of dealing should be understood as part of the parties' language, following Wittgenstein's understanding of language. Course of performance, which presents a weaker case in terms of language, should be understood as a legal formality, following Fuller's explanation of formalities. Thus understood, custom and conduct can be as important as written …

New Horizons In Cartel Detection, Jonathan Baker

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

A Claim For Third Party Standing In America's Prisons, N. Jeremi Duru

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

La Libertad De Expresion En El Sistema Interamericano De Proteccion De Los Derechos Humanos, Claudio Grossman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Expression In The Inter-American System For The Protection Of Human Rights, Claudio Grossman

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Environmental Insurance: Does It Defy The Rules, Amanda Leiter

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Amnesties With Universal Jurisdiction - A Reply To Mr. Phenyo Keiseng Rakate, Juan E. Mendez, Garth Meintjes

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Ethical And Humanitarian Concerns Add A New Dimension To International Security In The Post-Cold War World, Juan E. Mendez

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Victim Requirement, The Fourth Instance Formula And The Notion Of Person In The Individual Complaint Procedure Of The Inter-American Human Rights System, Diego Rodriguez-Pinzon

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.