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2009

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Institution
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Articles 31 - 60 of 316

Full-Text Articles in Law

Climate Change And Reassessing The "Right" Level Of Government: A Response To Bronin, Alexandra B. Klass Jan 2009

Climate Change And Reassessing The "Right" Level Of Government: A Response To Bronin, Alexandra B. Klass

Articles

Climate change has caused lawmakers, policymakers, and scholars to reassess the traditional role of federal, state, and local governments to regulate a broad range of environmental, energy, and land-use issues. While the problem of climate change would appear to be best addressed at the international, or at least the federal level, it has been local governments and states that have taken the first and most important steps in recognizing the problem and experimenting with different ways to address it. While some of these experiments show how the "lower" levels of government can have a significant and positive impact on national-level …


What Explains Persistent Racial Disproportionality In Minnesota's Prison And Jail Populations?, Richard Frase Jan 2009

What Explains Persistent Racial Disproportionality In Minnesota's Prison And Jail Populations?, Richard Frase

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Mostly Unintended Effects Of Mandatory Penalties: Two Centuries Of Consistent Findings, Michael Tonry Jan 2009

The Mostly Unintended Effects Of Mandatory Penalties: Two Centuries Of Consistent Findings, Michael Tonry

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Untold Story Of America's First Sentencing Commission, Michael Tonry Jan 2009

The Untold Story Of America's First Sentencing Commission, Michael Tonry

Articles

No abstract provided.


Second Look Provisions In The Proposed Model Penal Code Revisions, Richard Frase Jan 2009

Second Look Provisions In The Proposed Model Penal Code Revisions, Richard Frase

Articles

No abstract provided.


Norval Morris's Contributions To Sentencing Structures, Theory, And Practice, Richard Frase Jan 2009

Norval Morris's Contributions To Sentencing Structures, Theory, And Practice, Richard Frase

Articles

No abstract provided.


Differential Compensation And The "Race To The Bottom" In Consumer Insurance Markets, Daniel Schwarcz Jan 2009

Differential Compensation And The "Race To The Bottom" In Consumer Insurance Markets, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

No abstract provided.


Carbon Capture And Sequestration: Identifying And Managing Risks, Alexandra B. Klass, Elizabeth J. Wilson Jan 2009

Carbon Capture And Sequestration: Identifying And Managing Risks, Alexandra B. Klass, Elizabeth J. Wilson

Articles

Carbon capture and geologic sequestration (CCS) technology promises to provide deep emissions cuts, particularly from coal power generation, but deploying CCS creates risks of its own. This article first considers the risks associated with CCS, which involves capturing CO{sub 2} emissions from industrial sources and power plants, transporting the CO{sub 2} by pipeline, and injecting it underground for permanent sequestration. The article then suggests ways in which these risks can be minimized and managed and considers more broadly when or if CCS should be deployed or whether its use should be limited or rejected in favor of other solutions.


Tort Experiments In The Laboratories Of Democracy, Alexandra B. Klass Jan 2009

Tort Experiments In The Laboratories Of Democracy, Alexandra B. Klass

Articles

This Article considers the broad range of tort experiments states have undertaken in recent years as well as the changing attitudes of Congress and the Supreme Court toward state tort law. Notably, as states have engaged in well-publicized tort reform efforts in the products liability and personal injury areas, they have also increased tort rights and remedies to address new societal problems associated with privacy, publicity, consumer protection, and environmental harm. At the same time, however, just as the Supreme Court was beginning its so-called federalism revolution of the 1990s to limit Congressional authority in the name of states' rights, …


The Accountable Executive, Heidi Kitrosser Jan 2009

The Accountable Executive, Heidi Kitrosser

Articles

This Article was written for the 2008 Minnesota Law Review Symposium, Law & Politics in the 21st Century. The Article examines the core functionalist argument typically made to support unitary executive theory: that the theory advances the constitutional principle of accountability by demanding that all executive branch decisions be placed in the hands of a single, nationally elected official. This Article argues that a unitary executive undermines, rather than bolsters, government accountability. The Article also explains that one need not agree with that proposition to conclude that the accountability justification for unitary executive theory is flawed. Rather, one need only …


Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Lawsuit: A Social Norms Theory Of Incomplete Contracts, Claire Hill Jan 2009

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Lawsuit: A Social Norms Theory Of Incomplete Contracts, Claire Hill

Articles

Complex business contracts are notoriously difficult to write and read. Certainly, when litigation arises, courts scarcely have an easy time interpreting them. Indeed, contracts don't look at all as though they are written to tell a court what the parties want. Why can't smart, well-motivated lawyers do a better job? My article argues that they rationally don't try. I argue for a view of contracting in which parties aren't principally trying to set forth an agreement for a court to enforce. Rather, by leaving inartful language and ambiguity in the agreement, parties are bonding themselves not to seek precipitous recourse …


Why Did Anyone Listen To The Rating Agencies After Enron?, Claire Hill Jan 2009

Why Did Anyone Listen To The Rating Agencies After Enron?, Claire Hill

Articles

Enron was rated investment grade by Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s, and Fitch until four days before it declared bankruptcy - scarcely a ringing endorsement of the agencies’ acumen. Even before Enron, the rating agencies had come in for significant criticism. Yet many investors who lost considerable sums in the financial crisis are saying that they relied on the rating agencies. How can this reliance be reconciled with what preceded it? I argue that an adaptive trait - incorporating new data that potentially conflicts with one’s pre-existing worldview so as to preserve as much of that worldview as possible - proved …


Women, Security, And The Patriarchy Of Internationalized Transitional Justice, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin Jan 2009

Women, Security, And The Patriarchy Of Internationalized Transitional Justice, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

Articles

In the contemporary global context, transition from conflict to peace and from authoritarian to democratic governance is a critical preoccupation of many states, particularly the United States. In these contexts, accountability for the abuses committed by prior regimes has been a priority for international institutions, states and new governments. Equally, transitional justice goals have expanded to include fashioning new domestic political and legal institutions and a broad range of structural reform in multiple spheres. Whether an expanded or contracted transitional justice paradigm is used to define the perimeters of change, gender concerns have been markedly absent across political contexts and …


From Warranted To Valuable Belief: Local Government, Climate Change, And Giving Up The Pickup To Save Bangladesh, Jerrold A. Long Jan 2009

From Warranted To Valuable Belief: Local Government, Climate Change, And Giving Up The Pickup To Save Bangladesh, Jerrold A. Long

Articles

Although the public discourse about efforts to address global climate change understandably focuses on national- and international-level efforts, in the United States much of the authority for regulating greenhouse gas emitting activities resides with state and local governments. Many local governments have initiated efforts to address global climate change in some fashion. But this article argues that there remains a disconnect between the local causes and global consequences of climate change sufficient to prevent the adoption of durable and effective local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, individuals remain largely unable to connect their personal decisions with …


Optimal Timing Of Legal Intervention: The Role Of Timing Rules, Barbara Luppi, Francesco Parisi Jan 2009

Optimal Timing Of Legal Intervention: The Role Of Timing Rules, Barbara Luppi, Francesco Parisi

Articles

In a recent article, Gersen and Posner (2007) examined the role of timing rules in promoting the optimal timing of legislative action. In this brief essay, we address the issue of optimal timing of lawmaking through the lens of option theory. We provide a formalization of seven alternative timing rules and evaluate the option value of those legislative strategies. This formalization allows us to evaluate the desirability of alternative timing rules in different regulatory environments.


Getting The Word Out: The Informational Function Of Trademarks, John Shahar Dillbary Jan 2009

Getting The Word Out: The Informational Function Of Trademarks, John Shahar Dillbary

Articles

This article challenges the statement that "the only legally relevant function of a trademark is to impart information as to the source of the product." Information about the source of the product undoubtedly helps the consumer choose the product she wants from a set of possible products. This article argues, however, that the informational function of trademarks is broader: in addition to providing information about the source, a trademark often provides information that reduces consumers' uncertainty about the product's qualities and impacts purchasing decisions. Specifically, this article shows that a trademark not only helps the consumer choose the product she …


The Death Of Judicial Conservatism, David A. Strauss Jan 2009

The Death Of Judicial Conservatism, David A. Strauss

Articles

No abstract provided.


Interpretive Preferences And The Limits Of The New Formalism, Adam Badawi Jan 2009

Interpretive Preferences And The Limits Of The New Formalism, Adam Badawi

Articles

A recent movement in contracts scholarship-the so-called New Formalism-seeks to justify limitations on the introduction of extrinsic evidence to interpret contracts on the instrumental grounds of efficiency and empirical observation. Less attention has been directed at the development of a similar instrumental argument for the more contextual types of interpretation observed in the Uniform Commercial Code and the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. This Article engages this question by arguing that the relative ability of transactors to draft complete contracts is likely to be an important determinant of their preferred interpretive regime. Where low contracting costs allow commercial parties to draft …


Same-Sex Marriage And The Establishment Clause, Geoffrey R. Stone Jan 2009

Same-Sex Marriage And The Establishment Clause, Geoffrey R. Stone

Articles

No abstract provided.


One Hat Too Many - Investment Desegregation In Private Equity, M. Todd Henderson, William A. Birdthistle Jan 2009

One Hat Too Many - Investment Desegregation In Private Equity, M. Todd Henderson, William A. Birdthistle

Articles

The nature of private-equity investing has changed significantly as two dynamics have evolved in recent years: portfolio companies have begun to experience serious financial distress, and general partners have started to diversify and desegregate their investment strategies Both developments have led private-equity shops-once exclusively interested in acquiring equity positions through leveraged buyouts- to invest in other tranches of the investment spectrum, most particularly public debt. By investing now in both private equity and public debt of the same issuer, general partners are generating a host of new conflicts of interest between themselves and their limited partners, between multiple general partners …


Beyond The Prisoners' Dilemma: Coordination, Game Theory, And Law, Richard H. Mcadams Jan 2009

Beyond The Prisoners' Dilemma: Coordination, Game Theory, And Law, Richard H. Mcadams

Articles

No abstract provided.


Judicial Audiences And Reputation: Perspectives From Comparative Law, Tom Ginsburg, Nuno Garoupa Jan 2009

Judicial Audiences And Reputation: Perspectives From Comparative Law, Tom Ginsburg, Nuno Garoupa

Articles

Whether judges are motivated to make good law or maximize policy goals, they need to develop and maintain a good reputation with some audience. We distinguish internal and external audiences for individual judicial decision-making: internal audiences are those within the judiciary itself, while external audiences include lawyers, the media or the general public. Different legal systems emphasize different audiences: some rely on external audiences that encourage judges to invest in their individual reputations, while others emphasize internal audiences that facilitate the collective reputation of the judiciary as a whole. The article analyzes the interaction between internal and external audiences over …


Are American Ceos Overpaid, And, If So, What If Anything Should Be Done About It?, Richard A. Posner Jan 2009

Are American Ceos Overpaid, And, If So, What If Anything Should Be Done About It?, Richard A. Posner

Articles

No abstract provided.


What The Law Should (And Should Not) Learn From Child Development Research, Emily Buss Jan 2009

What The Law Should (And Should Not) Learn From Child Development Research, Emily Buss

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Rights Of Migrants: An Optimal Contract Framework, Adam B. Cox, Eric A. Posner Jan 2009

The Rights Of Migrants: An Optimal Contract Framework, Adam B. Cox, Eric A. Posner

Articles

Why do migrants enjoy some of the rights associated with citizenship? Existing accounts typically answer this question in terms of obligation-of a duty on the part of states to confer citizenship. Moreover, scholars tend to lump together the rights conventionally associated with citizenship when they answer this question. In contrast, this Article disaggregates the rights associated with citizenship, asks what both states and migrants want, and inquires into how the suite of rights associated with citizenship might advance those interests. States want to encourage migrants to enter their territory and to make country-specific investments, but states also have an interest …


Corporate Philanthropy And The Market For Altruism, M. Todd Henderson, Anup Malani Jan 2009

Corporate Philanthropy And The Market For Altruism, M. Todd Henderson, Anup Malani

Articles

Academics and businesspeople have long debated the merits of corporate philanthropy. It is our contention that this debate is too narrowly focused on the role of corporations. There is a robust market for philanthropic works--which we call the market for altruism--in which nonprofit organizations, the government, and for-profit corporations compete to do good works. In this Essay, we describe this market and the role corporations play in satisfying the demand for altruism. We conclude that corporations should only engage in philanthropy when they have a comparative advantage over nonprofits and the government. Moreover, the government must avoid discriminating--particularly when setting …


Scaling Property With Professor Ellickson, Lee Anne Fennell Jan 2009

Scaling Property With Professor Ellickson, Lee Anne Fennell

Articles

Bob Ellickson's work is so wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and important that doing it justice here is an impossibility-so I will admit defeat on that score at the outset. Instead, I want to focus on one recurring theme that runs through much of his scholarship and that has been especially important to my own thinking about property: that scale matters. Ellickson cashes out this idea in many rich and interesting ways, but I will use three broad propositions that emerge from his work as a way of organizing my remarks. First, that the scale at which activities and events unfold should drive …


The Pto's Future: Reform Or Abolition?, Jonathan Masur Jan 2009

The Pto's Future: Reform Or Abolition?, Jonathan Masur

Articles

No abstract provided.


Is The Bankruptcy Code An Adequate Mechanism For Resolving The Distress Of Systemically Important Institutions?, Edward Morrison Jan 2009

Is The Bankruptcy Code An Adequate Mechanism For Resolving The Distress Of Systemically Important Institutions?, Edward Morrison

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Going Private Phenomenon: Causes And Implications, Richard A. Epstein, M. Todd Henderson Jan 2009

The Going Private Phenomenon: Causes And Implications, Richard A. Epstein, M. Todd Henderson

Articles

No abstract provided.