Law Commons^™

Assessing The Relevancy And Efficacy Of The United Nations Convention Against Corruption: A Comparative Analysis, Ophelie Brunelle-Quraishi

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (adopted in 2003) is the first global in-depth treaty on corruption. This work attempts to assess its significance by analyzing its provisions, in particular, those concerning the areas of prevention, criminalization, and asset recovery. It then seeks to assess its relevancy and effectiveness by giving an overview of the UNCAC’s main compliance challenges, as well as other existing initiatives that tackle corruption. Two types of compliance challenges are suggested throughout this work: direct and indirect compliance challenges. Among direct compliance challenges are the treaty’s language, the existence of sanctions, and its monitoring mechanism. Indirect …

Derivatives: A Twenty-First Century Understanding, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives are commonly defined as some variation of the following: a financial instrument whose value is derived from the performance of a secondary source such as an underlying bond, commodity or index. But this definition is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Thus, not surprisingly, derivatives are largely misunderstood, including by many policy makers, regulators and legal analysts. It is important for interested parties such as policy makers to understand derivatives, because the types and uses of derivatives have exploded in the last few decades, and because these financial instruments can provide both social benefits and cause social harms. This Article presents …

Brutal Choices In Curricular Design … Going Live: The Pros And Cons Of Live Critiques, Alison E. Julien

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Copyright Versus The Public Domain: Does The Constitution Allow Congress To Take Works From The Public Domain And Replace Those With Private Exclusive Rights?, Dennis D. Crouch, Ted Wright

Faculty Publications

This case arose out of U.S. treaty obligations to restore copyright to foreign authors who had failed to comply with the pre-1989 formalities in the law. Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act (URAA) restores those copyrights and, in doing so, allowed thousands of widely disseminated works to be removed from the public domain. Petitioners challenge the law—arguing that the law overreaches constitutional authority and violates speech rights protected by the First Amendment.

Religious Documents And The Establishment Clause, Brian Sites

Faculty Scholarship

A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a contract lawyer's office. Fortunately, this is not the opening of a lawyer joke, but it might well be the prelude to a complicated constitutional question about the interaction of the First Amendment and contract law. Pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, religious schools, churches, religious businesses, and a wealth of faith-based groups all enter into contractual agreements. Not surprisingly, these agreements often contain religious language, and sometimes they even hinge on provisions invoking expressly religious concepts. Religious documents come in a variety of forms, including marriage contracts, disposition of property documents, agreements …

The Impact Of Indonesian Agricultural Policies On Indigenous Populations, Natural Resources And The Economy: The Limits Of Democratic Self-Determination Under Capitalist Regimes, Scott Brainard

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking Interdependence And Production More Seriously: Toward Mutual Rationality And A More Useful Law And Economics, Kenneth M. Casebeer, Charles J. Whalen

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Land Use For Economic Development In Tough Financial Times, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The recession hit cities hard. Basic municipal staffs and services are being cut, debt is being restructured, capital projects delayed, and other cost cutting measures reported. The Congressional Budget Office reports that by November of last year there were 241,000 fewer municipal employees than there were three years earlier when the recession began. In its most recent report from city finance officers, the National League of Cities states that city spending cutbacks since 2009 are the largest since the survey was first taken, over twenty-five years ago. Despite this serious trend, municipalities have not defaulted in debt payment and there …

Racing Towards Colorblindness: Stereotype Threat And The Myth Of Meritocracy, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Education law and policy debates often focus on whether college and graduate school admissions offices should take race into account. Those who advocate for a strictly merits-based regime emphasize the importance of colorblindness. The call for colorblind admissions relies on the assumption that our current admissions criteria are fair measures, which accurately capture talent and ability. Recent social science research into standardized testing suggests that this is not the case.

Part I of this Article explores the psychological phenomenon of stereotype threat. Stereotype threat has been shown to detrimentally impact the performance of individuals from negatively stereotyped groups when performing …

Church And State: An Economic Analysis, Keith N. Hylton, Yulia Rodionova, Fei Deng

Faculty Scholarship

What purpose is served by a government's protection of religious liberty? Many have been suggested, the most prominent of which center on the protection of freedom of belief and expression. However, since every regulation potentially interferes with religious freedom, it is useful to consider more concrete purposes that could suggest limits on the degree to which religious liberty should be protected. This paper focuses on the concrete economic consequences of state regulation of religion. We examine the effects of state regulation on corruption, economic growth, and inequality. The results suggest that laws and practices burdening religion enhance corruption. Laws burdening …

Untangling Belligerency From Neutrality In The Conflict With Al-Qaeda, Rebecca Ingber

Faculty Scholarship

The legal architecture for the conflict with al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been the subject of extensive scrutiny through two presidential administrations, a decade of litigation, and multiple acts of Congress. All three branches of the federal government have to date defined the framework as one of armed conflict, and have looked to the laws of war as support for expansive authorities concerning the use of force, including detention. Yet the laws of war do not merely contemplate broad state authority; they also provide critical and non-derogable constraints on that authority. Nevertheless considerable debate rages on with respect to whether …

A Right To Legal Aid: The Aba Model Access Act In International Perspective, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

For over two centuries America has failed to fulfill its revolutionary ideals of bringing equal justice to all. In August 2010 the American Bar Association moved to bring the nation closer to its ideals when it proposed the ABA Model Access Act. The Act would do what the Supreme Court of the United States has refused to do: it would recognize that legal aid in civil litigation is a matter of right and not of charity. The Act is a framework law and leaves many details to be filled in by enacting bodies and by the institutions eventually charged with …

Providing Environmental Whistleblowers With Twenty-First Century Protections, Richard Condit

Labor & Employment Law Forum

This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of the employee protection provisions contained in the major federal environmental statutes and makes recommendations for needed improvements. With these improvements, the United States can realize the benefits that well-protected employees can contribute to public health and environmental protection.

The Criminalization Of Whistleblowing, Jesselyn Radack, Kathleen Mcclellan

Labor & Employment Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Employee Rights And The Food Safety Modernization Act: Luncheon Keynote, Hon. Paul Igasaki

Labor & Employment Law Forum

This Article is an annotated transcript of a panel that occurred on February 11, 2011 at the American University Washington College of Law. The podcast of the event can be found on the American University website at http://media.wcl.american.edu/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/ Default.aspx?peid=136d32f0-d0a8-4bd1-9630-da0f48041e3b. The event was co-sponsored by the Washington College of Law and The Government Accountability Project.

Does Access To Justice Improve Compliance With Human Rights Norms - An Empirical Study, Samuel P. Baumgartner

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Conflict Of Interests: Privacy, Truth, And Compulsory Dna Testing For Argentina’S Children Of The Disappeared, Elizabeth B. Ludwin King

Cornell International Law Journal

From 1976 to 1983, Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship that disappeared an estimated 30,000 suspected subversives, including parents of young children and pregnant women. Their children, either disappeared along with their parents or born in clandestine detention centers, were then taken from their parents and adopted, often by couples who were sympathetic with the government and knew of the children's origins. This Article addresses Argentina's newest effort to identify these now-adult children: compulsory DNA testing in cases where the raising parents are suspected of having knowingly adopted their children illegally. It argues that, although the mandatory testing permissibly …

Consumer Protection In Choice Of Law, Giesela Ruhl

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Corporate Civil Liability Under The Alien Tort Statute: Exploring Its Possibility And Jurisdictional Limitations, Matthew E. Danforth

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Unmanned, Unprecedented, And Unresolved: The Status Of American Drone Strikes In Pakistan Under International Law, Andrew C. Orr

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 44, Number 2, Fall 2011

Nebraska Transcript

Dean’s Message 2
Faculty Update Profile: Marty Gardner 4
Whistleblowing Dilemma 6
Faculty Notes 10
Mediation Turns Twenty 16
Medill Creator of New Book Series 19
Willborn Chair of LSAC 20
Beard Returns to Midwest 23
Moberly Appointed to New Role 25
Sheppard Brings Patent Law Back 26
Around the College Feature: Justice Clarence Thomas 28
Admissions Report 31
Presidential Management Fellows Program 33
LL.M. Report 36
Leiter Spends Semester At Harvard 38
2011 Commencement 42
ACLU President Delivers Lane Lecture 46
Judge Bennett & Implicit Bias 47
College Hosts ABA Regional Conference 48
“Futurama” Producer Visits College 49
Feature: …

Educating Prosecutors And Supreme Court Justices About Brady V. Maryland, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The author reviews the Supreme Court decision in Connick v. Thompson and provides a course outline, including problems, for training prosecutors on their duty to disclose materially favorable evidence to the defendant under Brady v. Maryland.

Scholarship As Contribution To World Peace, John H. Jackson

Michigan Journal of International Law

Eric Stein was clearly one of the important legal scholars of our time. I enjoyed him as a colleague for more than three decades, and remained a friend afterward although we were separated by distance. Eric was truly dedicated to his scholarship, which was broadly concerned with international law and how it operates, but perhaps most significant to his legacy was his deep interest and personal involvement in the extraordinary beginnings and ongoing evolution of the European Union.

A Child-Centered Response To The Elkins Family Law Task Force, Amy M. Pellman, Robert N. Jacobs, Dara K. Reiner

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In Elkins v. Superior Court, 163 P.3d 160 (Cal. 2007), California’s Supreme Court asked the Judicial Council to form a task force to make recommendations to increase “access to justice” in family court, because it was concerned about rules, policies, and procedures that put self-represented litigants at an unfair disadvantage in parentageand dissolution cases.

Neither the task force’s report in 2010 nor the legislation that the report inspired the same year addresses children’s due process rights, even though children ordinarily have no access to justice. This Article shows that due process sometimes requires the trial court to appoint counsel for …

Where Angels Tread: Gun-Free School Zone Laws And An Individual Right To Bear Arms, Amy Hetzner

Marquette Law Review

In separate opinions issued in 2008 and 2010, the United States Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees an individual right to bear arms. For as lengthy as those opinions were, however, the justices only briefly dealt with possible limits to that right. Both decisions provided that their holding would not invalidate “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” This Comment argues that the uncertainty about the scope of the Second Amendment right …

Sharing The Green: Reformatting Wisconsin's Forgotten Green Space Grant With A Public-Private Partnership Design, Scott W. Brunner

Marquette Law Review

Despite the vast amount of legal research available on brownfields redevelopment generally, little has been done on the value of brownfieldto- greenspace conversions. Brownfield-to-greenspace conversions that incorporate public–private partnership elements may trigger private investment in brownfields when the market alone fails to induce development of contaminated lands. Brownfield-to-greenspace partnerships are a flexible way to redevelop brownfields and maintain complete stakeholder involvement in the cleanup and ownership process. Currently, an unfunded Wisconsin program is set up to provide grants to municipalities for brownfield-to-greenspace conversions. Wisconsin municipalities have used this grant successfully in the past to improve local economic prospects simply by …

Lawns And The New Watershed Law, Asmara M. Tekle

Marquette Law Review

None

Wai Through Kānāwai: Water For Hawi‘I’S Streams And Justice For Hawaiian Communities, D. Kapua‘Ala Sproat

Marquette Law Review

None

Water As A Public Commodity, Barton H. Thompson Jr.

Marquette Law Review

None

Dean John Edward Cribbet: The Illinois Prophet Of Property Law, David A. Myers

Marquette Law Review

None