Law Commons^™

Efficient Ethical Principles For Making Fatal Choices, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Resource allocations of all kinds inevitably encounter financial constraints, making it infeasible to make financially unbounded commitments. Such resource constraints arise in almost all health and safety risk contexts, which has led to a regulatory oversight process to ascertain whether the expected benefits of major regulations outweigh the costs. The economic approach to monetizing health and safety risks is well established and is based on the value of a statistical life (“VSL”). Government agencies use these values reflecting attitudes toward small changes in risk to monetize the largest benefit component of regulations--that dealing with mortality risks. This procedure consequently bases …

Preambles As Guidance, Kevin M. Stack

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Debates over administrative agencies’ reliance on guidance documents have largely neglected the most authoritative source of guidance about the meaning of agency regulations: their preambles. This Article examines and defends the guidance function of preambles. Preambles were designed not only to provide the agency’s official justification for the regulations they introduce, but also to offer guidance about the regulation’s meaning and application. Today, preambles include extensive guidance ranging from interpretive commentary to application examples. Based on the place of preamble guidance as part of the agency’s formal explanation of the regulation and the rigorous internal agency vetting which accompanies that …

Environmental Law In Austerity, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman, Jonathan Nash

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Given the political dynamic in play at the national level, with the country evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and incumbent Tea Party and other politicians highly critical of the EPA, there is no reason to think this trend in decreasing environmental budgets will change any time soon. In some states the trend is even more pronounced. Fiscal austerity has become the new norm. The interesting questions are whether this matters for environmental law, how it matters, and what it means going forward.

Blackwater's New Battlefield: Toward A Regulatory Regime In The United States For Privately Armed Contractors Operating At Sea, Sean P. Mahard

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Piracy has reemerged with a vengeance in the twenty-first century. Although it is confined primarily to the horn of Africa, piracy poses a significant problem to commercial shipping companies that need to traverse the Gulf of Aden for business. In response to modern-day piracy, shipowners have begun to employ privately armed contractors for protection. Countries and international organizations have recently developed regulations to address this growth in private maritime security. This Note analyzes both international and domestic regulatory regimes for privately armed contractors with a specific focus on the United States and Norway. This Note concludes that current U.S. regulations …

On The Ropes: New Regulations And State Cooperation Step Into The Ring To Protect Boxing From Itself, David Altschuler

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

It is the central thesis of this Note that the NAAGs recommendations represent the necessary linchpin in creating a coherent regulatory regime for ensuring that professional boxing is both safe and legitimate. In order to place a discussion of regulatory solutions in a proper frame, this Note begins by describing the problems that have long plagued professional boxing. This Note next explicates two federal laws designed to redress the corruption and abuses lawmakers found to be inherent in professional boxing. These laws are the Professional Boxing Safety Act ("PBSA") and the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act ("Ali Act"). This Note …

Commerce Department Regulations Governing Participation By United States Persons In Foreign Boycotts, Paul Mccarthy, John F. Mckenzie

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This article outlines the most important of the Regulations and highlights areas that are likely to give rise to major problems for firms that are engaged in trade or business with countries that participate in an international boycott not sanctioned by the United States. Differences between the proposed and final Regulations are discussed. The article will also examine the persons and transactions that are subject to the Export Administration Amendments Act of 1977 (hereinafter referred to as the "Act") and then discuss certain of the most significant prohibitions of the Act. Although much of the discussion in this article, like …

Property And Tort In Nuclear Law Today, Kazimierz Grzybowski, William Dobishinski

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Legal regimes regulating the exploitation of atomic energy follow three patterns. The pattern adopted in a particular country depends upon its social and governmental structure. In socialist states, like the Soviet Union, the state owns and uses nuclear materials and installations and is a monopolistic insurer against atomic hazards. In such states nuclear energy law is simplicity itself. It consists of instructions and regulations on the handling, transport and storage of nuclear materials, and the management of nuclear installations by administrative agencies. An important part of the regulations deals with the safety and health of the workers.

Countries in which …

The Taxation Of Interest -- Free Loans, James T. O'Hare

Vanderbilt Law Review

The dramatic rise in interest rates in the United States in the past few years has given added significance to the uncertain tax consequences of interest-free loans made between family members, between corporations and shareholders, and between affiliated corporations. Such loans can create a variety of tax problems depending on the relationship of the parties. An interest-free loan from one family member to another may constitute a gift equal in value to the use of the money loaned or even to the amount of the entire principal. A corporation that makes an interest-free loan to one of its shareholders not …