Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Judicial Creation Of Norms In Japanese Labor Law: Activism In The Service Of — Stability?, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

This Article begins by examining the judiciary's role in employment litigation. Part II then considers the implications of this and related examples of judicial creation of norms in Japan. Plainly, in this context the stereotype of a passive judiciary with little significance for private parties is inaccurate. Yet do these cases truly reflect judicial "activism"? What is their significance with respect to the separation of powers debate? Even with regard to the sphere of private ordering, what judicial philosophy do they reflect? This Article then examines the impact that this judicially created set of employment norms has had, both on …

Doctrine Of Equivalents After Hilton Davis: A Comparative Law Analysis, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

This Article will address a number of major topics. First, it discusses the Federal Circuit's renewed interest in Graver Tank and the merger of the infringement test with the patentability test established by the Supreme Court in Graham v. John Deere Co. Then, this Article responds to the dissenting judges in Hilton Davis who emphasized the danger of uncertainty that stems from the in-principle application of the doctrine of equivalents. This response explains that the application of the doctrine does not increase the uncertainty in determining infringement but, rather, encourages clear, definitive claim drafting. It then examines the relationship …

Equal Rights-Compatibility Of Family And Career-Legal Comparison: East Germany (Gdr) And Federal Republic Of Germany Today, Anita Grandke

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the evolution of gender equality in East Germany from the post-WWII era through the 1990 unification with West Germany, highlighting how East Germany's progressive laws promoting women's rights were rolled back after unification, leading to significant setbacks for women in employment, family life, and legal protections.

The Economic And Political Logic Of Mass Privatization In Czechoslovakia And Poland, George Bogdan

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The article examines the mass privatization programs implemented in Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Republic) and Poland during their transitions from communism to democracy and capitalism. It compares the design, implementation, and outcomes of these programs, highlighting the economic and political factors that shaped their approaches. The analysis focuses on how the unique historical, economic, and political contexts of each country influenced their privatization strategies and the effectiveness of these strategies in achieving marketization and institutional reform.

Reform Of The Procuracy And Bar In Russia, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses recent efforts to reform the Russian bar and procuracy, the institutions’ responses, and the problem of criminal procedure reform as it relates to them.

Blood, Alcohol And Tears: Juries Again Ponder The Depths Of The Russian Soul, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly discusses the history of the jury trial in the Soviet Union and the recent reform reinstating trial by jury in Russia. It focuses on specific case studies regarding Russian jury trials under the new system. The author personally observed many of the first jury trials from December 1993 to October 1994 and comprehensively studied the Russian jury reform through observations, interviews with judges and lawyers, and review of case files.

Does A Cultural Barrier To Intellectual Property Trade Exist? The Japanese Example, Toshiko Takenaka

Articles

What is the so-called "cultural barrier to intellectual property trade?" No definition for this phrase readily came to me when I began exploring the topic. Japanese intellectual property scholars and professionals strongly suspect that their U.S. counterparts, who find institutional or economic explanations for discrepancies between European and American business customs, nevertheless tend to attribute the differences between Japanese and American business practices to cultural differences. Three popular arguments offered to substantiate this "cultural barrier to intellectual property trade" theory are: (1) the application of the concepts of competition and monopoly to intangibles such as technology and ideas is foreign …

Mature Adjudication: Interpretive Choice In Recent Death Penalty Cases, Bernard Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Capital punishment presents a "hard" case for adjudication. It provokes sharp conflict between competing constitutional interpretations and invariably raises questions of judicial bias. This is particularly true in the new Republic of South Africa, where the framers of the interim constitution deliberately were silent regarding the legality of the death penalty. The tension is of equivalent force in the United States, where recent expressions of core constitutional rights have raised potentially irreconcilable conflicts in the application of capital punishment.

Two recent death penalty decisions – the South African Constitutional Court opinions in State v. Makwanyane and the United States Supreme …

Administrative Law: The Hidden Comparative Law Course, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

What does today's Administrative Law course give your students that you might not be aware of and might be helped by knowing? That, as I understand it, is the question I am to answer. But we may also want to think about the overall shape of the curriculum: it may be useful to ask about fundamental issues our students may not be aware of, that may not be dealt with elsewhere in the law school curriculum. I'll spend most of my time on the question I've been asked to address, but I hope you will accept a few sentences on …

Law, Governance, And Academic And Disciplinary Decisions In Australian Universities: An American Perspective, Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

On a bulletin board at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia appears the following warning to students: "Please don't cheat in your exams; Senate is not inclined to be merciful." The emphasis in this entreaty on the role of the University governing board reflects a major difference, although only one of them, between the American and Australian treatments of student shortcomings, academic or disciplinary.

This Article will discuss, from an American perspective, the law affecting decisions regarding academic and disciplinary matters in Australian universities. This discussion will address not only internal university governance, but also the impact of Constitutional, …

The Legal Structure Of The Chinese Socialist Market Enterprise, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

China's phenomenal economic growth since 1978 has been accompanied by a cascade of institutional innovation and experimentation. In at least this one sense a hundred flowers are blooming in the People's Republic. The range of institutional forms and their defiance of the conventions of economic organization in both capitalist and socialist societies are impressive.

The Chinese leadership calls the new order by the unfamiliar (and to some, oxymoronic) term "socialist market" economy. Its "market" dimensions include deregulation of most prices, decentralization of decision-making to the household in agriculture and to the enterprise in industry, incentive schemes for peasants, managers, and …

Regulatory Federalism: A Reprise And Introduction, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

This colloquium, like its predecessor, proceeds on the basis of a series of assumptions. First, it assumes that the federalism dimension of the regulatory state is an important one Gust as is the regulatory dimension of the federal state). In introducing our first colloquium, I suggested that, although determining the content of public policy is critical in a democratic society, also critical is determining the level of government at which the choice of policy is made. Ingolf Pernice remarked then that a federal system is "any legal entity [which is] comprised of states for the purpose of pursuing certain common …

Politics, Institutions, And Outcomes: Electricity Regulation In Argentina And Chile, William B. Heller, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

Risk, whether market or political, is an important determinant of private investment decisions. One important risk, subject to control by the government, is the risk associated with the hold-up problem: governments can force utilities to shoulder burdensome taxes, to use input factors ineffectively, or to charge unprofitable rates for their service. To attract private investment governments must be able to make commitments to policies that are nonexpropriative (either to contracts that guarantee very high rates of return or to favorable regulatory policies). These commitments, of course, must be credible.

Judgments about the credibility of commitments to regulatory policies are based …

Constitutionalism In The Global Era, Elisabeth Zoller

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Breakfast With Yasser Arafat: Personal Reflections On The Peace Process, David Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

As The World Turns: Revisiting Rudolf Schlesinger's Study Of The Uniform Commercial Code In The Light Of Comparative Law, Peter Winship

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Problems of commercial law are apt to be similar or at least comparable in all commercial countries, so that in this field, perhaps more than in any other, foreign experience is likely to be instructive. As was said by a leading English scholar, "The value of comparative investigation of commercial law is so obvious as to make it unnecessary to labour the point."

Freedom Of Information And The Eu Data Protection Directive, James R. Maxeiner

Federal Communications Law Journal

Because of advancements in information technology, the tension between protection of privacy and freedom of information has intensified. In the United States this tension is addressed with sector specific laws, like the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Conversely, in Europe, data protection laws of general applicability have existed for two decades. Recently, the Council of Ministers adopted a Common Position in a data protection directive.

The Author analyzes specific provisions of the Directive, primarily focusing on the provisions that address the tension between the right of privacy and the free flow of information within the European Union. Ultimately, the Directive strikes …

The Journey Into Activism, Bernhard Schlink

Cardozo Law Review

In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy teaches us that all happy families are alike and only unhappy families are different. It is the same with courts that engage in constitutional review. All happy constitutional courts, that is, all happily activist constitutional courts are alike and only those that do not play an activist role are different.

Forms Of Constitution Making And Theories Of Democracy, Andrew Arato

Cardozo Law Review

There are those who still think that constitution making is a task that rests wholly within the realm of lawyers. Indeed, all constitutional texts in modem times have been drafted by lawyers. Behind the texts, however, are the most important political actors and forces of a given society, persuading some interpreters to take the view that constitution making represents the work of the political, of political politics, and of le pouvoir constituant. In such a conception, whoever holds the "constituent power," or acts in its name, hires the lawyers. But does the method of constitution making really matter? Either …

The Role Of Bureaucracy In Managing Urban Land In Vietnam, John Gillespie

Washington International Law Journal

In recent years, the Vietnamese government has opened up its economy to both domestic and foreign private investors. In the construction industry, however, developers must contend with a legal environment fraught with contradictions and idiosyncrasies. The industry is one marked by the subordination of law-widespread patronage, party policy, and traditional customs. While property rights superficially resemble those in Western states, ownership and development are in theory strictly controlled by the central government. But paradoxically, the level of compliance with property laws is substantially lower in Vietnam than in the West. Noncompliance with property laws and building regulations is perpetuated by …

Implementation And Enforcement Of Cites: An Assessment Of Tiger And Rhinoceros Conservation Policy In Asia, Julie Cheung

Washington International Law Journal

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ("CITES") came into force in 1975 as a mechanism for controlling the international trade of threatened and endangered wildlife. In recent years, the international community has become increasingly concerned about the trade of endangered species, particularly tiger and rhinoceros parts, for use in traditional oriental medicines. The market for traditional oriental medicine is growing and has become the main threat to tiger and rhinoceros populations in Asia. This Comment examines the efforts Asian states have undertaken to control the tiger and rhinoceros trade within their borders and …

International Parallel Litigation: Disposition Of Duplicative Civil Proceedings In The United States And Japan, Yoshimasa Furuta

Washington International Law Journal

Although duplicative proceedings involve various negative effects, if motivated by legitimate reasons, parallel litigation may be justified. Therefore, regulation of international parallel litigation should be based on a close examination of the legitimacy of the litigants' motives, which should then be balanced against negative effects. In this comparative study of the parallel litigation practice in the United States and Japan, the contrast between the two countries is attributed to the underlying differences in each country's social and legal traditions. Despite the differences in their practice, however, each legal system offers a model that may be successfully adopted by the other …

In Pursuit Of Profit Maximization By Restricting Parallel Imports: The U.S. Copyright Owner And Taiwan Copyright Law, Soojin Kim

Washington International Law Journal

Parallel importation occurs when goods which are authorized by the copyright owner to be sold only in a specific territory abroad are imported, without the copyright owner's authorization, into a non-authorized market. Parallel importation into Taiwan has been cause for concern for both U.S. copyright owners and their Taiwan licensees because such importation undermines their control over the marketing of copyrighted goods. A copyright owner may wish to market goods differently in different countries, setting the price of goods sold in one country higher than in another country. This Comment discusses the role of U.S. political pressure in Taiwan's enactment …

Drug Price Regulation And Compulsory Licensing For Pharmaceutical Patents: The New Zealand Connection, John M. Wechkin

Washington International Law Journal

This Comment addresses effects of the 1992 rescission of compulsory licensing laws for pharmaceutical patents in New Zealand. The Comment summarizes the history behind the change in law, the effect the change has had, projections for future effects, and the degree to which the change brings New Zealand law into compliance with proposed General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs ("GAT") provisions. The effects of the repeal on drug prices appear to be masked by changes in New Zealand's pharmaceutical price support system. Both changes are illustrative of the continuing conflict over technology protection in the marketplace, a conflict which is …

The Development Of Human Rights In The Republic Of China On Taiwan: Ramifications Of Recent Democratic Reforms And Problems Of Enforcement, Winston Hsiao

Washington International Law Journal

October of 1995 marks the Republic of China's ("ROC") fiftieth anniversary of occupation in Taiwan. The ROC's impressive democratization in recent years follows a history of autocratic rule. Fear of government reprisal and a non-rights oriented neo-Confucian culture contributed to the people's slow assertion of their constitutional rights. Presently, the ROC's paradoxical international status raises important accountability issues. Though domestic courts now provide a more impartial forum for claims to be heard, international remedies are drastically limited should domestic ones fail. Expelled from the U.N. in 1971 and not officially recognized by most nation states, the ROC remains frightfully independent …

Actions Needed For Lifting The U.S. Trade Embargo Against Cuba, Matias F. Travieso-Diaz

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Lessons For Cuba From The Legal Changes In Eastern Europe, Matias F. Travieso-Diaz, Stephan M. Bleisteiner

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Information And The Eu Data Protection Directive, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The EU Data Protection Directive attempts to balance protection of privacy and freedom of information acquisition. It does this by authorizing Member States to provide exemptions and derogations in their individual legislation.

Foreign Law, Politics & Litigants In U.S. Courts: A Discussion Of Issues Raised By Transportes Aereos Nacionales, S.A. V. De Brenes, William H. White Jr.

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Institutional Aspects Of International Governance, Elisabeth Zoller

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Professor Elisabeth Zoller discusses the domain and the methods of internationalg overnance. In PartI , she addresses the notion of the "international community." Professor Zoller argues that the international community is not really a community at all, but several "intertangled communities" with common interests. These common interests emerged as a result of several worldwide events, such as World War I and the Great Depression. The author asserts that common interests among nation states and priority setting are the two prerequisites necessary for international governance. In Part II, the authore xamines the methods of internationalg overnance, beginning with the proposition that …