Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

The Co-Perpetrator Model Of Joint Criminal Enterprise, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Jury Systems Around The World, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Lay citizens participate as decision makers in the legal systems of many countries. This review describes the different approaches that countries employ to integrate lay decision makers, contrasting in particular the use of juries composed of all citizens with mixed decision-making bodies of lay and law-trained judges. The review discusses research on the benefits and drawbacks of lay legal decision making as well as international support for the use of ordinary citizens as legal decision makers, with an eye to explaining a recent increase in new jury systems around the world. The review calls for more comparative work on diverse …

Learning From Difference: The New Architecture Of Experimentalist Governance In The Eu, Charles F. Sabel, Jonathan Zeitlin

Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that current widespread characterisations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the EU's public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, good water status, a unified energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the Member States and EU institutions. Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on their …

Loving Gender Balance: Reframing Identity-Based Inequality Remedies, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The egalitarian voice of the U.S. Supreme Court resonates forty years after it abolished antimiscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia. While Loving's vigor influences contemporary debates on sex-related marriage restrictions, its impact extends to the hopes and tensions that undergird and unite equality movements. Half a world away, Norway's Corporate Board Quota (CBQ), recently began enforcing a forty percent floor for both sexes on publicly traded companies' boards of directors.

At first glance, Loving's affirmation of an interracial marriage in the face of the state's opprobrium seems impossibly divergent from the CBQ. Loving concerned de jure …

International Commercial Arbitration And International Courts, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

The editors of this symposium have asked us to address an interesting question. Why hasn't international commercial arbitration’s (ICA's) success been repeated in the context of international courts? In the last few decades, states have created scores of permanent tribunals with jurisdiction to resolve disputes about international law. By and large, though, states have not been as receptive to the rulings of these tribunals. What accounts for this comparative lack of hospitality? Why do states treat ICA and international adjudication so differently?

In this essay, I offer an explanation. States treat ICA and international adjudication differently because they are categorically …

In Whose "Best Interests"? – An International And Comparative Assessment Of Us Rules On Sentencing Of Juveniles, Jelani Jefferson Exum, John W. Head

Faculty Publications

According to numerous sources, both at the international level and within the USA, legal standards governing the treatment of children (commonly defined as persons under 18 years old)—including their treatment at the hands of the judicial system—should reflect an assessment of "the best interests of the child". An explicit announcement of this principle at the international level appears in the Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC"), which nearly all countries in the world have adopted. Article 37 of the CRC elaborates on the "best interests" principle, by prescribing six key standards national juvenile justice systems are to follow …

Nota Sobre El Contracte De Col·Laboració Publicoprivada [Notes On The Public-Private Partnership Contract], Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Understanding Indigenous Dispute Resolution Processes And Western Alternative Dispute Resolution: Cultivating Culturally Appropriate Methods In Lieu Of Litigation, Carlo Osi

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This article specifically focuses on Indigenous Dispute Resolution, Western-inspired ADR mechanisms, and Indigenized Western ADR as culturally appropriate methods to resolve disputes in lieu of litigation. This article will also focus on how these processes are able to help solve intellectual property rights disputes involving Indigenous communities. Generally, this article will describe how successful all three modes of dispute resolution have been in Indigenous conflict resolution, in the quest for benefit-sharing agreements, and the potential for their use in other controversies. This article proposes the adoption of an Indigenized Western ADR approach on issues surrounding intellectual property rights regimes.

Inside The Box - When Exercising Peremptory Challenges, Attorneys Should Keep In Mind The Three-Step Framework Of Batson/Wheeler, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Ipod Tax: Why The Digital Copyright System Of American Law Professors' Dreams Failed In Japan, Salil K. Mehra

University of Colorado Law Review

A number of prominent American law professors have endorsed the notion of a tax on digital recording and music file-sharing-call it an "iPod tax"--with the proceeds to be paid into a general fund. A clearinghouse representing rights-holders would monitor which works were downloaded and how often and then divvy up the iPod tax revenues to the individual rights-holders. Japan has run a very similar system since the early days of digital recording in 1993. This Article focuses on how Japanese experts decided that regulatory failures merited killing an extension of their existing system, including a proposed iPod tax. In particular, …

The Illusion Of Transformative Conflict Resolution: Mediating Domestic Violence In Nicaragua, Raquel Aldana, Leticia Saucedo

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

Excerpts from the Article

Embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the evocative proposition that [e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. But beneath that level of abstraction there is anything but universal agreement.

This book review argues that the dissonance between countries need not be challenged in pursuit of uniformity. Indeed, in those cases in which the differences reflect an appropriate balance of competing goods, it should be celebrated. Constitutional exceptionalism recognizes and celebrates each country's attempt to optimize the general welfare of that country by balancing competing goods in a manner consistent with …

Doubling Up The Horses In Midstream: Enhancing U.S. Patent Dispute Resolution By The Pto's Adoption Of The Jpo's Hantei Request System, Gino Cheng

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

For entities seeking to preempt or defend against adverse claims of infringement, navigating the present U.S. patent dispute resolution system is a thorny path. Judicial standing requirements hinder a potential defendant from fully assessing its risks before making and placing in jeopardy certain investments or assuming negotiation costs, thereby increasing its accountability, the financial stakes, and the probability of retaliation. While the standing doctrine has become more favorable to would-be licensees over time, a readily accessible opining mechanism for infringement would usher in still more benefits, including those unachievable through either litigation or conventional forms of alternative dispute resolution. Although …

The Two Faces Of Justice In The Post-Soviet Legal Sphere: Adversarial Procedure, Jury Trial, Plea-Bargaining And The Inquisitorial Legacy, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay focuses on adversary procedure, plea-bargaining, and jury trial in the 1991 Concept of Judicial Reform of the Russian Republic. It discusses the impact of these reforms and assesses whether they have led to an improvement in the quality of evidence presented to the trier of fact, liberation of the trial and appellate judges from the juggernaut of hierarchical Soviet ‘crime control’ policies, and the development of a culture where acquittals of guilty and innocent will be tolerated when the evidence lacks credibility or is insufficient to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jury Trial And Adversary Procedure In Russia: Reform Of Soviet Inquisitorial Procedure Or Democratic Window-Dressing?, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

A new adversary system of jury trial was introduced in 1993-1994, and the rights to jury trial, adversary procedure, the presumption of innocence, and the mandatory exclusion of illegally gathered evidence were incorporated into the new Constitution of the Russian Federation in December of 1993. The new Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, passed in December 2001, led to the extension of jury trial to the entire country with the exception of the Republic of Chechnia in 2003-2004.

This chapter explores the extent to which the Russian jury system and adversary procedure have humanized criminal procedure, and concludes that …

The End(S) Of Self Regulation?, Richard Devlin, Porter Heffernan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Self-regulation is a sacred cow of the Canadian legal profession. The authors question this assumption on several levels and ask whether, in a liberal democratic society such as Canada, self-regulation really is in the public interest. The advantages and disadvantages of self-regulation are discussed in the context of other Commonwealth nations who have moved away from this type of regulatory structure. Though the self-regulation debate has been traditionally viewed as a "one way or the other" argument, calibrated regulation seems to be a possibility in Canada and, in fact, steps have already been taken in this direction. Devlin and Heffernan …

Prenatal Management Of Anencephaly, Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna Erdman, Martin Hevia, Bernard M. Dickens

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

About a third of anencephalic fetuses are born alive, but they are not conscious or viable, and soon die. This neural tube defect can be limited by dietary consumption of foliates, and detected prenatally by ultrasound and other means. Many laws permit abortion, on this indication or on the effects of pregnancy and prospects of delivery on a woman's physical or mental health. However, abortion is limited under some legal systems, particularly in South America. To avoid criminal liability, physicians will not terminate pregnancies, by induced birth or abortion, without prior judicial approval. Argentinian courts have developed means to resolve …

Accommodating The Needs Of Iconsumers: Making Sure They Get Their Money’S Worth Of Digital Entertainment, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The current methods of distributing music and film on the mass-market, either off-line or on-line, raise two types of consumer protection issues. First, consumers are not always in a position to know what they can and cannot do with their digital hardware and content. A lack of proper information and the ensuing failure of the products to meet the consumer’s expectations inevitably leads to discontent. In addition, as weaker party in the transaction, consumers have often no other choice but to accept or refuse the restrictive terms of use, even if these could be regarded as unfair. This paper examines …

Competing Legal Cultures And Legal Reform: The Battle Of Chile, James Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the competition that exists between U.S. and German legal cultures and examines Chilean legal reform efforts since the late 1990s as a case study of this competition. A country's legal culture is comprised of the self-governing rules and operations of national and regional bar associations, the format of legal education, the structure of the legal and judicial profession, the role of the judiciary, jurisprudential style, and the reputation of the legal sector according to the general public. The influence of predominant legal cultures on developing nations has been explored in a number of contexts, while the importance …

Proyecto Acceso: The Use Of Popular Culture To Build The Rule Of Law In Latin America, James Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

This article is about developing the rule of law in Latin America using popular popular culture and modeling the United States' experience.

The Assumptions Behind The Assumptions In The War On Terror: Risk Assessment As An Example Of Foundational Disagreement In Counterterrorism Policy, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne State in early 2007) addresses risk assessment and cost benefit analysis as mechanisms in counterterrorism policy. It argues that although policy is often best pursued by agreeing to set aside deep foundational differences, in order to obtain a strategic plan for an activity such as counterterrorism, foundational differences must be addressed in order that policy not merely devolve into a policy minimalism that is always and damagingly tactical, never strategic, in order to avoid domestic democratic political conflict. The article takes risk assessment in counterterrorism, using cost benefit analysis, …

Contract Regulation, With And Without The State: Ruminations On Rules And Their Sources, David Snyder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This paper, commenting on the work of Jýrgen Basedow, addresses the legal regulation of economic relations in the context of globalization. The paper applies the idea of the mixed jurisdiction, traditionally focused on legal systems that partake of both the common law and the civil law, to the complex of privately made law and publicly made law that governs contemporary economic relations. Differing criteria that might be used to assess and choose between competing rules or competing systems of rule generation are evaluated, and normative considerations are raised. The paper proposes a model to demonstrate how privately made law, though …

Transatlanticisms: Constitutional Asymmetry And Selective Reception Of U.S. Law And Economics In The Formation Of European Private Law, Fernanda Nicola

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The recurrent claim made by judges, scholars, and lawyers shaping the debate on European private law is that there is a constitutional asymmetry in the European Union (EU). The asymmetry lies in the fact that European Community competences mostly encompass market and economic matters at the expense of social issues, while Member States have full jurisdiction over social matters but only limited jurisdiction over economic matters. Thus, the European constitutional structure leads to a market/technocratic orientation in its supranational institutions, as opposed to the social/political orientation of Member State governments. The pervasiveness of this claim allows jurists critiquing European adjudication …

Takeover Regulation As A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Taking U.K Rules To Continental Europe, Marco Ventoruzzo

Faculty Scholarship

Aesop was an optimist. In his cautionary fable that inspired the famous admonition about wolves in sheep's clothing, the predator intentionally dons a sheep's fleece in order to sneak up on a lamb. His disguise, it turns out, is so effective that he ends up being mistaken for the real thing and killed by another wolf. According to Aesop, even the most effective fraud can turn against its perpetrator, and justice be done. The results are not always so salutary with other clandestine predators, including legal rules that appear aimed at protecting vulnerable groups, but instead provide valuable tools to …

Doctrines Without Borders: The New Israeli Exclusionary Rule And The Challenges Of Legal Transplantation, Binyamin Blum

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reproductive Injustice: An Analysis Of Nicaragua's Complete Abortion Ban, Jocelyn E. Getgen

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Choice Of Law For Unjust Enrichment/Restitution And The Rome Ii Regulation, Adeline Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

After being considered as niche territory for a long period, conflicts of law and restitution has provided a fertile ground for exposition in recent times. Whilst some development on the jurisdictional front has occurred, choice of law has lagged behind somewhat as, in England at least, no one seemed to be quite sure what was or should be the choice of law rule for restitutionary claims. However, the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (commonly known as the Rome II Regulation) has now entered into force and will apply from …

Lower Courts And Constitutional Comparativism, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

The issue of constitutional comparativism has been a topic of significant commentary in recent years. However, there is one aspect of this subject that has been almost completely ignored by scholars: the reception, or lack thereof, of constitutional comparativism by state and lower federal courts. While the Supreme Court's enthusiasm for constitutional comparativism has waxed and now waned, lower state and federal courts have remained resolutely agnostic about this new movement. This is of tremendous practical significance because over ninety-nine percent of all cases are resolved by lower state and federal courts. Accordingly, if the lower courts eschew constitutional comparativism, …

China Reexamined: The Worst Offender Or A Strong Contender?, Yang Wang

Michigan Law Review

These are the questions that Professor Randall Peerenboom sets out to answer from an American legal scholar's perspective in China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest. Peerenboom advances three main arguments in China Modernizes. First, to more accurately assess China's performance in its quest for modernization, one must "plac[e] China within a broader comparative context" (p. 10). Through a careful analysis of empirical data, Peerenboom observes that China outperforms many other countries at a similar income level on almost all key indicators of well-being and human rights, with the sole exception of civil and political …

Sociolegal Islands?, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

In 1992, in an address at the American Society of Comparative Law annual meeting, Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School bemoaned the state of comparative legal studies in the United States. Many scholars specialized in comparative law, she observed. But at Harvard and other law schools, they were like islands; they conducted research and teaching largely in isolation, having little contact with the core curriculum or other faculty. From the many nods of agreement. it was evident she had voiced a common concern.

Primarily due to increased globalization, the situation has changed. At many law schools comparative perspectives …