Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Tearing Down The Great Wall: The New Generation Investment Treaties Of The People's Republic Of China, Stephan W. Schill

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The People's Republic of China (PRC or China) has emerged as the world's premier destination of foreign investment in the developing world and is continuously strengthening its position as a source of outward foreign investment, notably in Asia and Africa. In this context, the PRC has concluded over 110 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) that grant protection against expropriation and establish other standards of treatment for foreign investors in China and Chinese investors abroad. While the PRC was originally hesitant regarding international investment protection, the country started, beginning in the late 1990s, entering into new generation BITs that break with her …

The Case For A Flat-Earth Law School, Erik M. Jensen

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The essay argues against the increasing emphasis on globalization in legal education, advocating for a return to a focus on American law. It critiques the trend of prioritizing international, transnational, and comparative law, asserting that this shift undermines the foundational knowledge of domestic law necessary for effective legal practice. The author contends that while international law has its place, it should not overshadow the core principles of American law, which remain central to the majority of legal careers.

Selective Prosecution In Russia - Myth Or Reality?, Yelina Kvurt

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the issue of selective prosecution, focusing on the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and argues that the Russian legal system lacks an explicit defense against such practices, which violate constitutional guarantees of equality before the law. It advocates for the adoption of a legal standard to address selective prosecution, drawing parallels with the U.S. legal framework while acknowledging the need to adapt it to Russia's unique judicial context.

Taking The Right To Abortion In Croatia Seriously - One Of The Basic Constitutional Rights Or A Rudiment Of The Right To Reproduction?, Dalida Rittossa

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Domestic Violence And Legal Reforms In Nigeria: Prospects And Challenges, Itoro Eze-Anaba

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the challenges and prospects of legal reform aimed at addressing domestic violence against women in Nigeria. It highlights the inadequacy of current laws, the cultural and societal barriers that discourage victims from seeking redress, and the need for comprehensive legal and systemic changes to protect women's rights. The analysis emphasizes the importance of addressing economic, cultural, and educational disparities to create a more just and equitable legal framework.

Custody, Maintenance, And Succession: The Internalization Of Women's And Children's Rights Under Customary Law In Africa, Allison D. Kent

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Note, the author examines the process of international human rights norm internalization into areas traditionally governed exclusively by customary law, and the resulting evolution of customary law. Assuming, arguendo, that customary law is to be modified, I argue that a societal norm internalization approach is the most effective means to bring customary law into conformity with international human rights law. After a brief discussion of the fieldwork on which I rely, this Note describes the historical influence of colonialism on the development of customary law in Africa, with a particular focus on the repugnancy clauses of the …

Self-Incrimination And The European Court Of Human Rights: Procedural Issues In The Enforcement Of The Right To Silence, Mark Berger

Faculty Works

This article provides an analysis of the procedural aspects of the right to silence falling within Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The author examines the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights under the following areas: overview, appearance to answer questions, a demand for documents, false responses, warnings and adverse inferences. The subject is discussed at investigation stage, just prior to and during civil and criminal proceedings. The piece concludes with summaries of the jurisprudence in these varying circumstances.

The International Legal Environment For Serious Political Reporting Has Fundamentally Changed: Understanding The Revolutionary New Era Of English Defamation Law, Marin Roger Scordato

Scholarly Articles

On October 11, 2006, Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, issued a blockbuster ruling that completely changed the landscape of libel law and press freedoms in the United Kingdom. The Times of London described the case, Jameel v. Wall Street Journal, as, "a judgment that lawyers predict will usher in a new era of journalism." Given England's reputation as an attractive jurisdiction for defamation plaintiffs and a frequent destination for "libel tourism," this case is likely to alter the environment for serious political journalism throughout Europe and North America.

This article carefully describes the case, including its key holdings …

The New United States Model Income Tax Convention, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Martin B. Tittle

Articles

On 15 November 2006, the United States Treasury released its long-awaited new Model Income Tax Convention (“New Model”), which replaced the 1996 US Model (“Old Model”). This article reviews some of the major differences between the New and Old Models, as well as some of the major differences between the New Model and the current (2005) OECD Model Tax Convention. The article also discusses some new trends in US treaty policy which are not reflected in the New Model. The article concludes by evaluating the New Model in light of the emerging trend to use tax treaties not just to …

Outsourcing And The Globalizing Legal Profession, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The issue of outsourcing jobs abroad stirs great emotion among Americans. Economic free-traders fiercely defend outsourcing as a positive for the U.S. economy while critics contend that corporate desire for low wages solely drives this practice. In this study I focus on a specific type of outsourcing, one which has received scant scholarly attention to date - legal outsourcing. Indeed because the work is often paralegal in nature, many see the outsourcing of legal jobs overseas as no different from other types of outsourcing. But by using as my case studies both the United States and India, the latter which …

Analyzing The Friedman Thesis Through A Legal Lens: Book Review Essay Assessing Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In his best-selling book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman assesses how globalization has affected the political, economic, and social landscapes of both the developed and developing world. For Friedman, globalization is emboldening people in countries, like in India, to make societal and governmental demands that are similar to those made by Americans in the United States.

This Essay seeks to add a new layer to the debate over Friedman’s flattening-world thesis. Focusing on India, in particular, I shall argue that as the trajectory of India’s economic development appears on the rise, the sad reality is that …

Scholarly Discourse, Public Perceptions, And The Cementing Of Norms: The Case Of The Indian Supreme Court And A Plea For Research, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

For economic and nuclear reasons, India has received considerable attention over the last decade from observers in the United States. But attuned Americans are well-aware of India's rich culture and status as a shining constitutional democracy for most of its post-1947 independent history. For all that India has accomplished, however, its public has long viewed its government officials with great disdain. At the same time, a fascinating norm exists in this society which holds one institution in exceedingly high regard - the Indian Supreme Court.

In this article, I seek to examine what accounts for this counter-intuitive norm. As opposed …

Book Review Of Engaging The Law In China: State, Society, And Possibilities For Justice, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The European Constitution And Its Implications For China, Xingzhong Yu

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The European Constitution is significant not only for the European Union, but also for a developing constitutional system like that of China. The EU constitutional practice may have positive implications on China's constitutional theory and practice. In the wake of the European constitutional achievement, Chinese constitutional scholars need to re-examine their long-held conviction in the indispensable role of the state in constitutional formation and imagination. The EU experience may have provided China with valuable insights and ways to deal with its inherited ethnic problems and improve its institutions on regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. China's own constitutional experiment in Hong …

Economic Emergency And The Rule Of Law, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Academic work extolling the merits of the "rule of law" both domestically and internationally abounds today, yet the meanings of the phrase itself seem to proliferate. Two of the most prominent contexts in which rule of law rhetoric appears are those of economic development and states of emergency. In the area of private law, dissemination of the rule of law across the globe and, in particular, among emerging market countries is often deemed a prerequisite for enhancing economic development, partly because it ensures that foreign investments will not be summarily expropriated and that contractual rights will not be frustrated by …

Islamic Law In The Jurisprudence Of The International Court Of Justice: An Analysis, Clark B. Lombardi

Articles

This Article asks whether ICJ opinions to date suggest that judicial consideration of Islamic legal norms has played, can play, or should play a role in the ICJ's resolution of international legal disputes or in establishing the legitimacy of the results that it has reached. It is structured as follows. Part II gives an initial overview of the ICJ to help us understand how and why judges on the ICJ have reached the answers they have. Part III describes how the ICJ's enabling statute permits the Court, at least in theory, to look at Islamic legal norms. As I will …

Consent In Mediation , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

This brief comparative analysis of the United States and English approaches to mediation consent raises policy questions about the merits of mandatory mediation. Is England on a better course by requiring consent at the front end of mediation? Will mediation be stronger in the long run when it has a consensual foundation? Arguably, the use of cost sanctions in England's mediation regime makes it close to a mandatory mediation system. For some litigants, participating in mediation will be potentially less costly than arguing that it was not unreasonable to refuse mediation. But despite the mandatory gloss, mediation is still a …

Internalizing Gender: Why International Law Theory Should Adopt Comparative Methods, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

This Article uses the example of international women 's political rights to examine the value of comparative methodologies in analyzing the process by which nations internalize international norms. As internalized in Brazil and France, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women suggests possibilities for (and possible limitations of) interdisciplinary comparative and international law scholarship. Indeed, international law scholarship is divided between theories of internalization and neorealist challenges to those theories. Comparative methodologies add crucial complexity to internalization theory, the success of which depends on acknowledging vast differences in national legal cultures. Further, comparative methodologies expose …

Constitutional Patriotism, Citizenship And Belonging In America And Germany, David Abraham

Articles

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights And Comparative Mental Disability Law: The Universal Factors, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

An examination of comparative mental disability law reveals that there are at least five dominant, universal, core factors that must be considered carefully in any evaluation of the key question of whether international human rights standards have been violated. Each of these five factors is a reflection of the shame that the worldwide state of mental disability law brings to all of us who work in this field. Each is tainted by the pervasive corruption of sanism that permeates all of mental disability law. Each reflects a blinding pretextuality that contaminates legal practice in this area.

These are the factors …

A Comparison Of Criminal Jury Decision Rules In Democratic Countries, Ethan J. Leib

Faculty Scholarship

This paper furnishes jury system information about the twenty-eight democracies (excluding the United States) that have been consistently democratic since at least the early 1990s and have a population of five million people or more (with allowance for Mexico and South Africa). I describe general rules that do not always apply to every crime in every context. In the United States, for example, we tend to use a randomly-selected jury of twelve people that sits for a single case; laws generally require unanimity to convict and unanimity to acquit. Failure to reach unanimity results in a “hung” jury, with the …

Restorative Justice And The Pre-Conditions For Grace: Taking Victim's Needs Seriously, Ellen Waldman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This essay surveys the question of victim need from a different vantage point. It takes as its starting point the voices of actual victims as recorded by researchers in the field. It reports on three studies and the linkage they uncover between victim distress and attitudes toward justice and reconciliation. What they reveal belies a simple notion of victim need and suggests that restorativists should move warily as they seek to reshape the criminal justice system into more harmony-producing forms. Victim-offender encounters, truth-telling, and moves toward apology and reconciliation are appealing in the abstract; but data suggests that victims whose …

"Technical" Defenses: Ethics, Morals, And The Lawyer As Friend, Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert F. Cochran Jr.

Journal Articles

This essay examines the question of lawyer-client counseling on the issue of raising "technical" defenses, such as statutes of limitations. The authors challenge the prevailing notion of American lawyers that technical defenses raise no moral issue worthy of dialogue between lawyers and clients. Looking at the history of legal ethics and modern treatment in European law, they suggest that questions of limitations do raise moral issues. They go on to explore how those moral issues ought to be discussed and decided between lawyers and clients, using the framework of lawyers as godfathers, hired guns, gurus, and friends that they laid …

Center Of Main Interests, International Insolvency Case Venue, And Equality Of Arms: The Eurofood Decision Of The European Court Of Justice, Samuel Bufford

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the Eurofood-E.C.J. decision and evaluates its impact on the decisions of the Irish and the Italian courts to open main insolvency cases for Eurofood. This Article also addresses the broader international insolvency law issues that the E.C.J. decision left open. Part II of this Article provides background information on the format and binding effect of a decision of the E.C.J. Part III explores the background of Parmalat and Eurofood and describes the Eurofood cases in the Irish and Italian courts prior to the E.C.J. decision. Part IV examines the E.C.J. decision, its rationale, and its application to …

Does Liability Enhance Credibility?: Lessons From The Dmca Applied To Online Defamation, Olivera Medenica, Kaiser Wahab

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Why U.S. Federal Criminal Penalties For Dealing In Illicit Cultural Property Are Ineffective, And A Pragmatic Alternative, Derek Fincham

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cost-Based And Rules-Based Regulatory Competition: Markets For Corporate Charters In The U.S. And The E.U., Marco Ventoruzzo

Faculty Scholarship

Regulatory competition in corporate law is increasing in Europe and, not differently from what happens in the US, a market for corporate charters is developing in Europe. This article examines the differences between the US corporate law market, and the European one - to the extent that one exists. The basic idea is that, in Europe, there is a stronger competition for the (first) incorporation of rather small, closely-held corporations; while in the US a small closely-held corporation usually incorporates locally, where its shareholders and directors are located, and reincorporates - often in Delaware - when it is growing and, …

French Headscarves And The U.S. Constitution: Parents, Children, And Free Exercise Of Religion, Christina A. Baker

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the 2004 French law banning conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, highlighting its roots in France's unique secularist tradition (laïcité) and its implications for religious freedom. It contrasts this approach with the U.S., where the First Amendment would likely prevent such a ban, emphasizing the importance of protecting religious liberty to safeguard broader societal freedoms. The analysis underscores the differing legal and cultural frameworks between France and the U.S. in balancing secularism and religious expression.

Anonymity On The Internet: How Does It Work, Who Needs It, And What Are Its Policy Implications?, Eric J. Stieglitz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Coming Into Compliance With Trips: A Discussion Of India's New Patent Laws, Jeffrey Colin

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.