Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Should Foreign Pension Funds With U.S. Investments Pay U.S. Tax?, Cynthia Blum

William & Mary Business Law Review

U.S. and foreign pension funds are investing heavily outside of their home countries. With the aging of the world’s population, this trend will likely intensify. Most countries, including the U.S., accord a tax exemption to certain qualified pension funds organized within their own country; however, when a foreign pension fund invests in the U.S., the U.S. tax code does not recognize its tax exemption. Responding to the need to attract greater investment in U.S. infrastructure, Congress in 2015 enacted a new provision ameliorating the tax treatment of foreign pension plans investing in U.S. real estate. This Article examines whether the …

Transitional Justice, The Role Of The Judiciary And Rupture Of Democracy In Brazil In 2016, Jose Carlos Moreira Da Silva Filho

Distinguished Speaker Series

In comparison to the other countries in Latin America that suffered under civilian-military national security dictatorships in the second half of the 20th century, Brazil presented two peculiarities that had an enormous influence on the characteristics of the democratic regime that began in 1988: its amnesty law was enacted while the authoritarian regime was still in power, and throughout the period of the dictatorship, it promoted a broad and intensive process of judicialization of the political repression. I believe these aspects will influence and interact in a notable way with the new coup d’état process that began in Brazil in …

The Rights And Wrongs Of Shareholder Rights, Will Hutton, Colin Mayer, Philippe Schneider

Seattle University Law Review

The company is a legal structure designed to bring together the different parties of a firm—its employees, investors, customers, and suppliers—in the delivery of its corporate purpose. Corporations were established as institutions with autonomous lives—self-standing, legal entities independent of those who worked, financed, and managed them. They were devices to ensure long-term commitment to shared goals and risks, with reciprocal obligations on those engaged in them. A company had to declare its purpose before earning a licence to trade. For example, the East India Company, England’s earliest public company, to issue shares to the public as permanent capital, was given …

A Critical Canadian Perspective On The Benefit Corporation, Carol Liao

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Article provides a brief background and description of the American benefit corporation. Part II then delineates the Canadian model of corporate law and governance as it currently stands in the statutes, common law, and in practice. Part III applies the information gathered from the previous two sections to explain why the legal features in the American benefit corporation model are largely redundant to existing Canadian corporate laws. It also addresses how the implementation of the benefit corporation in Canada would conflate incorrect assumptions on Canada’s model of governance and potentially impede the progressive development of Canada’s …

Redefining Corporate Purpose: An International Perspective, Afra Afsharipour

Seattle University Law Review

This comparative analysis of India’s move toward redefining corporate purpose proceeds as follow. Part I presents an overview of global debates over corporate purpose, drawing principally from the move toward the ESV model in the U.K. and benefit corporations in the U.S. This section briefly recounts the debates in both jurisdictions about whether the changes they have experienced will engender more socially responsible corporations. Part II then provides a condensed history of corporate law reforms in India and an overview of the legislative changes undertaken in the past decade. In Part II, this Article takes a broad approach toward analyzing …

Can The Japanese Supreme Court Overcome The Political Question Hurdle?, Po Liang Chen, Jordan T. Wada

Washington International Law Journal

In 1947, a new Japanese Constitution (“Kenpō”) was born and its pacifist ideal was embodied in Article 9. Meanwhile, judicial review was transplanted, mainly from the United States (“U.S.”), into Japan. While the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed its political question doctrine since Baker v. Carr in 1962, Japan developed its constitutional avoidance and political question doctrine in part to avoid deciding the merits of Article 9 disputes, including the legitimacy of Japan’s Self-Defense Force, the Security Treaty between the US and Japan, and the stationing of U.S. Forces in Japan. The Japanese Supreme Court (“SCJ”) adopted a deferential …

No Port, No Passport: Why Submerged States Can Have No Nationals, Heather Alexander, Jonathan Simon

Washington International Law Journal

Territorial loss owing to sea level rise presents novel challenges to the international legal order. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of small island states like the Maldives, Tuvalu and Kiribati, whose very existence is in jeopardy. In our recent article, Sinking Into Statelessness, we argue that the principle of presumption of continuity of state existence does not ensure that sinking states shall, or may, retain their legal statehood, because that principle cannot overrule the fact that territoriality is a constitutive feature of legal statehood. Here, we argue that even if, contra our previous conclusion, submerged states retain …

A Quest To Increase Women In Corporate Board Leadership: Comparing The Law In Norway And The U.S., Angela R. Foster

Washington International Law Journal

Gender imbalance is a persistent problem on corporate boards the world over. Women are severely underrepresented in these important leadership positions within public companies. Norway took a big swing at inequality in 2003 by enacting a quota law requiring at least 40% representation of each gender on boards of directors of public companies. Norway now has the highest percentage of women serving on corporate boards. Through Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, the United States enacted a diversity disclosure rule that requires public companies to divulge their policy regarding gender in board hiring. The disclosure rule has proven ineffectual, and at …

Pushing The Envelope: Application Of Guiding Cases In Chinese Courts And Development Of Case Law In China, Mo Zhang

Washington International Law Journal

The modern Chinese legal system has at least two notable features. First, bearing the civil law tradition, Chinese courts do not follow precedent. Second, under the people’s congress system, the Chinese judiciary has no power to make law. In recent years, however, the Supreme People’s Court of China began building a guiding case system in the Chinese judiciary. The application of guiding cases implicates (a) an expansion of the power of the Chinese judiciary into the field of law-making; and (b) development of case law in China. Chinese guiding cases differ from the common law cases in many aspects, and …

Chinese Patent Law's Statutory Damages Provision: The One Size That Fits None, Xiaowu Li, Don Wang

Washington International Law Journal

The concept of statutory damages was first introduced into the Chinese patent regime in 2001 as a “last-resort” approach for damages calculation in infringement cases. Curiously, in the following 15 years, this last-resort approach became so popular among the courts that it is essentially the exclusive approach today. This Article examines the legal and policy implications of the current statutory damages scheme, and concludes that the existence of statutory damages is fundamentally detrimental to the validity of the Chinese patent system. Therefore, we argue that the statutory damages provision in Article 65 of the Patent Law of China should be …

Linnaean Taxonomy And Globalized Law, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Review of The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities by Stephen Breyer.

One Person, One Vote: Gerrymandering And The Independent Commission, A Global Perspective, James Ruley

Indiana Law Journal

In 1863, on the hallowed fields at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln encapsulated a core principle of democracy by describing our system as a “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people.” This definition accurately depicts the ideal of democracy—that supreme power is vested in the citizenry, not in the government itself. Since the American model is based on representative democracy instead of direct democracy, extreme scrutiny must be placed upon the system of choosing representatives if government is to accurately represent the will of the people.

One of the greatest abuses of a citizen’s voting rights is gerrymandering. …

Children Crossing Borders: Internationalizing The Restatement Of The Conflict Of Laws, Louise Ellen Teitz

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Entrenching The Minority: The Constitutional Court In Thailand's Political Conflict, Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang

Washington International Law Journal

Since 2006, Thailand has witnessed an unprecedented surge of judicial activism from the Constitutional Court to scrutinize elected politicians in the name of the rule of law. Democracy, argued Constitutional Court judges, could only be consolidated if the rule of law was maintained. But examination of several high-profile constitutional cases suggested that the Constitutional Court was actually working on behalf of the powerful elite minority to obstruct the democratic process under the pretext of protecting the rule of law. This antagonistic position brewed resentment and violence which jeopardized the Constitutional Court’s legitimacy as a neutral political arbiter. The 2014 coup …

Virtual Whats?: Defining Virtual Currencies In The Face Of Conflicting Regulatory Guidances, Stephanie A. Lemchuk

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note argues that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, while promising, require clear regulatory frameworks to achieve long-term success. It emphasizes the need for uniform classification and regulation, proposing that treating virtual currencies as commodities under existing commodity laws offers a viable solution. The analysis highlights the dual nature of virtual currencies as both innovative financial tools and vehicles for illicit activities, stressing the importance of collaboration among regulatory agencies to balance innovation with consumer protection.

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

Michigan Law Review

Review of The Atlantic Divide in Antitrust: An Examination of US and EU Competition Policy by Daniel J. Gifford and Robert T. Kudrle.

Reposisi Pemberian Kuasa Dalam Konsep “Volmacht Dan Lastgeving” Berdasarkan Cita Hukum Pancasila, Pieter E. Latumeten

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The dynamic development of mandate as a contract that brings forth representation is disaccord with the definition and norm of lastgeving under Indonesian Civil Code. This research has a goal to unravel such issue by pointing out of that there is a need for repositioning in the form concept renewal for the definition and norm of mandate contract under Indonesian Civil Code that is line with our philosophical foundation (rechtsidee), which is Pancasila. Juridical normative methodology carries out of the repositioning by examining the principles, its own concept as a postivie law and meta juridical, and with the help of …

Legal Protection For Bitcoin Investors In Indonesia: To Move Beyond The Current Exchange System, Mariske Myeke Tampi

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Since Indonesia has known and enforced the concept of tort, an act regarded as tort is not only actions contrary to the law, but an act that violates the principles of propriety, the principles of thoroughness and cautionary principle also included in tort. Around 2010, it was found that the act of not fulfilling the decision of court which has binding power associated for compensatory money in cases of corruption becomes the basis of a tort lawsuit, where the problem is that court verdict is not a main legal source for countries which adopt civil law such as Indonesia. Therefore, …

A Human Rights Perspective To Global Battlefield Detention: Time To Reconsider Indefinite Detention, Yuval Shany

International Law Studies

This article discusses one principal challenge to detention without trial of suspected international terrorists—the international human rights law (IHRL) norm requiring the introduction of an upper limit on the duration of security detention in order to render it not indefinite in length. Part One of this article describes the “hardline” position on security detention, adopted by the United States in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks (followed, with certain variations, by other countries, including the United Kingdom and the State of Israel), according to which international terrorism suspects can be deprived of their liberty without trial for the …

The Unsung Virtues Of Global Forum Shopping, Pamela K. Bookman

Notre Dame Law Review

Forum shopping gets a bad name. This is even more true in the context of transnational litigation. The term is associated with unprincipled gamesmanship and undeserved victories. Courts therefore often seek to thwart the practice. But in recent years, exaggerated perceptions of the “evils” of forum shopping among courts in different countries have led U.S. courts to impose high barriers to global forum shopping. These extreme measures prevent global forum shopping from serving three unappreciated functions: protecting access to justice, promoting private regulatory enforcement, and fostering legal reform.

This Article challenges common perceptions about global forum shopping that have supported …