Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

International Alchemy Within The Post-Copenhagen World: Transforming Critical Infrastructure Across Two Hundred Divergent Economics, Steven Ferrey

UC Law SF International Law Review

International solutions, reaching across different types of economies and systems of governance in two hundred world nations, have achieved a new urgency: Leading world climate scientists declare that in the next five years, the world is at a "tipping point" beyond which there is scant redemption from climate catastrophe. It is clear that solutions must quickly focus on a new energy infrastructure, somehow implemented across fundamentally different systems of national governance and economy, to abate rapidly exploding CO₂ emissions from unrestrained, cheap fossil-fuel energy use.

While the press coverage of the recent Copenhagen and Cancun international climate conferences concentrated …

Universal Jurisdiction To Prosecute Human Trafficking: Analyzing The Practical Impact Of A Jurisdictional Change In Federal Law, John Reynolds

UC Law SF International Law Review

Human trafficking is fast-growing international dilemma. This note evaluates the potential of universal jurisdiction to prosecute human trafficking to mitigate the crime's impact. Analogies are drawn to slavery and piracy, the paradigm crimes subject to universal jurisdiction. This note will also explore alternative approaches to combating human trafficking - political and economic approaches that attempt to undercut the root causes of human trafficking.

Immunity, Italian Style: Silvio Berlusconi Versus The Italian Legal System, Brendan Quigley

UC Law SF International Law Review

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's longest serving Prime Minister since the founding of the First Italian Republic in 1946. He is also one of Italy's richest men, owed largely to a vast media empire encompassing private television, film production, publishing, insurance, and banking. In conjunction with this private wealth and influence, the Prime Minister's political clout has afforded him virtually unparalleled power within Italy. Despite the scope of his influence, however, Berlusconi has been a constant subject of legal controversy since his rise to power in the early to mid 1990s. Over the years, he has been accused …

The Impunity Gap Of The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda: Causes And Consequences, Leslie Haskell, Lars Waldorf

UC Law SF International Law Review

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has achieved considerable success in bringing to justice those most responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. However, the ICTR's Prosecutor has failed to indict a single member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group that now governs Rwanda, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 1994 as a result of state noncooperation. Instead, the Prosecutor allowed Rwanda to conduct a sham trial into a notorious massacre involving thirteen clergy that his office had investigated. This Article takes a close look at this case and is based on the …

Electronic Medical Records And The Challenge To Privacy: How The United States And Canada Are Responding, Elana Rivkin-Haas

UC Law SF International Law Review

The rapid and continual advances in electronic record keeping create new and challenging privacy concerns in a variety of contexts. This Note examines the particular privacy issues countries face as their health care systems move towards more centralized, electronic medical record keeping. Electronic medical records provide for the increased collection, availability, aggregation, and dissemination of medical data which can facilitate more effective care, but can also leave people vulnerable to having private information misused. This Note focuses on the current privacy law framework in the United States and Canada. It will then explore whether the legal standards in these countries …

Fragrant Or Foul? - Regulation Of The Global Perfume Industry And The Implications For American Sovereignty, Caroline M. Reebs

UC Law SF International Law Review

The regulation of fragranced personal care products is increasingly scrutinized in the United States. As the FDA's cosmetic product requirements are minimal, particularly when compared to those followed by food producers and drug manufacturers, consumer groups emphasize the negative health implications. Industry, on the other hand, maintains that fragrances are safe for use and are effectively monitored by international trade associations. Because the government plays a modest role in cosmetic regulation, an arbiter is needed.

This Note examines the above concerns in a comparative light. The European Union's Cosmetic Directive imposes more requirements on cosmetic manufacturers and maintains a lengthier …

Workplace Bullying As An Occupational Safety And Health Matter: A Comparative Analysis, Susan Harthill

UC Law SF International Law Review

Workers who are bullied at work suffer physically and mentally, and can even be driven to suicide. There ought to be a law against workplace bullying, and in some countries, there is. Despite a growing body of interdisciplinary work highlighting the prevalence and costs of workplace bullying in the United States, there are currently no U.S. state or federal laws expressly addressing the issue, despite the ground breaking work and legislative efforts of workplace bullying pioneers, David Yamada and Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie. The dismal fact for American workers is that the U.S. lags behind many other countries when …

Constitutional Rigidity In Kosovo: Significance, Outcomes, And Rationale, Fisnik Korenica, Dren Doli

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

This article discusses the issue of constitutional rigidity from the perspective of the Constitution of Kosovo.  At the outset, the article analyzes the amendment procedure within the Constitution and its nature in terms of the actors and procedures involved.  Next, the article questions the nature of constitutional rigidity in Kosovo and seeks to address the position of veto players.  Arguing that the Constitution of Kosovo is rather rigid, the article then questions the significance of constitutional rigidity in light of the model of separation of powers, human rights, and the Constitutional Court’s constitutional “updating” role.  The article concludes that constitutional …

Does Law Matter Online - Empirical Evidence On Privacy Law Compliance, Michael Birnhack, Niva Elkin-Koren

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Does law matter in the information environment? What can we learn from the experience of applying a particular legal regime to the online environment? Informational privacy (or to use the European term, data protection) provides an excellent illustration of the challenges faced by regulators who seek to secure user rights and shape online behavior. A comprehensive study of Israeli website compliance with information privacy regulation in 2003 and 2006 provides insights for understanding these challenges. The study examined the information privacy practices of 1360 active websites, determining the extent to which these sites comply with applicable legal requirements related to …

Judicial Independence At The Crossroads: Grappling With Ideology And History In The New Nepali Constitution, David Pimentel

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Case Of Colonel Abel, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In June 2010, journalists for the Associated Press reported the arrest of ten Russian spies, all suspected of being “deep-cover” illegal agents in the United States. Seeking to convey the magnitude of this event, the journalists wrote in the first paragraphs of their article that this “blockbuster series of arrests” might even be as significant as the FBI’s “famous capture of Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in 1957 in New York.” Colonel Abel’s story of American justice at a time of acute anxiety about the nation’s security is one that continues to resonate today. The honor, and error, that is contained …

"Consumer Choice" Is Where We Are All Going - So Let's Go Together, Neil W. Averitt, Robert H. Lande, Paul Nihoul

All Faculty Scholarship

Globalisation of business makes it important for firms to predict how their behaviour is likely to be treated in the roughly 200 nations that have competition laws. In that context, a crucial question is: are we in a position to develop a common intellectual framework that would give coherence to policy statements made on specific competition related issues and, at the same time, be acceptable, broadly, in a variety of legal systems, not necessarily based on identical assumptions? We believe that the answer is “yes.” A concept is emerging as a possible source of unification for competition policies around the …

Comparing Regulatory Oversight Bodies Across The Atlantic: The Office Of Information And Regulatory Affairs In The Us And The Impact Assessment Board In The Eu, Jonathan B. Wiener, Alberto Alemanno

Faculty Scholarship

‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ asked the Roman poet Juvenal – ‘who will watch the watchers, who will guard the guardians?’ As legislative and regulatory processes around the globe progressively put greater emphasis on impact assessment and accountability, we ask: who oversees the regulators? Although regulation can often be necessary and beneficial, it can also impose its own costs. As a result, many governments have embraced, or are considering embracing, regulatory oversight--frequently relying on economic analysis as a tool of evaluation. We are especially interested in the emergence over the last four decades of a new set of institutional actors, the …

The Canadian Criminal Jury, Neil Vidmar, Regina Schuller

Faculty Scholarship

The Canadian criminal jury system has some unique characteristics. In contrast to American law, that gives precedent to free speech over fair trial, and English law, that favors fair trial over free speech, Canadian law occupies a middle ground balancing these competing values .Jury selection procedure in most trials is similar to that of England: jurors are assumed to be “impartial between the Queen and the accused” and are selected without a voir dire. However, in cases involving exceptional pretrial publicity or involving accused persons from racial or ethnic minority groups, jurors are vetted by a “challenge for cause” process …

Comparative Law, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

Written for an encyclopedia on European private law, this brief
article addresses term, purposes, methods and development of
comparative law. Special attention is given to the role of comparative
law in European private law studies, European law-making and European
adjudication.

Property Rights In Land, Agricultural Capitalism, And The Relative Decline Of Pre-Industrial China, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Post-Wto China Tax Law System Reform And The Rule Of Law: Progress And Prospects, Tianlong Hu

SJD Dissertations

A close examination of China's accession commitments reveals that effective economic reform and trade liberalization call for substantiations from a matching legal infrastructure reform. For example, taxpayers' rights protection should be viewed in terms of broader political and civil rights reform. Indeed, a number of the values featured in the WTO principles and the rule of law framework encourage China's further integration into both the global trade network and the international human rights regime. This is particularly evident in the Chinese tax law context. WTO principles and the rule of law requirements must be introduced and evaluated together in tax …

Different Cultures, Different Conflicts: Sex Discrimination Law And The United States And Japan, Reuel E. Schiller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Comparative International Law, Ugo Mattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Insular Minorities: International Law’S Challenge To Japan’S Ethnic Homogeneity, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

The Japanese state has long promoted a view of itself, and the country, as ethnically homogeneous. Borrowing on critical race theory as developed in the United States, this paper first traces the numerous laws and policies that Japan has implemented to privilege ethnically Japanese people, and prejudice ethnic others. Next, the paper examines the role of international human rights law in challenging various edifices of the ethno-state, including amendments to legislation, and individual lawsuits. I conclude that international law has played a meaningful role in diversifying the protective ambit of Japanese law, but cannot provide all of the solutions that …