Integrating Investment Treaty Conflict and Dispute Systems Design
By Susan D. Franck. Full text here. The debate on the renewal of the Trade Promotion Authority Act has brought public scrutiny to the terms of investment treaties—including dispute resolution provisions. In a so-called litigation explosion, investors resolve disputes against host governments through international arbitration mechanisms in investment treaties, and there is little evidence of reliance…
Continue ReadingPunitive Damages and Valuing Harm
By Alexandra B. Klass. Full text here. In 2003, the Supreme Court created a presumption that only single-digit ratios of punitive damages to compensatory damages would satisfy substantive due process limits. The Court also created an exception to this presumption, applicable when the defendant’s misconduct results in only a small amount of compensatory damages or…
Continue ReadingNote: Tax Increment Financing: Public Use or Private Abuse?
By Alyson Tomme. Full text here. In cities across the country, tax increment financing has grown substantially as a tool to promote economic development. Also known as TIF, this public financing method designates an area as a TIF district and subsequently freezes the tax base at a given year’s level. Any tax revenue generated above that…
Continue ReadingPlaying with "Monopoly Money": Phony Profits, Fraud Penalties and Equity
By Craig M. Boise. Full text here. Although most U.S. corporations do not pay federal income taxes, over the last several years some corporations have been willing to report, and shell out to the Treasury, hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes that they did not owe. They did so to conceal the fact that they…
Continue ReadingRetaliation
By Deborah L. Brake. Full text here. This Article takes a comprehensive look at retaliation and its place in discrimination law. The Article begins by examining current social science literature to understand how retaliation operates as a social practice to silence challenges to discrimination and preserve inequality. Then, using the recent controversy over whether to imply…
Continue ReadingLecture, Socratic Method and the Irreducible Core of Legal Education
By Donald G. Marshall. Full text here.
Continue ReadingJustice Holmes, Buck v. Bell, and the History of Equal Protection
By Stephen A. Siegel. Full text here. Most everything Justice Holmes said in upholding eugenic sterilization in Buck v. Bell has been extensively criticized. However, his impatient response to Carrie Buck’s equal protection claim, dismissing it as “the usual last resort of constitutional arguments,” is still believed to be an accurate depiction of the equal protection…
Continue ReadingIntroduction, Introduction to Socratic Method and the Irreducible Core of Legal Education
By David Weissbrodt. Full text here.
Continue ReadingNote: Increasing E-Quality in Rural America: U.S. Spectrum Policy and Adverse Possession
By Lindsey L. Tonsager. Full text here. The United States is undergoing a communications revolution. Analog services are replacing digital, and broadband and mobile telephones are replacing dial-up and line lines. Businesses, educational institutions, consumers, and the public safety community increasingly rely on cheaper, faster, and always-on communications services that allow them to transmit voice, video,…
Continue ReadingNote: Determining a Corporation's Principal Place of Business: A Uniform Approach to Diversity Jurisdiction
By Lindsey D. Saunders. Full text here. For purposes of federal diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, a corporation is a citizen of both its state of incorporation and the state where it has its principal place of business. In adopting that provision, Congress provided very little guidance to the federal courts as to the method…
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