Monthly Archives: September, 2024
Michael Duff, ‘Reverberations of Magna Carta: Work Injuries, Inkblots, and Restitution’
ABSTRACT This article argues that workers in the United States have been unconstitutionally undercompensated for their work injuries for at least a century. This provocative fact, coupled with statistics showing that over 120,000 people per year die from workplace injury and occupational disease, suggests a looming post-pandemic struggle for better injury remedies and safer workplaces. […]
Jeong-Yoo Kim, ‘Seller Liability versus Platform Liability: Optimal Liability Rule and Law Enforcement in the Platform Economy’
ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine whether the platform as well as the sellers violating the intellectual property right (IPR) should be liable. We first show that platform liability is socially better if the number of potential victims is very large. This is mainly due to the general enforcement effect of the platform’s monitoring activity. […]
Alexander Boni-Saenz, ‘The Right to Fail’
ABSTRACT This Article explores the conceptual and legal dimensions of the right to fail, particularly the role of support in its conceptualization and operationalization. The right to fail is the entitlement to make choices about one’s own life, even when there is some nontrivial chance of negative consequences. The most natural normative foundation for it […]
Jodi Gardner, ‘Rethinking Risk-Taking: The Death of Volenti?’
ABSTRACT Volenti non fit injuria allows a negligent defendant to escape liability by showing that the claimant voluntarily and willingly accepted the risk in question. This article combines the theoretical limitations of the volenti defence with a case analysis of how its application has played out in the ‘real world’, and argues it is not […]
Glick, Lozada and Bush, ‘Law and Economics Fallacies: What Modern Economics Really Says About the Definition of Efficiency and the Measurement of Welfare’
ABSTRACT The fundamental originating principle of law and economics (‘L&E’) is that legal decisions should be (and are) based on maximizing efficiency. But L&E proponents do not define ‘efficiency’ as Pareto Efficiency – the way agreed to by most economists. A Pareto optimal condition is obtained when no one can be made better off without […]
Jasper Verstappen, ‘Regulating Unfair Commercial Practices in a Smart Contract Context’
ABSTRACT Emerging technologies can have an impact on legal frameworks that protect consumers. This article investigates the impact of smart contract technology on the European rules regarding unfair commercial practices. It analyses the manner in which legislatures can respond to such new technologies and the impact these technologies can have on the principles of functional […]
Monica Vessio and others, ‘InPerpetuity (Challenging Misperceptions of the Term “Smart Contract”)’
ABSTRACT In law, the term ‘smart contract’ has been used loosely with no one definition winning out. In an attempt to ameliorate this, the Law Commission of England and Wales has endeavoured to add the word ‘legal’ to ‘smart contract’. No relief is found in the computer coding world, where ‘smart contract’ is used to […]
Lupica and Neumann, ‘Thwarting the Inevitability of Over-Indebtedness’
ABSTRACT Structural inequalities in the United States have led to millions of Americans struggling to pay their bills each month. A single emergency – a sick child, an unexpected car tow, or a reduction in hours at work – can force a low-income household to the brink of financial disaster, risking eviction and overindebtedness. Such […]
Phillip Magness, ‘The Problems with Piketty’s Data’
ABSTRACT The Law and Political Economy (LPE) movement frames itself as a legal retort to a ‘crisis’ of rising inequality in the United States, and calls for corrective policy interventions through novel and heavily progressive forms of taxation. These proposals, in turn, are based upon the empirical claims of economist Thomas Piketty. I show that […]
Sandra Wachter, ‘Limitations and Loopholes in the EU AI Act and AI Liability Directives: What This Means for the European Union, the United States, and Beyond’
ABSTRACT Predictive and generative artificial intelligence (AI) have both become integral parts of our lives through their use in making highly impactful decisions. AI systems are already deployed widely – for example, in employment, healthcare, insurance, finance, education, public administration, and criminal justice. Yet severe ethical issues, such as bias and discrimination, privacy invasiveness, opaqueness, […]