Monthly Archives: June, 2025
Shani Shisha, ‘Copyright’s Dominion’
ABSTRACT Copyright law is under attack. Scholars and activists have long argued that American copyright law is a shambolic mess – vague, unpredictable, and startlingly overbroad. But amidst the swirling chaos, one core principle has remained intact: the idea that copyright attaches only to intangible goods. In theory, copyright resides in an intangible work of […]
Call for submissions: Berkeley/Texas/Toronto/Yale Private Law Junior Faculty Forum, University of Texas at Austin, 17-18 April 2026
We are pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new scholarly initiative: the Berkeley/Texas/Toronto/Yale Private Law Junior Faculty Forum (BETTY), a platform dedicated to fostering in-depth exchange of ideas on the conceptual and normative foundations of private law. It aims to build an engaged community of private law scholars, with a particular emphasis on […]
Oratilwe Chaba, ‘Ownership Through Time: Evaluating The Justifications of Acquisitive Prescription’
ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the traditional justifications for acquisitive prescription in South African property law, particularly the doctrines of punishing negligent owners and promoting legal certainty. While prescription remains widely accepted in both common law and judicial reasoning, the foundations of these justifications have come under increasing scrutiny in light of evolving constitutional norms. The […]
Kevin Bennardo, ‘Death and Debts’
ABSTRACT Uniform Probate Code section 2-606(a)(1) provides for automatic non-ademption of the unpaid purchase price of specifically devised property that was sold by the decedent after their will was executed but before their death. Rather than receiving the specific property that was left to them in the will, the named beneficiary receives the balance of […]
Aditi Bagchi, ‘In Search of the Wrongdoer behind Unjust Prices’
ABSTRACT This chapter argues that a price can be unjust because it is the product of wrongful conduct by one of the parties to the sale, or because it is the product of an unjust market. In both cases, it is sensible to refer to the price itself as unjust not unlike the way we […]
Antonio Legerén-Molina, ‘Property Regimes of European Spouses and Partners. Towards Their Unification or Just to a Certain Degree of Harmonization?’
ABSTRACT Over the centuries, in the European context, life-in-common has been organized in different ways although until very recently the undisputed predominance of marriage has stood out. In addition, the combination of today’s means of communication with the implementation of one of the fundamental goals of the European Union (EU) – the free movement of […]
Ruhl and Dewitte Langenfeld, ‘International Commercial Courts “Made in Germany”: Attractive Alternative for Big Business?’
ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, jurisdictions in the Gulf Region, Asia and Europe have established special judicial bodies to settle international commercial disputes. Commonly referred to as ‘international commercial courts’ these bodies are distinct from other (local) courts in that they display innovative features with regards to their institutional and procedural design which are […]
Luigi Franzoni, ‘Efficient Liability Law with Costly Insurance’
ABSTRACT This paper examines the impact of insurance on the liability system, building on the realistic assumption that parties are risk-averse and that private insurance is costly. These factors increase the value of precaution for the parties involved. Under a negligence rule, risk aversion and the high cost of insurance justify raising the standard of […]
‘The Continued Neglect of Continuing Risk’
Jonathan Cardi, Ashton Jenne and Chace Villarreal, ‘The Paradox of Continuing Risk’, available at SSRN (5 May 2025). In ‘The Paradox of Continuing Risk’, W Jonathan Cardi, Ashton Jenne, and Chace Villarreal surface and incisively explore a consequential puzzle. Across the United States, 32 jurisdictions have adopted the continuing-risk rule, which imposes an affirmative duty […]
Alison Morantz, ‘Rejecting the Grand Bargain: What Happens When Large Companies Opt Out of Workers’ Compensation?’
ABSTRACT Texas is the only state where employers can, and frequently do, opt out of workers’ compensation. Focusing on multistate firms that swapped workers’ compensation for private insurance (‘nonsubscribers’), I compare outcomes across the two regimes. I find that nonsubscription induced a roughly 35% increase in minor claims, partly offset by a 28% decline in […]