Monthly Archives: August, 2026
Ryan Hanley, ‘Human Flourishing and the Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith on Character Development and Institutional Design’
ABSTRACT Students of Adam Smith’s views on virtue typically look to The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But in fact, the Wealth of Nations contains a strikingly robust theory of the relationship between virtues and institutions, one centered on the question of how the incentive systems created by various institutional structures encourage or impede the moral […]
Jordan Blanke, ‘Copyright and AI: The Building Blocks’
ABSTRACT The rapid development of artificial intelligence has revived many of the oldest and most enduring questions in copyright law. Courts now confront whether AI systems infringe by training on copyrighted works, whether AI-generated output may infringe existing copyrights, whether AI-generated output can qualify for protection, and how traditional doctrines-such as originality, fair use, and […]
Choi, Gulati and Ball, ‘The Sound of Silence’
ABSTRACT Standard contract theory assumes that sophisticated drafters read formal judicial opinions and revise agreements accordingly. This Essay challenges that model by demonstrating how informal judicial signaling shapes contract production and the reliance on default rules through contractual silence. Using mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sandbagging provisions as a case study, we examine why contractual silence […]
Lukas Rass-Masson, ‘The Impact of European Private International Law and the réserve héréditaire in France’
ABSTRACT Whether the réserve héréditaire (forced heirship under French inheritance law) forms part of French international ordre public, and therefore falls within the public-policy exception, has long been the subject of a major doctrinal debate in France. While the traditional answer was positive, the contemporary evolution of French private international law, driven in particular by […]
Chunyan Ding, ‘Chinese Tort Law in the Era of the Civil Code’
ABSTRACT Promulgated in 2020 and effective from January 1, 2021, China’s Civil Code replaces the 2009 Tort Liability Law through its Book VII, maintaining much of the prior structure but introducing three significant revisions: a redefined scope of tort liability, an expanded application of punitive damages, and new rules governing cybertorts. The Code primarily limits […]
Sophia Moreau, ‘Objectionable Obligations’
ABSTRACT Many of our moral obligations result partly from wrongs or injustices, whether individual acts of wrongdoing or broader institutional or structural injustices. This article argues that in some of these cases, the agent is left ‘caged in’ by their own moral obligation, in the sense that they are morally compromised whether they fulfil it […]
Fong Jun Yi, ‘On Causation and Accounts of Profits: Rukhadze v Recovery Partners GP Ltd’
ABSTRACT In the recent case of Rukhadze v Recovery Partners GP Ltd, the UK Supreme Court was given the opportunity to reconsider the House of Lords’ previous formulations of the account of profits doctrine in Regal (Hastings) Ltd v Gulliver and Boardman v Phipps. It was concluded that the position in Regal and Boardman regarding […]
Felipe Jiménez, ‘Beware Judge & Co’
ABSTRACT Richard Hyland’s ‘Common Law Judging and the Great Tradition’ offers an admirably erudite reconstruction of the common law’s central commitments. Hyland is right that the common law is not a system of rules mechanically applied and that good adjudication ultimately requires good judges. But accepting that judges have broad, ineliminable discretion is different from […]
Martin Edwards, ‘Equity, Private Ordering, and Corporate Law’
ABSTRACT Equity, private ordering, and law are the cornerstones of corporate governance. Courts and scholars regularly hold forth on the interaction between them, drawing the lines separating them ever more finely. According to most scholars and judges, fundamental tensions beset these interactions. Among them: Contractarian theory cannot account for mandatory rules of corporate law. Private […]
John Lovett, ‘Good Faith in Louisiana Property Law’
ABSTRACT The concept of good faith is a cornerstone of Louisiana private law. It plays a central role in the law of general and conventional obligations. It makes crucial appearances in the law of sales. It even affects subjects in the law of persons, such as the civil effects of absolutely null and putative marriages. […]