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The International Law of Corporate Governance
Get PDFInternational economic agreements increasingly touch on fundamental principles of corporate governance. The trend contrasts with existing scholarship, which assumes corporate law evolves via domestic mechanisms. This Article introduces the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, with its dedicated chapter on corporate governance, as a case study. At the normative level, the emergence of corporate governance in international agreements represents a positive development by enabling countries to signal and put into action commitments for better governance. Given these recent developments, the field of comparative corporate governance should incorporate international agreements as an emerging source of law
Towards A New Generation in Central American Trade: Proposals for Modernizing CAFTA-DR
Get PDFTo the surprise of many, the Trump Administration has signaled its intent to renegotiate the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Why is the possible renegotiation of CAFTA-DR a surprise? CAFTA-DR has been largely favorable to the United States (U.S.)—the U.S. has enjoyed significant trade surpluses with CAFTA-DR countries since its ratification. CAFTA-DR has also promoted regional integration and co-production in Central America.Trade flows in and out of Central America have increased significantly. On balance, CAFTA-DR has benefitted all signatory nations from a trade standpoint, though it has left unaddressed a myriad of social, humanitarian, and governance issues. Consequently, as CAFTA-DR is renegotiated, U.S. policymakers can build upon these successes and also make sure to take particular care to shore up certain aspects that CAFTA-DR, in its current form, has fallen short. Of note, CAFTA-DR does not incentivize or mandate efforts to improve labor conditions in Central America, leaving millions of Central Americans facing sub-par working conditions and low pay. CAFTA-DR has also been inept to address environmental externalities associated with increased economic development, particularly in the manufacturing and natural resources sectors, which often pollute or cause environmental harms as part of their operations. Further, CAFTA-DR, like other regional trade agreements, has not fostered coalitions that were previously associated with multilateral trade agreements—preventing unification on key issues affecting trade flows, and preventing a cohesive response to social and environmental concerns
Stress Provocation and Recovery: Cardiovascular and Self-report Outcomes Following a Brief Feelings-based Intervention
No full textThe purpose of the current study is to explore the regulatory effects of a novel, brief feelings-focused intervention called Tracking a Feeling (TAF) on psychophysiological and self-reported variables following a laboratory-induced stressful experience. The sample included 18- to 35 year-old men and women of varying ethnic backgrounds (TAF, N=30; Control, N=19; 84% women). In a laboratory setting, subject\u27s blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) was assessed every two minutes throughout the four phases of study protocol (baseline, stressor, intervention, recovery), while the PANAS was completed between each phase. Contrary to our predictions, results revealed no significant effect of TAF intervention on physiological markers. However, TAF participants reported significantly more PA at the post-intervention phase, which was consistent with our hypothesis, and continued to report higher levels of PA after a 10-minute recovery period when compared to the control. Results provide evidence to support TAF as an effective emotion regulation strategy that can support health by mitigating the stress response via increasing PA. Keywords: experiential therapy, emotion regulation, brief intervention, reactivity, recovery, affective interventio
Examining the Effects of Exposure to Nature on Well-Being: Implications for College Campuses
Get PDFHumans attraction to the natural environment stems from our evolutionary tendencies. Biophilia is defined by E.O. Wilson as the “innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes (Wilson, 1984, p. 1).” Recent studies have shown that spending time outside in nature is beneficial to physical and mental health as well as well-being. Nature is filled with intriguing things such as animals, plants, fresh air and other aspects which can help an individual replenish. Some of these benefits include stress reduction, opportunities and motivation to complete tasks. Research indicates that adults who work in offices would perform better if they had views of natural landscape painting or even a window which faced nature. This paper will provide a review of research on how nature affects human well-being and mental health. The findings in this paper can be beneficial to college students and those assisting them in a number of ways. Based on the available research literature, this paper concludes with a set of recommendations of how attention to the influence of nature can enhance the quality of campus life and the literature. As mostly young individuals transitioning into the adult world, it would help influence their well-being in a positive way that will promote creativity and motivation
California Dreaming?
Get PDFOver the past few years, California became the setting for shocking tales of sex inequality and abuse in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Decades after women achieved educational parity. men still run the corporate world. In response to these stories exposed by the #MeToo movement, California joined the transnational corporate board quota movement by converting its voluntary quota into a hard one. Will California\u27s first mover status overcome constitutional objections and inspire other jurisdictions to act. Or is just Utopian dreaming, California-style? This Essay argues that despite its many flaws, the quota may succeed in curbing male over-representation on corporate boards. After contextualizes the quota within the transnational corporate board quota movement, it rejects the U.S. reaction that emphasizes the private sector\u27s dominion over equality remedies. Despite the U.S. resistance to quotas, comparative experience reveals both that the private sector manages how quota implementation occurs. The Essay concludes that some public intervention--in concert with private efforts--remains necessar
Calming Troubled Waters: Local Solutions, Part I
Get PDFIn 1861, the Ohio Supreme Court adopted the Absolute Use Rule to govern groundwater, essentially allowing landowners its unencumbered use. The opinion noted that the behavior of subterranean water was “occult and mysterious” and that it was beyond the competence of judges to determine its appropriate use. The Ohio court reversed course in 1984 and adopted the Reasonable Use Rule. By then, scientific knowledge had advanced to the point that the interconnected movement of water was more readily discoverable. The court noted that a primary goal of water law should be to conform to hydrologic fact. This Article explores the advance of scientific knowledge related to water pollution, which reveals the clear relationship between land use and water quality. It examines the Clean Water Act and concludes that, despite advances in scientific knowledge, federal law does not conform to scientific fact but remains mysteriously incapable of addressing much of the nation’s severe water pollution. Non-navigable waters, groundwater, and nonpoint sources, with minor exceptions, all fall outside the Clean Water Act’s regulatory scope, as currently interpreted.
State governments, however, may use their reserved police powers to protect natural resources, including watersheds. Most state legislatures have delegated broad power to local governments to mitigate water pollution through the adoption of land use plans, zoning laws, and land use and public nuisance regulations. The Article describes a host of local government gap-filling strategies that protect water quality and explores a number of intermunicipal and intergovernmental collaborations that defy the many critics who warn against relying on localism to solve natural resource problems. It analyzes the principle of subsidiarity, which holds that responsibility for dealing with problems should be delegated to the most decentralized institution capable of addressing them. There is general agreement among most critics that, despite their limitations, local governments must play a key role in resource conservation, but that they need assistance. To accommodate the diversity of situations and the need for flexibility in approach, the Article constructs, explains, and recommends the Principle of Collaborative Subsidiarity as a strategic path for rectifying the fragmented nature of the nation’s system of water law
Queer Phenomenology in Law: A Critical Theory of Orientation
Get PDFThis Article argues for the application of phenomenology to legal understanding, specifically as a way to think about and through queer people’s interactions with law as well as queer theory in law. There are both pragmatic and theoretical justifications for this project. The pragmatic justifications include the need to better address the legal issues and experiences of queer people, recent political and legal decisions and debates that affect queer people specifically, the need to better provide epistemological resources for queer lawyers, law scholars, law students, and their allies, and the need to better understand how law affects minoritarian populations regardless of specific identity characteristics. The theoretical justifications include the relative under-theorization of queer theory in law, the improvement of legal theory’s interaction with related theories in the humanities and social sciences, and the development of a more robust theory of everyday interactions with law consistent with individuals’ diverse experiences and identities. These justifications counsel for further study and attempts to account for diversity in law
The Devil in Recent American Law
Get PDFDespite its secular aspirations, the American legal system is permeated by Christian and other religious ideas. One of the religious ideas that frequently appears in recent American law is the devil—the unholy antithesis of all that is good in the world. Called by many names, such as Satan, Lucifer, or the Antichrist, the devil is no stranger to the United States court system. The devil arises from the hot depths primarily in five contexts: (1) as a source of injury to reputation in defamation cases; (2) as a prejudicial invocation made during criminal trials to secure conviction, harshen sentences, or discredit witnesses; (3) as a symptom of mental illness or delusion severe enough to qualify criminal defendants for insanity pleas and incapacitate decedents in probate; (4) as a source of religious conflict between inmates and their wardens; and, sometimes (5) as a party to litigation. This Article broadly surveys each of these five contexts, exploring how courts have adjudicated recent disputes that involve accusations or admissions of Satanism and associated rituals. Readers will learn how American courts have dealt with religious ideas that many people find distasteful, dangerous, or downright abhorrent. So far, no grand unifying theme or theory is evident, so hopefully this survey will be a springboard for further, more focused research and argument as to how the American legal system should handle disputes that implicate the “archvillain of world culture.
Neuroscience, Justice and the Mental Causation Fallacy
Get PDFMental causation is a foundational assumption of modern criminal justice. The law takes it for granted that wrongdoers “deserve” punishment because their acts are caused by intentions, reasons and other mental states. A growing body of neuroscience evidence shows, however, that human behavior is produced by observable physiological activity in the brain and central nervous system--all in accordance with ordinary physical laws. Beyond these ordinary physiological interactions and processes, no hypothesis of mental causation is required to causally explain behavior.
Despite the evidence, neuroskeptics insist that intentions, reasons and other mental states can play a causal role in producing human behavior. The evidentiary case for mental causation turns out, however, to be premised on a well-known logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc. Meanwhile, based on the best explanation of all the evidence and data, mental causation almost certainly cannot and does not occur.
If mental causation is the basis on which offenders are deemed to deserve punishment, current punishment practices may need to be revised in the interest of justice. While society will probably always need to use coercive measures against persons who pose intolerable dangers and risks, the nature and quality of those measures may be very different if they are treated as a regrettable necessities rather than as deserved