SelectedWorks @ Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
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A Comparative Approach to Coordination: How Apes, Monkeys and Humans Respond to an Assurance Game with Equivalent Procedures
No full textOur research directly compares coordinated decision making across the entire primate lineage, including a new-world monkey, an old-world monkey, an ape, and humans, to help understand how decision making is different between these species. We find that the ability to coordinate on a mutually beneficial decision does vary across species, that there is variability within each taxonomic group, and that this variation overlaps between groups. Each species represents a continuum, with pairs of each species ranging from random outcomes to those which coordinate on the payoff dominant outcome. What differs is the frequency of payoff dominant outcomes within each species
Second Amendment Plumbing after McDonald
No full textThese essays were written for a debate with Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm appearing in the Northwestern University Law Review concerning the standard of scrutiny to be applied to gun control laws in the wake of the Supreme Court\u27s decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The opening essay argues that the text of the Second Amendment, the history of gun-control regulation, and the approach taken by the Supreme Court in McDonald and District of Columbia v. Heller argue for some form of intermediate scrutiny capable of coming to grips with the fact that the populace capable of bearing arms, that is, the militia in originalist parlance, may require far more comprehensive regulation in contemporary urban American than was necessary in the framing era. The reply essay responds to Professor Malcolm\u27s praise for Justice Thomas\u27s opinion in McDonald and her advocacy of strict scrutiny. It argues that the historical record is far more complicated than acknowledged by Justice Thomas, and that strict scrutiny cannot be reconciled with key aspects of the Heller opinion, and overlooks critical differences between the framing era and today\u27s urban crime
EMPOWER THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND SAVE THE CITY; WHY COURTS SHOULD PERMIT NEIGHBORHOOD CONTROL OF ZONING
No full textWhether cities should delegate zoning authority to neighborhood groups is one of the most hotly contested issues in municipal politics, yet it is also essentially a moot point. Since a bizarre series of Supreme Court cases in the early twentieth century, it has been largely settled that cities may not constitutionally delegate the zoning power to sub-municipal groups, at least where the power is delegated specifically to landowners in a certain proximity to a proposed land use change.
This article argues that courts have erred in prohibiting cities from devolving zoning control to proximate landowners, a scheme I designate a “neighborhood zoning district.” Courts, as well as scholars, have failed to recognize that the neighborhood zoning district is conceptually identical to a popular municipal financing device that courts have routinely upheld: the “special assessment district,” known in its modern incarnation as a “business improvement district” (BID). Under this scheme, a municipality assesses a mandatory charge on all landowners within a designated territorial area to finance services or improvements benefitting that area, provided that a percentage of landowners in the district authorizes the charge. As I argue, both the neighborhood zoning district and the special assessment district enable large, diverse cities to capture some of the governance advantages of small, homogenous suburbs by providing landowners with the direct ability to manage local externalities. Courts and commentators, however, erroneously treat these two devices as though they are entirely distinct. The practical result has been that cities increasingly rely on BIDs as a catch-all solution to all urban problems, while neighborhood groups seethe over their inability to control their own zoning. The article concludes that courts should broadly defer to municipal delegations of power to sublocal groups, so that cities can work out their own strategy for surviving in an era of intense inter-local competition
Environmental Challenges of Climate-Nuclear Fusion: A Case Study of India
No full textClimate change is launching a nuclear energy future, because nuclear power generation produces low greenhouse gas emissions. Nations are therefore reviewing their nuclear energy portfolio and expanding international cooperation on civilian nuclear energy. India is a notable example. Recognizing India’s energy demands and climate mitigation problems associated with fossil fuel use, the Nuclear Supplier’s Group, at the behest of the United States, removed nuclear trade sanctions imposed on India. India has been subsequently negotiating and signing numerous bilateral agreements aimed at expanding its domestic nuclear power generation facility. The apparent advantages of nuclear energy in mitigating climate change are significantly marred by international and domestic regulatory and governance gaps in assessing and managing the environmental impacts of nuclear energy.
India’s nuclear policy represents an upcoming challenge to environmental law for two reasons. First, it shows that the international community’s support for India’s civilian nuclear program despite the exclusion of nuclear energy from the climate change regime for safety, security and costs reasons will not yield timely emissions reduction benefits, because of sketchy international and domestic energy policy and poorly aligned emissions reduction and energy diversification goals. Second, the expansion of India’s civilian nuclear program demonstrates that nations have given scant attention to developing adequate legal framework for managing serious environmental problems associated with nuclear energy generation such as waste management, siting, and liability. Without a comprehensive and cohesive international regime on nuclear energy, these issues present serious environmental concerns, both locally and globally. This case study of India calls for reviewing our approach to emissions reduction and for establishing a climate assessment system to evaluate and where necessary phase out certain sources of energy
A Comparative Approach to Coordination: How Apes, Monkeys and Humans Respond to an Assurance Game with Equivalent Procedures
No full textOur research directly compares coordinated decision making across the entire primate lineage, including a new-world monkey, an old-world monkey, an ape, and humans, to help understand how decision making is different between these species. We find that the ability to coordinate on a mutually beneficial decision does vary across species, that there is variability within each taxonomic group, and that this variation overlaps between groups. Each species represents a continuum, with pairs of each species ranging from random outcomes to those which coordinate on the payoff dominant outcome. What differs is the frequency of payoff dominant outcomes within each species
Horizontal Product Differentiation in Auctions and Multilateral Negotiations
No full textWe experimentally compare first-price auctions and multilateral negotiations after introducing horizontal product differentiation into a standard procurement setting. Both institutions yield identical surplus for the buyer, a difference from prior findings with homogeneous products that results from differentiation’s influence on sellers’ pricing behavior. The data are consistent with this finding being driven by concessions from low-cost sellers in response to differentiation reducing their likelihood of being the buyer’s surplus-maximizing trading partner. Further analysis shows that introducing product differentiation increases or leaves unchanged the intensity of price competition among sellers, which contrasts with the conventional wisdom that product differentiation softens competition
Boumediene v. Bush and Guantanamo, Cuba: Does the \u27Empire Strike Back\u27?
No full textCommenting on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush (2008) and the U.S. occupation of the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this Article argues that anomaly on the base heavily influences War on Terror detention jurisprudence. Anomaly is created by agreements between the U.S. and Cuba in 1903 and 1934. They affirm that the U.S. lacks sovereignty over Guantanamo but retains complete jurisdiction and control for an indefinite period; while Cuba has ultimate sovereignty. Gerald Neuman labels this an anomalous zone with fundamental legal rules locally suspended. The base was chosen as a detention center because of this anomaly, with checks in constitutional and international law perceived to not apply. This Article makes three arguments about what legal norms apply on Guantanamo. First, the base\u27s legal anomaly is not an aberration, but instead is a precise objective of U.S.-Cuba relations, evident in the Platt Amendment and international agreements. Second, four legal objectives frame this anomaly, historically and presently. They are that the U.S.: avoids sovereignty abroad, limits incidents of Cuban sovereignty, avoids constitutional limits for its overseas authority, and protects strategic overseas interests. Using these objectives, Boumediene addresses this current anomaly. To hold that detainees have access to the writ of habeas corpus in the Constitution\u27s Suspension clause, the Court finds that the U.S. exercises de facto sovereignty over the base and that the Constitution has extraterritorial application. Third, tracking legal similarities in base occupation and base detention, post-colonial analysis illuminates how current doctrine evades individual rights protections with overseas authority. These three points illuminate how in the future U.S. law may determine what legal norms check (or not) overseas authority, whether on Guantanamo or in other extraterritorial settings
Resolving Client Conflicts by Hiring Conflicts Counsel
No full textA general principle of legal ethics is that a law firm may not represent a client suing someone who is also a client of the law firm (1) even though the two matters are unrelated, (2) a different law firm represents the client in that law suit, and (3) there is no risk that the lawyer would violate the confidences of any client. Other ethics rules magnify the significance of this rule by imputing the disqualification of every lawyer in the law firm to every other lawyer in the same firm. Courts enforce these rules by disqualifying the offending law firm.
In general, sound reasons support these ethics rules. Yet, there are situations where these rules require disqualification although there is no legitimate client expectation of loss of loyalty or confidence. There is nascent case law in the lower courts that recognizes this problem and offers a solution: using “conflicts counsel,” meaning that the client retains a new lawyer from a different law firm to handle a discrete, severable matter - the matter that created the conflict. Although these cases - typically in the area of discovery and bankruptcy - do not discuss their rationale, their instincts are correct: using conflicts counsel in certain situations mitigates the burden of disqualification while protecting the underlying reasons behind disqualification. Courts should follow these decisions, which are typically unpublished
