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The Changing Architecture of Trust
No full textTrust has always been vital to the healthy functioning of financial markets and the stability of the financial institutions. The mix of public and private institutions that undergird this trust, however, can vary. Often these forces are ignored or taken for granted until something goes wrong. With a marked turn toward deregulation taking hold on both sides of the Atlantic, against a backdrop of central banks having played a very active role intervening to allay distress, it is a good time to revisit these fundamentals. This essay examines the importance of trust, how it is created, how it can be lost and how difficult it can be to rebuild. It concludes with some reflections on the current moment
THC Ingestions and Child Protective Services: Guidelines for Practitioners
No full textThe decriminalization of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing products has resulted in an increased presence of these products in households. This increased presence, along with frequent use of product packaging that mimics recognizable and appealing treats, has led to a rise in accidental ingestions of THC-containing substances by children. Some clinicians and child protective services (CPS) professionals have recommended that every accidental THC ingestion by a child, irrespective of the circumstances, should be reported for investigation by CPS. We argue that this recommendation has the potential to waste scarce resources, harm families, and worsen current inequities in CPS reporting. We offer an alternative framework to this blanket recommendation that clinicians can employ when providing care to a child who has ingested THC
State Constitutional Law: Cases and Principles
No full textThe First Edition of State Constitutional Law: Cases and Principles provides a contemporary, authoritative treatment of the field. Developed by two of the subject’s leading experts, the book offers a fully national picture of the state constitutional topics it covers, complete with majority approaches and alternatives across the country. The book provides detailed treatments of the wide range of state constitutional issues — not only rights, but also government structure, democracy, fiscal provisions, and intrastate relations. The book emphasizes that state constitutions differ in important ways from the U.S. Constitution and are worth studying on their own terms, while also putting state constitutions in dialogue with their federal counterpart and exploring the role of state constitutions in a federal system. The book and accompanying teacher’s manual are designed to be engaging and accessible to first-time teachers and students of state constitutional law, while also offering notes, questions, and essays to challenge those who already have experience with state constitutional law.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1405/thumbnail.jp
Comparative Constitutional Law
No full textDesigned for use in law school courses, Comparative Constitutional Law introduces fundamental debates on the nature of constitutions, constitutional comparison, and the relationships between constitutions and constitutionalism in its various forms. The book explores how constitutions are made and changed, including recent applications of unconstitutional constitutional amendment doctrines, and the role of different institutions - legislatures, executives, publics, as well as courts - in constitutional interpretation and constitutional change. Following a detailed study of the structure and interpretive approaches of national apex courts that decide constitutional questions, the book goes on to consider six subject areas of importance in contemporary constitutionalism: separation of powers and emergencies; federalism and related consociational constitutional arrangements; equality and pluralism; religion; free expression; and positive rights or duties.
Including excerpts of cases and scholarly material from the Global South, Europe, and North America, this volume emphasizes the need to understand the broader sociolegal contexts in which constitutional design and decisions occur. In response to growing trends of democratic retrogression in courts around the world, this new edition provides expanded coverage of abusive constitutionalism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism. It additionally offers insightful discussions on constitutional actors\u27 responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues; and indigenous peoples\u27 rights and environmental rights.
Providing an overview of constitutional law that is both comprehensive and accessible, the fourth edition of Comparative Constitutional Law is an invaluable resource for law students and academics.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1406/thumbnail.jp
Methane Removal Under the Paris Agreement
Get PDFIn the 2015 Paris Agreement, the international community agreed to “strengthen the global response to climate change” by limiting the “increase in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As recognized in the Agreement, to stay within these limits, global greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly reduced, “so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century” — a situation commonly described as “net zero.” The need to reach net zero has prompted growing interest in developing strategies to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. While greenhouse gas removal cannot substitute for emissions reductions, it is likely a necessary complement to them, required to offset residual emissions for which there are no feasible control technologies.
One suite of greenhouse gas removal techniques currently receiving attention targets methane in the atmosphere. A short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gas, methane is emitted through various human activities (e.g., agriculture and fossil fuel production), as well as from natural sources (e.g., wetlands). The natural emissions, in particular, are difficult to control and expected to increase significantly in coming years due to climate change. In theory, atmospheric methane removal could help to compensate for increasing natural methane emissions, as well as hard-to-abate anthropogenic emissions. Atmospheric methane removal should not, however, be used as an excuse to delay implementing feasible emissions reduction strategies where they exist.
Scientists have proposed a range of atmospheric methane removal techniques. All are still in the early stages of development and require further research, but could, in theory, accelerate the conversion of methane in the atmosphere into other chemical species with lower global warming potential (e.g., carbon dioxide). Initial research suggests that this could have significant climate benefits but, to date, atmospheric methane removal has received little attention in international discussions regarding climate change. It was not considered at all when the Paris Agreement was negotiated and, in the ten years since, has been raised only in passing in debates about how to operationalize the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM). While this is understandable given the early stage of development of the field, as interest in atmospheric methane removal grows, so too does the need to understand whether and how it fits within the Paris Agreement framework.
This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of methane removal under the Paris Agreement. The paper explores the role that atmospheric methane removal might play in achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement (Part 3), whether parties to the Paris Agreement could rely on atmospheric methane removal as a climate change mitigation strategy under the Paris Agreement (Part 4), and the potential for atmospheric methane removal projects to participate in the PACM (Part 5)
Law Enforcement Privilege
Get PDFYou can’t question a secret you haven’t been told. The criminal legal system depends on fair and open proceedings to expose and regulate unlawful and unconstitutional police conduct through the courts. If police can use claims of secrecy to systematically thwart criminal defendants’ access to evidence, judicial review will fail. And yet that is exactly what is happening under a common-law doctrine called the “law enforcement privilege.” The privilege empowers police and prosecutors to rely on the results of secret investigative methods while withholding information from the defense about how those methods work. It risks perpetuating unconstitutional conduct, enabling wrongful convictions, and rendering Fourth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, Brady, and statutory discovery laws moot. At the same time, it has a non-frivolous policy rationale. If all police investigative methods were public information, then more people committing crimes could evade detection.
How can a better balance be struck? This Article argues that current law enforcement privilege doctrine creates a dangerously boundless police secrecy power because of a subtle conceptual collapse: The policy rationale itself is mistakenly used as the test for assessing claims of privilege. The Article recommends that courts instead evaluate privilege claims by reference to the marginal risk of leaking posed by in-court disclosure. Specifically, judges should demand to know what conditions law enforcement previously imposed on access to the information. The answer to that question can be adjudicated publicly without jeopardizing a legitimate privilege claim and will help judges detect mistaken, exaggerated, pretextual, or fraudulent claims to the privilege. Further, even when law enforcement has taken care with the information, if a court-ordered protective order can match or exceed the safeguards that law enforcement itself previously maintained, then judges should default to ordering disclosure. The Article concludes by suggesting a theory of the role of confidentiality in privilege law
Too Many Mergers? The Golden Parachute as a Driver of M&A Activity in the 21st Century
Get PDFThis Article argues that the corporate governance regime in the United States has produced a level of mergers and acquisition activity greater than the social optimum because of the current version of the “golden parachute,” a super-bonus payoff to a target CEO. In the late nineteenth through the twentieth century, M&A activity was characterized by “waves” that reflected adaptations to changing external environment, whether the efficient production frontier, regulatory constraints, or capital market developments. Economically-motivated parties saw the opportunities in changing the boundaries of the firm; successful first-movers spawned imitators, hence a wave, which eventually subsided, often alongside deteriorating capital market conditions.
The twenty-first century is different. There is a persistently high level of M&A. Yes, there are fluctuations, but not “waves.” This pattern can be explained at least in part by an important internal governance change, the transformation of the golden parachute into a high-powered driver of M&A activity. Golden parachutes were introduced as a corporate governance innovation in the 1980s to overcome managerial hostility to an unsolicited premium bid. Over time, especially as executive compensation radically shifted toward stock-based pay, golden parachutes have become increasingly lucrative. They now provide a CEO with a high-powered incentive to become a target CEO, compensating the CEO like a deal-hunting investment banker, and thus have changed the pattern of M&A activity. Historically M&A activity has been a response to changes in the external environment. Without reflective intentionality, golden parachutes have become an independent (and internal) driver of M&A activity. The distortive effects of golden parachutes result in efficiency losses at the firm level, produce social losses because of excessive layoffs, and because of the resultant “inequality with privity,” will exacerbate social resentments that may have political consequences.
This incentives mismatch can be addressed by shareholders as part of the annual Say-on- Pay vote. The simplest adjustment would be the elimination of the acceleration of unvested equity awards for target CEOs triggered by M&A
Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age, Vol. I: Perspectives, Trade Secrets and Patents
No full textIntellectual Property in the New Technological Age provides an in-depth survey of the rapidly evolving field of intellectual property law. Volume I covers philosophical perspectives, trade secret law, and patent law. Volume II covers copyright law, trademark law, and state intellectual property law protections.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1372/thumbnail.jp
Distinguishing Among Climate Change-Related Risks
Get PDFUnderstanding the diverse types of climate change-related risks is crucial for developing effective strategies to address the global climate crisis. A holistic yet disaggregated approach allows for a comprehensive view of the challenges while enabling targeted responses from various stakeholders. This document outlines three main categories of climate-related risks: planetary, economic, and financial, detailing their relevance to various stakeholders, timeframes, and potential response strategies.
This short brief aims to disentangle the complex nature of risk discussions for productive discourse and appropriate risk management approaches for different stakeholders. In practice, discussions related to assessing and responding to climate change risk have conflated categories of risk, confusing discussions and undermining the effectiveness of related strategies. We hope this brief can bring clarity and rigor to analyses of risk and support constructive discussion among policymakers, financial institutions, social sector actors, and the public. We plan to follow this short briefing with a longer report including more detailed analysis, integrating feedback to these initial ideas
Conference Report: Attribution Science and Climate Law
Get PDFThis report provides a summary of proceedings from the Attribution Science and Climate Law conference hosted at Columbia University on January 9-10, 2025. The conference brought together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to share insights on the status of climate change attribution research and its relevance to climate law and policy. Participants included physical scientists, public health researchers, economists, social scientists, legal scholars, and legal practitioners. The core goals of the event were to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion, advance substantive knowledge in this field, and promote ongoing collaboration between the scientific, legal, and policy-making communities