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Fixing a 100-Year-Old Mistake
Full text linkPosing the question of international tax cooperation versus competition reminds me of multiple-choice exams in which the right answer is “all of the above.” National interests determine which dominates at any given time. And in tax competition among nations, zero is not a lower bound.
In 1918, to encourage U.S. investments abroad, the United States enacted a credit for foreign taxes paid by U.S. companies and relinquished taxing rights to most foreign-source income. With the foreign tax credit, the United States assumed sole responsibility for reducing the double taxation of its residents and citizens. As the influential economist Edwin Seligman observed, “The United States is making a present of the revenue to other countries.” Over time, other countries reciprocated with their own credits or exemptions for active business income earned by subsidiaries abroad. Today, the question remains: Is the early 20th-century generosity of the FTC appropriate for the 21st century? Do we need to reassess just how generous our FTC rules should be — especially for mobile income taxed at a low rate abroad, such as with a patent box? I will return to this question later
Foreword
Full text linkWhat is the rule of law, and why does it matter? Scholars have tended to pose this question as a conceptual one: does organizing power and authority by means of law imply certain moral commitments, ways that power should be shaped and constrained
The Political Transformation of Corporate America, 2001–2022
Full text linkThis article reconciles conflicting views about the political landscape of corporate America with new data on the revealed political preferences of 97,469 corporate directors and executives at 9,005 different U.S. companies. Driven largely by turnover, I find that average observed ideology for directors and executives has shifted meaningfully to the left over time, changing from modestly conservative in 2001 to roughly centrist by 2022. This finding supports a middle-ground position between conventional wisdom casting “big business” as a conservative stronghold and revisionist views holding the opposite. Counterfactual simulations and a difference-in-differences design suggest multifaceted reasons for these changes, and hand-collected data on corporate stances on LGBTQ-related legislation suggest a strong connection between corporate political activity and individual views. Overall, this transformation has profound implications for American politics, as the individuals comprising one of the most powerful interest groups — corporate elites — appear to be fracturing ideologically and to some degree even switching sides
Tax Avoidance Through Corporate Accounting: Insights for Corporate Tax Bases
No full textHow do firms respond when a tax reform changes the relative costs of inputs? We exploit a reform in Texas that broadened the corporate tax base and created a 1% tax wedge favoring both cost of goods sold (COGS) and worker compensation over other types of expenses. We find no discernible real change in inputs, and little avoidance response into worker compensation, but find a large avoidance response reclassifying costs into COGS (a 4% base reduction, with elasticity -5). Our results highlight the importance of enforceable boundaries when designing broader corporate tax bases
Climate Science and Natural Resource Litigation
No full textClimate change has major implications for sustainable use and conservation of natural resources. Many natural systems are already under severe stress and may be unable to sustain historical use patterns; resource management decisions can also exacerbate or mitigate climate change by affecting the balance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This Article describes the legal and scientific basis for recognizing agencies’ obligations to assess and respond to climate change, drawing insights from a survey of U.S. litigation involving forests, fisheries, rangelands, and freshwater resources. The cases suggest litigants have been somewhat successful in driving more rigorous assessments of climate change. However, agencies still frequently conclude that climate impacts are too uncertain or insignificant to warrant a response, and courts will generally defer unless the agency has overlooked or arbitrarily dismissed actionable scientific information. This underscores the importance of collaboration among resource managers, legal advocates, and scientists to develop, disseminate, and communicate scientific information that can meaningfully inform these decisions
The 100-Year Life and the New Family Law
Full text linkThis chapter reflects on the future of family law in an era of longer lives. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the 100-year life is indeed likely to have an impact on the nature, scope, and definition of family law, but that families will continue to function as the primary setting for intimacy and for caregiving and caretaking, whatever form those families take. Further, the importance to both individual and social welfare of family support throughout life points to a need for reform of current family law doctrine. The impact of longer life on doctrines regulating the relationship of parents and minor children is likely to be modest, but doctrinal and policy reforms will be needed to support individuals in following their preferences for intimacy and security in old age -- as will reforms to the minimal role of the state in promoting security for individuals in different family forms and of differing socioeconomic status. We suggest general goals for law reform and offer specific proposals
Deepfakes in Domestic and International Perspective
Full text linkHave you always (or ever) yearned to produce your own recording of Elvis Presley singing great baritone arias from Italian opera? Or to make a movie starring Nicole Kidman as Lady Macbeth? Or a videogame featuring the bully who tormented you in high school suffering repeated tortures worthy of the Christian martyrdoms recounted with gusto in The Golden Legend? You can fulfill all these wishes, and more, thanks to the AI technology enabling the creation of “deepfakes” — known in legal documents as “digital replicas” — capable of simulating the visual and vocal appearance of real people, living or dead. AI programs can also generate musical compositions in the style of well-known composers or performers, as well as video sequences. What may be good fun in private may become pernicious, offensive, and even dangerous, if widely disseminated over social media or through commercial channels. But, at least in the U.S., legal protections for performers and ordinary individuals against digital replicas, are at best, scanty
The Restatement of Children and the Law: Modern Regulation in a Developmental Framework
Full text linkIn May 2024, the membership of the American Law Institute approved the Restatement of Children and the Law, the first Restatement to focus on the law regulating children and families. The combined efforts of five Reporters (Elizabeth Scott, Reporter, and Richard Bonnie, Emily Buss, Clare Huntington and Solangel Maldonado, Associate Reporters), working for almost nine years, this new Restatement covers most of the legal landscape of American law\u27s relationship to children. It is organized in four Parts: Part I, Children in Families, deals with parental rights and authority and state intervention in families; Part II, Children in Schools, covers children\u27s rights and the state\u27s obligation and authority (and its limits) in the public school context; Part Ill, Children in the Justice System, covers the rights and protections of youths in both the juvenile and criminal systems; and Part IV, Children in Society, deals with the law\u27s direct relationship to children not mediated by the institution s of the family, school, or justice system. All citations that follow are from the Restatement
Decommissioning Offshore Oil and Gas Infrastructure: Report of Proceedings, May 2, 2025 Offshore Decommissioning Workshop
Full text linkOn May 2, 2025, Ocean Conservancy and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law organized a workshop at Columbia Law School on offshore oil and gas decommissioning in the United States. The overarching goal of the workshop was to bring together offshore law and policy experts to outline a research and policy agenda for offshore decommissioning. Within this broad goal, we sought to (1) identify key opportunities to reform offshore decommissioning law in the United States, both in the short term and over the next decade, (2) identify knowledge gaps and highlight areas for future research, and (3) begin to build interdisciplinary connections between those working on issues related to offshore decommissioning
Opposition to Renewable Energy Facilities in the United States: June 2025 Edition
Full text linkIncreasing the amount of electricity generated in the United States to power electric vehicles, data centers, and other end uses, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require deploying a massive number of renewable energy facilities at an unprecedented scale and pace. Although many renewable energy facilities are sited without a problem, local opposition often arises. The Sabin Center’s annual report, Opposition to Renewable Energy Facilities in the United States, documents legal obstacles and challenges that arise during the siting process. In particular, the report focuses on: (a) state laws and local ordinances (“restrictions”) that impede the siting and deployment of utility-scale solar, wind, battery storage projects, and related transmission projects; as well as (b) instances of organized opposition to individual projects (i.e., “contested projects”). This edition builds on four previous editions of our report, adding developments that occurred between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024.
The June 2025 edition of this report finds that severe restrictions, including outright bans and de facto bans on siting renewable energy facilities, as well as controversies over individual projects, are becoming more prevalent—particularly at the local level. By the end of 2024, at least 459 counties and municipalities across 44 states had adopted severe local restrictions on siting renewables. This tally represents an increase of 16% in the prevalence of local restrictions in just one year; the June 2024 edition of this report identified 395 counties and municipalities in 41 states that had adopted severe local restrictions by the end of 2023. This 2025 edition further identifies 498 contested projects in 49 states, an increase of 32% over last year’s edition, which identified 378 contested projects in 47 states. Additionally, this report documents 20 significant state-level restrictions in 16 states, a tally that has remained roughly constant. Importantly, while the report includes all of the qualifying restrictions and controversies the authors have identified, it does not purport to be exhaustive