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Networks, Platforms, and Utilities: Law and Policy
No full textThis book studies the law of networks, platforms, and utilities (NPUs). For many years, this field was known as regulated industries. Before that, it was called the law of public utilities, the law of public service corporations, and the law of common carriers. For generations, its centrality in American life was widely recognized – from union halls to board rooms to state houses and universities. According to Felix Frankfurter, who taught public utilities at Harvard Law School for nineteen years and served on the Supreme Court for twenty-three, no task more profoundly tests the capacity of our government... than... securing for society those essential services [including \u27light, heat, power, water, transportation, and communication\u27] which are furnished by public utilities.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1348/thumbnail.jp
CRT2 S1 Ep4: Critical Race Theory, Columbia Law School and the Legacies of Slavery: The Black Male Initiative
Get PDFThis episode examines Columbia Law School’s history and legacy of slavery and the extent to which the remnants of that legacy reverberate throughout our campus today. With a specific lens on the experiences of Black men on campus and in the wider society, we draw parallels between the hyper surveillance and vilification experienced by Frederick Wells on the law school’s campus in 1924 and the experiences of Black male students on and off campus in recent years.
With the assistance of our esteemed panelists, Professor Katherine Franke, Professor Darren Hutchinson, and Professor Athena Mutua, we explore a number of critical race theories in an attempt to grapple with the unique experiences and perspectives of Black men and our responsibilities to the past.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/crt2/1005/thumbnail.jp
Climate Change and Indigenous Groups: The Rise of Indigenous Voices in Climate Litigation
Get PDFClimate change’s pervasive human rights impacts on populations worldwide are widespread and now widely known. One avenue to address these human rights impacts is the growth of rights-based climate litigation. There are now hundreds of cases worldwide grounded on human rights claims. However, less attention has been brought to how vulnerable groups are disproportionally affected by climate change. Indigenous groups, in particular, are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their connection to their land and dependence on their ecosystems. To increase global attention and seek legal remedies to address how Indigenous communities are impacted by climate change, Indigenous groups are becoming important stakeholders in climate litigation. This article broadly discusses how Indigenous communities are negatively affected by climate change and how they use litigation to address them. The article answers these questions by bringing international, regional, and national examples
Proving Copying
Get PDFProof that a defendant actually copied from a copyrighted work is a critical part of a claim for copyright infringement. Indeed, absent such copying, there is no infringement. The most common method of proving copying involves the use of circumstantial evidence, consisting of proof that a defendant had “access” to the protected work, and a showing of “similarities” between the copy and the protected work. In inferring copying from the combination of such evidence, courts have for many decades developed a framework known as the “inverse ratio rule,” which allows them to modulate the level of proof needed on access based on the level of similarity, and vice-versa. While analytically sound, the inverse ratio rule has proven to be a persistent source of confusion among some courts, most prominently the Ninth Circuit, causing some to misapprehend the very nature of the inquiry into copying as well as the manner in which circumstantial evidence operates. This Article explains how the inverse ratio rule emanates from crucial insights about the manner in which circumstantial evidence operates, wherein multiple inferences are combined to enhance the probative value of evidence that is inconclusive in isolation. This flexible formula builds on the notion of a combined narrative that is a hallmark of all circumstantial evidence. The Article unpacks the theoretical and normative logic behind the inverse ratio rule to show how it is essential to circumstantial proof of copying, reveals how purported rejections of the doctrine by courts have been driven by a basic misunderstanding of the manner in which circumstantial inferences interact, and concludes by drawing broader insights about the interplay of copyright and evidence law
Historical Injustice, Agency, and Resentment
Get PDFIn societies marked by deep and enduring structural inequality – often along lines of caste, race, gender, or other forms of identity – how is responsibility for such injustice assigned? How is the agency necessary to overcome historical injustice imagined? These lectures will use Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s writings as a starting point to explore the moral psychology of responding to historical injustice
The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy
No full textWe are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1328/thumbnail.jp
Helping New Jersey State Agencies and Departments Align Their Actions with GHG Reduction Mandates and Environmental Justice Principles
Get PDFThis white paper analyzes New Jersey’s implementation gap in both the climate and justice space. Its findings are potentially applicable to the many other states who have set climate and justice goals, without robustly embedding them into their existing legal and administrative landscapes. New Jersey already has GHG reduction targets, a plan, and mapped pathways. While more aggressive tactics and targets may be required to meet evolving scientific knowledge, and cost-effective technology and markets will evolve over time, New Jersey’s climate-alignment tools and pathways are clear. The EMP, the 2020 GWRA 80x50 Report, and EO-274, among other strong state initiatives, together demonstrate unequivocally that enacting an all agency, systematic approach to GHG reductions is essential. Likewise, New Jersey already has done the work to “Further the Promise” of environmental justice. Enacting an all agency, systematic approach to addressing past inequities and ensuring current operations are consistent with environmental justice principles will ensure that this effort yields legally durable results. This paper suggests legislative amendments that will spur expedited, equitable, climate aligned state action
A Court of Two Minds
Get PDFWhat do the Justices think they’re doing? They seem to act like appeals judges, who address questions of law as needed to reach a decision — and yet also like curators, who single out only certain questions as worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention. Most of the time, the Court’s “appellate mind” and its “curator mind” are aligned because the Justices choose to hear cases where a curated question of interest is also central to the outcome. But not always. In some cases, the Court discovers that it cannot reach — or no longer wishes to reach — the originally curated question. Looking at what the Justices say and do in such instances offers a revealing glimpse into the interplay between their appellate and curator roles. These cases illustrate how the norms of appellate judging can enhance, rather than constrain, the Court’s discretion in choosing which issues to address and which to avoid. Using this discretion, however, entails the risk of distorting legal doctrines beyond those curated for review
Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Revolution Underway
No full textFinance expert, law professor, and fellow overwhelmed consumer Kathryn Judge investigates the surprising ways that middlemen have taken control of the economy at the expense of the rest of us, and provides practical guidance about how to regain control, find more meaning, and contribute to a more sustainable economy.
Over the past thirty years, middlemen have built intricate financial and retail empires capable of moving goods across the country and around the world — transforming the economy and our lives. Because of middlemen, we enjoy an unprecedented degree of choice and convenience. But the rise of the middleman economy comes at a steep price.
In Direct, Columbia law professor Kathryn Judge shows how overgrown middlemen became the backbone of modern capitalism and the cause of many of its ailments. Middlemen today shape what people do, how they invest, and what they consume. They use their troves of data to push people to buy more, and more expensive, products. They use their massive profits and expertise to lobby lawmakers, tilting the playing field in their favor. Drawing on a decade of research, Judge shows how to fight back: Go to the source.
The process of direct exchange — and the resulting ecosystem of makers and consumers, investors and entrepreneurs — fosters connection and community and helps promote a more just, resilient, and accountable economic system. Direct exchange reminds us that our actions always and inevitably impact others, as it rekindles an appreciation of our inherent interconnectedness. As Judge reveals in this much-needed book, direct exchange is both the cornerstone of the solution and a tool for revealing just how much is at stake in decisions about “through whom” to buy, invest and give.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1339/thumbnail.jp
Agents of Inequality: Common Ownership and the Decline of the American Worker
Get PDFThe last forty years have seen two major economic trends: wages have stalled despite rising productivity, and institutional investors have replaced retail shareholders as the predominant owners of the U.S. equity markets. A few powerful institutional investors — dubbed common owners — now hold large stakes in most U.S. corporations. And in no coincidence, when U.S. workers acquired this new set of bosses, their wages stopped growing while shareholder returns increased. This Article explains how common owners shift wealth from labor to capital, thereby exacerbating income inequality.
Powerful institutional investors pushing public corporations en masse to adopt strong corporate governance has an inherent, painful tradeoff. While strong governance can improve corporate efficiency by reducing management agency costs, it can also reduce social welfare by limiting investment and thus hiring. Common owners act as a wage cartel, pushing labor prices below their competitive level. Importantly, common owners transfer wealth from workers to shareholders not by actively pursuing anticompetitive measures but rather by allocating more control to shareholders — control that can then be exercised by other shareholders, such as hostile raiders and activist hedge funds. If policymakers wish to restore the equilibrium that existed before common ownership dominated the market, they should break up institutional investors by limiting their size