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Judges and juries often make factual decisions even if the facts are disputed and there is no clear-cut evidence available. Despite this common state of uncertainty, verdicts are thought of as having clear winners and losers––either the plaintiff wins and receives a full remedy, or the defendant wins and the plaintiff gets nothing. In private disputes, factfinders base their binary factual determinations on the preponderance of the evidence. There are, however, several doctrines that allow for partial remedy, discounted by the probability that the facts support the plaintiff’s case, given the available evidence (proportional liability). This Article offers a general theory for proportional liability in private law. It identifies three types of factual uncertainty—mutual uncertainty, unilateral uncertainty, and institutional uncertainty—and shows that legal economists should support proportional liability when the state of uncertainty is shared by the parties and the court (mutual uncertainty), and they should adopt an all-or-nothing rule whenever the information is observable but unverifiable (institutional uncertainty). In cases where one party holds private information (unilateral uncertainty), proportional liability is sometimes, but not always, superior to an all-or-nothing rule.

When should a director or manager of a company be personally liable because their company has committed a criminal offence? The question is both important and controversial because many of the laws that impose this type of liability (called deemed liability provisions) do so without the need to prove that the director or manager was personally at fault. The question has received much attention recently in Australia because of proposals by the Australian Law Reform Commission to significantly expand the circumstances when this type of liability would be imposed on directors and managers. Following much criticism, the Commission withdrew its proposals and instead called for a wide-ranging review of the effectiveness of individual accountability mechanisms for corporate misconduct – in effect calling for another inquiry. This article outlines the Commission’s proposals and their objectives. It describes the criticisms that were made of the proposals and considers the proposals in the context of prior reviews and principles applying to deemed liability provisions. It is argued that the Commission was right to withdraw its proposals as they did not reflect a proper balancing of the advantages and disadvantages of deemed liability provisions, the proposals were not well drafted, and the formulation of the proposals did not appropriately consider earlier research and inquiries on deemed liability provisions.

We calculate the present value of state employee pension liabilities using discount rates that reflect the risk of the payments from a taxpayer perspective. If benefits have the same default and recovery characteristics as state general obligation debt, the national total of promised liabilities based on current salary and service is $3.20 trillion. If pensions have higher priority than state debt, the value of liabilities is much larger. Using zero-coupon Treasury yields, which are default-free but contain other priced risks, promised liabilities are $4.43 trillion. Liabilities are even larger under broader concepts that account for salary growth and future service.

Today there are more than 2,500 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) around the world. Most of these investment protection treaties offer foreign investors a direct cause of action to claim damages against host-states before international arbitral tribunals. This procedure, together with the requirement of compensation in indirect expropriations and the fair and equitable treatment standard, have transformed the way we think about state liability in international law. We live in the BIT generation, a world where BITs define the scope and conditions according to which states are economically accountable for the consequences of regulatory change and administrative action. Investment arbitration in the BIT generation carries new functions which pose unprecedented normative challenges, such as the arbitral bodies established to resolve investor/state disputes defining the relationship between property rights and the public interest. They also review state action for arbitrariness, and define the proper tests under which that review should proceed. State Liability in Investment Treaty Arbitration is an interdisciplinary work, aimed at academics and practitioners, which focuses on five key dimensions of BIT arbitration. First, it analyses the past practice of state responsibility for injuries to aliens, placing the BIT generation in historical perspective. Second, it develops a descriptive law-and-economics model that explains the proliferation of BITs, and why they are all worded so similarly. Third, it addresses the legitimacy deficits of this new form of dispute settlement, weighing its potential advantages and democratic shortfalls. Fourth, it gives a comparative overview of the universal tension between property rights and the public interest, and the problems and challenges associated with liability grounded in illegal and arbitrary state action. Finally, it presents a detailed legal study of the current state of BIT jurisprudence regarding indirect expropriations and the fair and equitable treatment clause.

Government wrongdoing or negligence harms people worldwide, but not all victims are equally effective at obtaining redress. InAccidental Activists, Celeste L. Arrington examines the interactive dynamics of the politics of redress to understand why not. Relatively powerless groups like redress claimants depend on support from political elites, active groups in society, the media, experts, lawyers, and the interested public to capture democratic policymakers' attention and sway their decisions. Focusing on when and how such third-party support matters, Arrington finds that elite allies may raise awareness about the victims' cause or sponsor special legislation, but their activities also tend to deter the mobilization of fellow claimants and public sympathy. By contrast, claimants who gain elite allies only after the difficult and potentially risky process of mobilizing societal support tend to achieve more redress, which can include official inquiries, apologies, compensation, and structural reforms. Arrington draws on her extensive fieldwork to illustrate these dynamics through comparisons of the parallel Japanese and South Korean movements of victims of harsh leprosy control policies, blood products tainted by hepatitis C, and North Korean abductions. Her book thereby highlights how citizens in Northeast Asia-a region grappling with how to address Japan's past wrongs-are leveraging similar processes to hold their own governments accountable for more recent harms.Accidental Activistsalso reveals the growing power of litigation to promote policy change and greater accountability from decision makers.

Since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights the relationship between human rights due diligence (HRDD) and corporate liability has been a source of legal uncertainty. In order to clarify this relationship, this article compares and contrasts civil liability provisions aiming at implementing HRDD. It explains the legal liability mechanisms in the draft Treaty on Business and Human Rights and in domestic mandatory HRDD legislation and initiatives such as the French Duty of Vigilance Law and the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative. It compares these developments with the emerging case law on parent company and supply chain liability for human rights abuses. It explores the potentially perverse effects that certain civil liability provisions and court decisions might have on companies’ practices. Finally, it makes recommendations for the design of effective liability mechanisms to implement HRDD.

The only volume on higher education law written specifically for nursing faculty, this volume imparts the basic foundations of the legal, professional, and ethical issues that concern faculty on a daily basis. It clearly defines the legal rights of students, professors, and educational institutions along with the case laws supporting those rights. Each chapter contains a vivid legal scenario, related legal principles and theoretical foundations, and critical thinking questions. Written by an author who is both a nurse educator and attorney, the volume emphasizes sound decision making so that readers can successfully navigate the complex legal issues confronting them in the faculty role. This second edition reflects recent changes in higher education and includes an emphasis on students' rights and safety. Chapters address the general legal rights of students with expanded content on the interplay with social media, rights of faculty regarding freedom of speech, faculty protection against lawsuits, faculty and the employment relationship, faculty relations, the teaching and scholarship roles of faculty, the service and clinical practice role of faculty, and ethical considerations for patients, students, and faculty in education environments. Appendices include information on how to read a legal case and how to research legal topics.

Patent and copyright rely more consistently on property rules than property law itself. While IP law is intended to enhance intellectual production, the property-rule remedies of injunctive relief and punitive damages sometimes conflict with this goal. In particular, these remedies may dampen innovation by imposing unjustified costs on unwitting infringers and allowing opportunists to hold up projects that implicate several parties ' rights. Both problems could be ameliorated by strategic deployment of liability rules, and the law of tangible property demonstrates how this strategy might work. While we might assume that the law protects tangible property with property rules, closer scrutiny shows that courts and lawmakers use liability rules to deal with unintentional trespasses and to circumvent holdout problems involving real property. This analysis yields three payoffs. First, it develops the novel and counterintuitive argument that IP deploys property rules in many circumstances where property law would use liability rules. This arrangement is backwards because the greater notice failures, inexhaustibility, and importance of building on others' work inherent to intellectual production counsel in favor of liability rules. Second, it grounds the theoretical debate over the use of property rules versus liability rules in IP in real property doctrine, where courts and lawmakers have taken the pragmatic approach of structuring entitlements to facilitate economic progress. Finally, it identifies ways the choice of remedies could serve as a concrete policy lever to address issues in IP: (!) IP law could correct notice failures by creating a \"reasonable search defense\"-eliminating property-rule protection in cases of accidental infringement-to encourage users to search and owners to publicize their claims; (2) courts could defuse holdout strategies by denying property-rule protection to IP owners who refused to bargain in good faith; and (3) the state could pursue important policy objectives by employing-or threatening to employ-its authority to enact compulsory licenses.

Sustav graðanskopravne odgovornosti za štete nastale onečišćenjem mora s brodova na meðunarodnoj razini još uvijek nije potpun, jer na snagu nije stupila Meðunarodna konvencija o odgovornosti i naknadi štete u svezi prijevoza opasnih i štetnih tvari morem iz 2010. Konvenciju je potvrdilo osam država, a tri su države za znatnom količinom kontribuirajućeg tereta u završnom postupku pripremnih radnji za njezino potvrðivanje, pa se može očekivati da će Konvencija u doglednoj budućnosti skupiti 12 država stranaka i time ispuniti uvjete za stupanje na snagu. Povećan promet opasnih i štetnih tvari morem na području Republike Hrvatske i povećan rizik koje takav promet sa sobom nosi svakako nameću potrebu preispitivanja potrebe za potvrðivanjem ove Konvencije svakoj državi, a posebice onim državama kojih je gospodarstvo oslonjeno na prihode iz obalnog turizma, kao što je Republika Hrvatska. U radu se skreće pozornost na fragmentarno ureðenje ove materije u nacionalnom pravu te se daje prikaz konvencijskih rješenja, primjena kojih bi osigurala pravičnu i učinkovitu naknadu za sve štete nastale prijevozom opasnih i štetnih tvari morem. Konvencija predviða dvoslojni sustav odgovornosti - uz vlasnika broda, u drugom sloju odgovara HNS fond. Autori su snažnog uvjerenja da bi Republika Hrvatska trebala započeti s pripremnim radnjama koje je potrebno provesti prije potvrðivanja Konvencije, vezanima uz uspostavu sustava za izvješćivanje o primateljima tereta i količini tereta koji podliježe plaćanju doprinosa prema Fondu, a potom Konvenciju i potvrditi.