Print Edition

Volume 32 • Issue 2

Print Edition

The Rook that Would Be King: Rooker-Feldman Abstention Analysis After Saudi Basic

PDF Download

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents federal district courts from assuming jurisdiction in cases that seek review of state court judgments. For years, the doctrine was applied widely–often barring federal jurisdiction in cases far beyond the scope of the original doctrine. In 2005, the Supreme Court in Saudi Basic intervened to clarify Rooker-Feldman and to curtail its […]

Print Edition

Sanctions That Sting: Private Sector Solutions to the Paper Tiger Problem

PDF Download

Whether used to draw Iran into nuclear talks or condemn apartheid in South Africa, economic sanctions have assumed an increasingly important role in our national security strategy. For one thing, their effectiveness has grown markedly, thanks to today’s global financial interdependence. Moreover, in light of this country’s war-weariness, sanctions provide an alternative to the use […]

Print Edition

Advancing a Framework for Regulating Cryptocurrency Payments Intermediaries

PDF Download

This Article looks at competing models for regulating providers of services to individuals and businesses that take cryptocurrencies in payment for goods and services, including operators of online wallets and exchanges, and other cryptocurrency market intermediaries whose functions resemble “money service businesses” or “money transmission.” We conclude that, in addition to whatever “money services” or […]

Print Edition

Fracking in Indian Country: The Federal Trust Relationship, Tribal Sovereignty, and the Beneficial Use of Produced Water

PDF Download

Potentially toxic wastewater discharges from hydraulic fracturing–known as “produced water”–are not subject to RCRA’s or the CWA’s permitting requirements. This is because the EPA has categorized produced water as a “special waste” when put to “beneficial uses” in arid regions. Some chemical components in produced water, however, are patented trade secrets that may prove injurious […]

Print Edition

The Ethics of Nudging

PDF Download

All over the world, governments are using nudges as regulatory tools. Is this ethical? Much of the answer depends on whether nudges promote or instead undermine welfare, autonomy, and dignity. Many nudges, and those that deserve support, promote some or all of those ideals, and undermine none of them. If welfare is our guide, much […]

Print Edition

Restructuring Failed Financial Firms in Bankruptcy: Selling Lehman’s Derivatives Portfolio

PDF Download

Lehman Brothers’ failure and bankruptcy deepened the 2008 financial crisis whose negative effect on the United States’ economy lasted for several years. Yet, while Congress reformed financial regulation in hopes of avoiding another crisis, bankruptcy rules such as those that governed Lehman’s failure, have persisted unchanged. When Lehman failed, it lost considerable further value when […]

Print Edition

The Institutions of Federal Reserve Independence

PDF Download

The Federal Reserve System has come to occupy center stage in the formulation and implementation of national and global economic policy. And yet, the mechanisms through which the Fed creates that policy are rarely analyzed. Scholars, central bankers, and other policymakers assume that the Fed’s independent authority to make policy is created by law–specifically, the […]

Print Edition

Other People’s Contracts

PDF Download

Contract law does not adequately account for the harms that we can inflict on third parties by joint agreement. Some terms are prohibited, and some third party interests are protected by independent causes of action. But a wide variety of material interests that are otherwise recognized in law may be burdened by other people’s contracts. […]