‘Tales of the unexpected’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

A colleague told me about a conference at UCL on contract law and the unexpected saying, ‘Looks like a nice day out Jason’. When I was emailed 12 hefty draft papers by way of pre-reading, I realised it was a rather different conference to the sort I am used to. Each draft paper was an original contribution that, at the conference, the distinguished author formally presented, followed by an equally distinguished ‘commentator’ who formally commended the paper with a commentary, sometimes with suggestions for improvement and occasionally with outright, but very polite, disagreement. Welcome, for the uninitiated, to academia. Here’s my report on those papers, which will in due course be published as a compendium … (more)

[Jason Rix, A&O Shearman, 21 May 2025]

Posted in Conferences Seminars and Lectures, Contract | Leave a Comment

‘European Rules, American Enforcement’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

Luca Enriques, Matteo Gatti and Roy Shapira, ‘How the EU Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Could Reshape Corporate America’, available at SSRN (27 April 2025). Corporate America may face an unusual pairing in the fight over corporate responsibility for human rights and the environment: EU rules and US enforcement. The potential for this (unintentional) partnership is the subject of ‘How the EU Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Could Reshape Corporate America’. The article considers how the EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CS3D) will affect US companies, focusing on a ‘unique combination of the EU ambitious regulation and the US robust private enforcement landscape’ (p 1). The EU directive has a sweeping geographic reach, extending beyond EU boundaries … (more)

[Verity Winship, JOTWELL, 20 May 2025]

Posted in European Private Law, Fundamental or Human Rights, Land use and Environment, Remedies and Procedure | Leave a Comment

Alexandra Trofimov, ‘Why evidence-based law? On the need to combine evidence with values to justify laws’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
Evidence-based law is increasingly being advocated as best practice, but its implementation remains limited. The distinctively normative nature of law gives reason to pause and consider the appropriateness of an evidence-based approach to law. In this paper, I argue that the distinctively normative nature of law makes it imperative to adopt an evidence-based approach. I support this by shedding light on the relations between evidence and values in the justification of laws. Understanding of the interrelations between evidence and values in the justification of laws helps us to understand the importance of an evidence-based approach to law and thereby motivate its implementation.

Alexandra Trofimov, Why evidence-based law? On the need to combine evidence with values to justify laws, Theory and Practice of Legislation. Published online: 19 May 2025.

Posted in General | Leave a Comment

Law and the Humanities Hub @ IALS

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

IALS is pleased to announce the establishment of the Law and the Humanities Hub (LHub), a dynamic initiative led by Professor Anat Rosenberg, who has recently joined the institute. LHub aims to foster academic expertise, creativity, and intellectual leadership in law and the humanities. The hub’s activity is being launched with its 2024/25 Visitors, who are joining the founding collective to imagine exciting futures for law and the humanities. Taking an open collaborative approach, we welcome contacts and ideas from scholars, creators, artists, practitioners, curators, educators, librarians, community leaders, institutions, and curious persons and groups … (more)

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Sayed Gewid, ‘To What Extent is the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) Compatible with Sharia Law Principles?’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (Vienna, 1980), usually referred to by the acronym CISG, serves as the primary global framework governing international sales contracts, and was created with the intention to bring about uniformity in international trade laws across borders. Despite its achievements, however, the practical application of CISG often encounters conflicts with other legal principles. By using a comparative approach this research study examines differing interpretations of CISG within Sharia law …

Gewid, Sayed, To What Extent is the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) Compatible with Sharia Law Principles? (March 7, 2025).

Posted in Contract | Leave a Comment

Wayne Barnes, ‘CISG (2024 Survey)’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
This survey article discusses cases during the prior year, which are decided based on one or more provisions of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The CISG is a United Nations treaty that provides a uniform international sales law. It was adopted in Vienna in 1980 and went into effect in 1988. The CISG governs contracts for the international sale of goods between businesses located in different countries that have ratified the treaty. It has been adopted by 95+ countries, including major trading nations like the United States, China, and most European countries. The CISG governs unless the parties expressly contract otherwise. It governs contract formation, obligations of buyers and sellers, remedies for breach, and passing of risk. It doesn’t apply to consumer sales, services contracts, or certain excluded goods like ships or aircraft. This year’s survey includes cases discussing: (1) the applicability of the CISG, (2) the CISG’s preemption of certain tort claims, (3) contract formation, (4) the lack of a formal statute of frauds writing requirement, (5) contract interpretation, (6) conformity of goods, (7) breach of contract, (8) recovery of attorney’s fees, and (9) recovery of prejudgment interest.

Barnes, Wayne, CISG (2024 Survey) (October 1, 2024), Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming; Business Lawyer, volume 79, no 4, pp 1297-1308, 2024.

Posted in Contract | Leave a Comment

Lemley, Cooper, Gokaslan, Cyphert, De Sa, Ho and Liang, ‘Extracting memorized pieces of (copyrighted) books from open-weight language models’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
Plaintiffs and defendants in copyright lawsuits over generative AI often make sweeping, opposing claims about the extent to which large language models (LLMs) have memorized plaintiffs’ protected expression. Drawing on adversarial ML and copyright law, we show that these polarized positions dramatically oversimplify the relationship between memorization and copyright. To do so, we leverage a recent probabilistic extraction technique to extract pieces of the Books3 dataset from 13 open-weight LLMs. Through numerous experiments, we show that it’s possible to extract substantial parts of at least some books from different LLMs. This is evidence that the LLMs have memorized the extracted text; this memorized content is copied inside the model parameters. But the results are complicated: the extent of memorization varies both by model and by book. With our specific experiments, we find that the largest LLMs don’t memorize most books-either in whole or in part. However, we also find that LLAMA 3.1 70B memorizes some books, like Harry Potter and 1984, almost entirely. We discuss why our results have significant implications for copyright cases, though not ones that unambiguously favor either side.

Lemley, Mark A and Cooper, A Feder and Gokaslan, Aaron and Cyphert, Amy and De Sa, Christopher and Ho, Daniel E and Liang, Percy, Extracting memorized pieces of (copyrighted) books from open-weight language models (April 1, 2025), Stanford Public Law Working Paper Forthcoming.

Posted in Intellectual Property | Leave a Comment

Michels, Millard, Walden and Wuermeling, ‘Beyond Schrems: The Unresolved Tensions between US Government Access and the GDPR’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
In this paper, we analyse the conflict between US government production orders, on the one hand, and European data protection law, on the other. This conflict arises because US law enforcement and intelligence agencies can compel cloud providers subject to US jurisdiction to disclose customer data despite the risk that such a disclosure may place the provider in breach of the GDPR in several respects. The potential breaches include the requirement that a processor shall only process personal data on the controller’s instructions; the requirement of a lawful basis; and the principle of purpose limitation. In addition, such a disclosure might breach security requirements or involve unlawful international data transfers. We argue that these issues are not resolved by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Given the uncertainties, we call for a comprehensive EU-US agreement to provide a legal basis for cross-border government access.

Michels, Johan David and Millard, Christopher and Walden, Ian and Wuermeling, Ulrich, Beyond Schrems: The Unresolved Tensions between US Government Access and the GDPR (May 19, 2025).

Posted in Defamation and Privacy, European Private Law | Leave a Comment

Shtefan and Prytyka, ‘Mediation in the EU: common characteristics and advantages over litigation’

21 May 2025 | Author: steve

ABSTRACT
Mediation is an alternative extrajudicial procedure intended to resolve a dispute quickly and efficiently. One of the tasks of mediation is also to relieve the judicial system because disputes whose parties can find a compromise in their legal conflict can be successfully resolved without court involvement. Although many EU Member States have adopted specific legislation on mediation and the courts fully encourage the parties to resolve their disputes through extrajudicial procedures, mediation is still not widespread in the EU. This is largely due to the lack of structured information about mediation and its advantages over litigation. The purpose of this article is to present the main features of mediation in the EU and to highlight why mediation is more convenient, faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective. The advantages over litigation and the possibility of application in many disputes should contribute to the development of mediation which the European community strives to achieve.

Shtefan, Anna and Prytyka, Yurii, Mediation in the EU: common characteristics and advantages over litigation (May 17, 2021), InterEULawEast (Journal for International and European Law, Economics and Market Integrations) VIII(2), 2021, 175-190.

Posted in European Private Law, Remedies and Procedure | Leave a Comment