Nazi War Criminals in the United States: It\u27s Never Too Late For Justice

While this note focuses on Nazi war criminals living in the United States, it calls for international cooperation in prosecuting war criminals. It traces the history of post-war agreements relating to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, and their application at the Nuremberg Trials. This note then examines how Nazi war criminals entered the United States following World War II, and how they have lived here for four decades virtually unnoticed. Additionally, this note analyzes the recent efforts of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), a branch of the Department of Justice, to prosecute Nazi war criminals living in the United States. Finally, this note argues that justice is best served through a rebirth of the spirit embodied in the Moscow Declaration and London Agreement and calls for the reestablishment of an international tribunal with criminal jurisdiction over international war criminals. Additionally, the recent Artukovic and Demjanjuk extraditions should stand as strong precedent, and signal an invitation to countries with criminal jurisdiction over Nazi war criminals to make similar extradition requests

An Analytical Approach to State Tax Discrimination Under the Commerce Clause

The commerce clause as an instrument of federalism facilitates a system of government that places a national government over fifty sovereign states. Federalism requires a balancing of the interest in a unified national approach to government with the competing interest in state sovereignty. As Justice Brennan explained: Our Constitution is an instrument of federalism. The Constitution furnishes the structure for the operation of the States with respect to the National Government and with respect to each other.. ..Because there are 49 States and much of the Nation\u27s commercial activity is carried on by enterprises having contacts with more States than one, a common and continuing problem of constitutional interpretation has been that of adjusting the demands of individual States to regulate and tax these enterprises in light of the multi-state nature of our federation. The commerce clause provides: The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes. \u27 The commerce clause has been interpreted not only as conferring power on the national government to regulate commerce, but also as limiting the states\u27 power to interfere with commerce. This restriction on state power often is referred to as the negative implication of the commerce clause or as the dormant commerce clause principle. Under the authority of the commerce clause, the United States Supreme Court has struck down as unconstitutional a variety of state regulatory and taxation measures as unduly burdening commerce

Miranda and the State Constitution: State Courts Take a Stand

This Note examines how state courts have interpreted state constitutional guarantees of the privilege against self-incrimination independently of the Supreme Court\u27s construction of the fifth amendment. Part II focuses on the historical and theoretical underpinnings of state constitutional law and examines state courts\u27renewed reliance on their state constitutions. Part III discusses the Supreme Court\u27s interpretation of the fifth amendment in Miranda and its progeny. Part IV presents the states\u27 response to Supreme Court holdings and surveys state court decisions interpreting state constitutions\u27 self-incrimination provisions more broadly than the fifth amendment. Finally, Part V examines the potential for further growth in this area of state constitutional jurisprudence and encourages state courts to develop reasoned, independent interpretations of state self-incrimination provisions

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: An Approach to the Results Test

The fifteenth amendment\u27 guarantees that a citizen\u27s right to vote shall not depend on his or her race. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the Act)2 ended nearly a century of congressional acquiescence to obstruction and subversion of that guarantee by certain state and local governments. The Act was remarkably successful in curbing many race-oriented abuses of the electoral process. Despite this success, however, Congress chose to bolster the 1965 Act with the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982., The new legislation\u27s most significant feature was the revision of section 2, which contains the Act\u27s blanket prohibition against discriminatory voting procedures

Collection of the Use Tax on Out-of-State Mail-Order Sales

The states\u27 inability to collect taxes on out-of-state mail-order sales constitutes a major fiscal problem. The federal government\u27s Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations estimates that states are losing as much as 1.5 billion dollars each year in unpaid out-of-state mail-order purchase taxes.\u27 In addition to raising revenue, the compensating use tax serves two purposes: (1) The use tax helps local sellers to compete with retail dealers in other states who are subject to a lesser tax burden;and (2) the use tax avoids the likelihood of draining the taxing state\u27s revenue by removing buyers\u27 incentive or temptation to go bargain hunting by mail orders or through other means to escape payment of the tax on in-state sales. The legislatures of states with sales taxes could not plug these economic leaks by extending the reach of the sales tax. One reason was the idea that a state could not, consistently with the due process clause, tax extraterritorial sales. Prior to the Supreme Court\u27s 1940 decision in McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co.,it was assumed that an interstate sale was immune from state or local taxation.\u27 Later, McLeod v. J.E. Dilworth Co. placed severe constitutional constraints on a destination state\u27s ability to tax a sale consummated in another state. These restrictions on the states\u27 taxing power enabled residents of states with sales taxes to make their purchases either tax free or at a lower tax rate beyond the territorial limits of the taxing jurisdiction. Purchasers either could travel beyond the borders of their state, use the telephone,mail orders, or buy from solicitors

Case Digest

Pursuant to the United States-France Estate Tax Treaty, the estate of a United States citizen who was domiciled in France is liable to the United States for taxes on real property located in France at rates effective when the citizen died provided the estate receives credit for the estate taxes paid to France Norstar Bank of Upstate New York v. United States,644 F. Supp. 1112 (N.D.N.Y. 1986). Political Question Doctrine bars judicial consideration of claims that the United States mines placed in the Nicaraguan harbor of Corinto damaged a Norwegian ship. Krig-sforsikring for Skib, gjensidingforening (The Norwegian War Risk Insurance for Ships, A Mutual Association) v. United States, Slip Op. No.86 Civ. 2500 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 1986)

Merger and Acquisition Activities in Japan: the Present and the Future

Merger and acquisition are expected to generate increasing interest in industrial circles throughout Japan. Those who argue in favor of mergers and acquisitions emphasize that these activities will help rejuvenate the economy of Japan through the revitalization of corporate management and the efficient reallocation of resources. Some commentators are strongly in favor of takeover bids and argue that aggressive takeover bids will lead to the revitalization of the individual corporations targeted for acquisition through the arousal of top officials of the targets. Critics charge, on the other hand, that only raiders, lawyers and speculators find takeover bids profitable. Some complain that raiders purchase equity shares of a corporation simply to run up the share price and make money. They menace the target corporation with a possible acquisition and then attempt to reap large profits by forcing the target to buy back the shares at a higher price. This scenario does nothing for the future of the corporation or the economy as a whole. Because monetary relaxation has prevailed in Japan for the past five years, some corporations have been engrossed in what some call a money game and have managed their surplus funds in money markets in an effort to build up financial assets. There is a consensus in the financial circles of Japan that every effort must be made to prevent this money game from making further progress and that what might be called a casino society should be prevented from taking root in Japan as it has in the United States. Industrial circles in Japan are ready to welcome merger and acquisition activities in general from a constructive point of view, though they rightly fear the effects of excess speculation

Removal of General Partners: A Method of Intrapartnership Dispute Resolution for Limited Partnerships

The term limited partnership denotes a business organization in which the liability of at least one partner, the limited partner, for the debts and obligations of the partnership is limited to his contribution to the partnership, whereas the other members of the partnership, the general partners, may incur unlimited personal liability. The limited partnership is currently used primarily as a public or private investment vehicle in oil and gas, mining,and real estate ventures. Limited partnerships recently have become more popular, primarily because they receive advantageous tax treatment and provide investors with the shelter of limited liability. Although many scholars have commented on the tax considerations associated with limited partnerships, commentators virtually have ignored the issue of intrapartnership dispute resolution. This Note sets forth and analyzes the issues surrounding the removal of general partners from the limited partnership as a method of resolving intrapartnership disputes. Part II discusses the partnership agreement, its functions and contents, and high-lights removal provisions that may prevent many potential partnership disputes. Part II also considers the applicable uniform legislation and the various rules promulgated by state securities administrators. Part III addresses the collateral effects of removing a general partner, including federal income tax consequences, exposure of the limited partners to general liability, and the post-removal status of the partnership\u27s contracts with third parties. Part IV outlines and examines the substitution of a new general partner to the partnership and the potential legal claims the former general partner may have against the partnership. Part V suggests specific legislation that would provide limited partners with an effective means, through a statutory grant of power to remove a general partner, of supervising their investments. Finally, Part VI concludes that legislators should grant limited partners a statutory right to remove a general partner as a means of protecting their investment and as a method of resolving intrapartnership disputes

Regionalism and American Legal History: The Southern Experience

Commentators surprisingly have failed to focus on the influence of regionalism in the development of American law. To be sure, numerous books and articles examine state law and its local application or explore the treatment by several states of a particular legal concept or category of laws. But attempts to define regional attitudes toward law or to analyze regional differences in legal practice are almost nonexistent. So foreign has the topic of regionalism been to scholarship in American legal history that Lawrence Friedman\u27s acclaimed synthesis, A History of American Law,\u27 contains no discussion of regionalism or its close relative,sectionalism. Even now, no comprehensive study treats the law of any region in the country, including the South, despite countless regional studies by scholars from many disciplines. This omission has not gone without notice. As early as 1950 James Willard Hurst called for greater attention to regional and state legal history. In 1982 Hurst declared that it is only within recent years that students of legal history have begun to explore ways in which legal doctrine and uses of law may have shaped or responded to sectional experiences and patterns different from or in tension with interests taking place on a national scale.\u27 Still,many topics remain unexplored, and historians have not developed any central themes to guide a regional approach to legal history.The purpose of this Article is to make a modest beginning in this direction

The Chaos of the Battle of the Forms : Solutions

Whatever may be said of the lack of certainty, stability, and predictability in many areas of the law, chaos rarely is discovered. Unfortunately, we have now reached that point in matters involving attempts by innumerable buyers and sellers to make contracts through an exchange of printed forms. Because printed forms will continue to be the written evidence of the overwhelming majority of attempted contracts in America,\u27 this chaos threatens the institution of contract in our society. There should be no doubt that chaos is an accurate characterization of the state of the law in the battle of the forms arena. Courts and commentators have disagreed on the proper application, interpretation, and construction of the statute governing contracts for the sales of goods, section 2-207 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Courts have been in-consistent and devoid of intellectual acuity in attempting to apply 2-207. Fair results in these cases often have been the product of sheer coincidence, and many litigants have not been fortunate. The challenge of judicial elaboration that Karl Llewellyn created in this section of Article 2 has not been approached. Because there is no conventional wisdom concerning 2-207, no recognized scholarship can be relied on. In their well-known commercial law text, Professors White and Summers express unusually candid disagreement on the proper interpretation and construction of 2-207. Moreover, neither author is particularly pleased with his view and each would prefer that the statute be redrafted. The statute itself is not merely a murky bit of prose. \u27 It is riddled with angular phraseology and features a subsection which was tacked on belatedly without the aid of the statute\u27s principal draftsman. In the view of one of commercial law\u27s giants, that added subsection converted a troublesome statute into a disaster. Resorting to the Official Comments accompanying 2-207 is something akin to a metaphysical experience until one realizes that the creators of the Comments were as confused as all others who have attempted to deal with the section since its enactment. Amendments to the Comments, designed to patch the section where it did not work,have succeeded only in exacerbating the confusion. The practicing bar always has been wary of 2-207\u27s charms, and the academic community has retreated more than substantially from its initial high praise of the section. Demands for the abolition of 2-207 and a new start are mounting, and suggested substitutions in the literature are not difficult to discover.\u27 Some had hoped that the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, which appeared long after the enactment of 2-207 throughout the country, would provide elaboration and guidance concerning the entire standardized agreement phenomenon, including the battle of the forms. Instead, the Restatement is unfortunately counterproductive. Bringing order from the current chaos of 2-207 through the judicial process may not be possible. The statute may be fatally flawed. Before reform of any kind can be successful, understanding the purposes of 2-207 as a species of the purposes of Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code is essential. This Article first will explore those purposes. In doing so, it will confront the highly controversial problems faced in interpreting and construing 2-207. The Article then will reexamine the section\u27s drafting history, case law,and scholarship to provide workable analyses of the counter-offer riddle and the puzzle over different versus additional terms. Resolving these well-known problems leaves the final enigma, which has not been understood, much less confronted. Finally, the denouement is discovered, through understanding the normative assumptions of 2-207 as facets of the normative assumptions of the Article 2 prism, to promote fidelity to the underlying philosophy of Article 2 in in the particular context of the inevitable battle of the forms