Conflict of laws and the cloud

Cloud technology offers wonderful potential for users in terms of convenience, ease of obtaining updates etc. However, it presents significant legal challenges. Our laws, largely based on notions of territoriality, struggle to respond to technology in which lines on maps are largely irrelevant. In this article, I articulate some of the specific challenges. The law of contract, tort and national regulation might all apply to a claim of breach of privacy in relation to material uploaded to the cloud. Unfortunately, each of the jurisdictions studied would approach the issues in different ways, potentially creating significant confusion. The article proposes a need for international co-operation and agreement on these matters.     

Global Security and Economic Well-being: a Strategic Perspective

The end of the Cold War has wrought havoc among Western students of strategy as well as among and to the political institutions of the post-war period. Many erstwhile 'strategists' have decided that it is more correct for the 1990s to become specialists in security, even global security. This paper examines critically, in strategic perspective, the purported connections between economic well-being and global security. The proposition that a strategic, more broadly a 'realist', perspective either neglects or discourages ethical considerations is also discussed. There is less than meets the eye to claims for a rising pre-eminence for economic issues vis a vis a global security, while the very concept of a global security is more attractive than it is useful.     

Books in review

He has also served as research director of the Guggenheim Foundation from 1972–1984. Among his books are Men in Groups; The Imperial Animal(with Robin Fox); The Manufacture of Evil;and The Pursuit of Pleasure.     

Violate, incur sanctions, and exhaust: the steep price of judicial review under Illinois Council

This Article analyzes the decision in Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., in which the Supreme Court held that providers seeking to challenge Medicare regulations must first pursue those challenges through an administrative review process, except when application of this rule would result in "no review at all." In reaching this decision, the five-justice majority rejected the interpretation given to prior holdings by many commentators and circuits, and reasoned that it was appropriate to require providers to exhaust their administrative appeals even though the penalties for the challenged violations would not be stayed during the process. Given the nature of the administrative appeal process and the scope of penalties that may be assessed against Medicare providers, the author argues that the decision in Illinois Council evidences excessive deference towards the agency, or a disinclination on the part of the court towards entertaining Medicare lawsuits, either of which bodes ill for providers seeking judicial relief.