October 2011

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The Moot Court room

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Shen Weixing, Dean and Law Professor

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Professor Wang Liming

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Mark (Thor) Hearne

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The audience

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Professor Michelman

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Professors Epstein, Jiang, and Michelman

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Professor Ely

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Professors Michelman and Salkin

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Professor Jiang

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Dean Shen, Joe Waldo

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Professor Jie

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Alan Ackerman

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Group photo from the audience point of view.
We’ll post the group photo later.

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Professor Alexander

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A professional photographer is taking shots for the record.
Until those are made available, you will have to settle for ours.

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Professor Hui

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The Moot Courtroom at the law school is very wired.

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A full transcript is being recorded, and will be available.

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Professor HuiContinue Reading Brigham-Kanner Conference Photos

We’re live at the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference in Beijing.

Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference – Live Blog

Last week, after the welcome reception at the U.S. Embassy celebrating the Brigham-Kanner Conference’s visit to Beijing and the awarding of the B-K prize to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, I had a chance to meet up with an old law school classmate and friend, Laurence Brahm.

Since our graduation nearly a quarter-century ago, Laurence has led a life that can best be described as “interesting” (as in “may you live in interesting times”), and he has not followed the usual lawyer career path. Lawyer, filmmaker, hotelier, economic advisor, philanthropist, author, futurist, and restaurateur, among many others. Over drinks and dinner at his retro-kitschy Red Capital restaurant (now that is the PRC I remember!), we caught up and Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Conference: An Evening With An Old Friend

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The actual conference does not begin until tomorrow (see schedule here), but today is the warmup. Starting with a tour of the Forbidden City, the U.S.’s leading property law scholars and practitioners joined about 50,000 other people (it seemed), and took the obligatory look-see.

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These days, it hardly seems “forbidden.” To anyone. It felt like 1/2 of the population of Beijing was there. Most definitely a change from the last time I was here.

Tonight is the reception at the U.S. Embassy in honor of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I won’t be able to bring you any photos of the event. For security reasons, the Embassy forbids (there’s that word again) cameras, mobile phones, and similar. If we’re lucky, an official photographer will be there and I can cajole him into letting us access a photo or two.Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Conference Warmup

At a conference and awarding of a prize named in part in his honor, we lead off with the thoughts on Professor Gideon Kanner from his Gideon’s Trumpet blog on how the People’s Republic of China is dealing (or not) with the whole “property rights” thing:

Now, it would not be a Gideon Kanner commentary without some provocative thoughts:

And so it goes. Still, be all that as it may, we experience a feeling of revulsion whenever we come across this sort of thing, where American law that is said to be of the people’s government that is the embodiment of due process, fairness and equity, turns out in some ways to be not all that much different than the…

Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Conference: Professor Kanner’s (First) Thoughts

Here is the Petitioner’s Reply Brief in Colony Cove Properties, LLC v. City of Carson, No. 11-189 (cert. petition filed Aug. 11, 2011). We posted the cert petition and the amici and BIO here. 

The cert petition is asking the Supreme Court to revist and discard the ripeness rules of Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985). It poses two Questions Presented:

1. Should Williamson County be overruled, to the extent that it arbitrarily denies a federal forum to regulatory takings claimants seeking just compensation for the violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment, contrary to the intention of Congress in enacting Section 1983?

2. Should this Court recognize an exception to Williamson County’s “state procedures” requirement for takings claimants like Petitioner, whose Fifth Amendment claims will otherwise be relegated to a California state court system that…

Continue Reading Final Cert Brief In Williamson County Challenge

As I travel to Beijing today for the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, I’m drawn back thirty-three years to my first (and only prior) visit to the People’s Republic of China.

It was a different China in 1978. Just emerging after nearly thirty years of isolation and mostly closed off to the western world, it indeed emphasized the “People’s Republic” part of its name. Chairman Mao was less than two years dead and Hua Gofeng, Mao’s successor, had only recently ended the Cultural Revolution. Most people still wore the zhongshan (aka Mao suit), carried their copy of the “little red book” (Quotations From Chairman Mao) in a pocket, and the only contact they’d ever had with foreigners was perhaps with visiting Soviet officials. Beijing was a flat city with very few structures taller than the Great Hall of the People.

To enter the PRC…

Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Conference In Beijing: Reflections On A Three-Decade Absence

Climatechangemongraphpage

“There is strong consensus in the international scientific community that climate change is occurring and that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities contribute to climate change.”

So begins Climate Change and Regulatory Takings in Coastal Hawaii, a monograph by Douglas Codiga, Dennis Hwang, and Chris Delaunay, published by the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program’s Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy. 

We’re not entering into the debate about whether global warming/climate change is or isn’t happening. But the one certain thing is that every regulatory entity from the U.N. on down to your local neighborhood board believes it is real, and seems to want to do something about it. Thus, the question is how property owners may be affected by those actions, and what they can do in response. This report doesn’t really resolve anything, but it does establish the framework and makes some recommenations. From…

Continue Reading Climate Change And Regulatory Takings In Coastal Hawaii

12.WATHIWe’ve just finalized the agenda and faculty for the Hawaii Water Law conference, to be held in Honolulu on January 11, 2012. I am the planning co-chair along with Jesse Souki, Director of the State of Hawaii Office of Planning.

In addition to Jesse and me, we’ve assembled a diverse and talented faculty: UH lawprof David Callies will speak with Elijah Yip (Cades) on the latest developments in water law and public trust litigation. State Water Commissioner Lawrence Miike will update us on the latest goings-on at the Commission. My Damon Key partner Greg Kugle is speaking with Leo Asuncion, the Manager of the Coastal Zone Management Program at the State Office of Planning on coastal issues.

After lunch, we have a special guest, Ed Thomas (a lawyer and President of the National Hazard Mitigation Association, and a nationaly known expert in floodplain management and disaster…

Continue Reading Mark Your Calendars: Hawaii Water Law Conference (Jan. 11, 2012)