BARBARA LUPPI, Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia - Facolta di Economia
Email: barbara.luppi@unimore.it
FRANCESCO PARISI, University of Minnesota - Law School
Email: parisi@umn.edu

Due to their unrealistic optimism, people believe that risks are less likely to materialize for themselves than for others and hence inadequately react to legal threats and incentives such as tort liability. Optimism bias creates a distinctive problem in the design of tort rules, since it leads parties to assume excessive risks, in spite of the threat of liability, even when parties are provided accurate information about statistical facts. In this paper, we consider the opportunity to insulate the effects of optimism bias by exempting the parties from the liability due to optimism errors.

ADRIAAN LANNI, Harvard University - Harvard Law School
Email: adlanni@law.harvard.edu

This paper examines the judicial procedures for reviewing legislation in classical Athens and argues that we can discern from these sources a coherent theory of the Athenian “Constitution.� I argue that prosecutors consistently attempted to depict the challenged statute as a threat to the basic democratic legislative or adjudicative process. This suggests that the legal review of statutes was understood as a means of preserving popular decision making structures rather than enforcing substantive values. From a modern perspective, classical Athens offers an interesting alternative model of a highly democratic form of “judicial review� in which constitutional precommitments were limited and constitutional challenges were adjudicated by large juries of ordinary citizens. Far from taking issues out of the realm of popular decision making, judicial review in Athens was quite limited in scope and focused on preserving the key democratic political values: the citizenry’s lawmaking power, and the jury’s wide power to adjudicate disputes.

ROBERTO CARANTA, Law Faculty - University of Turin
Email: roberto.caranta@unito.it

This article pleads for reinforced communication and exchange between European and national courts, both in a vertical way, from the national to the European courts, and in a horizontal one, among national courts from different Member States. Building an integrated legal order needs a lot of communication and exchange between the constituent parts, quite more than is presently seen in the European Union. Courts at all levels will greatly benefit from knowing the case law from different jurisdictions which in the end are charged with the application of the same European rules. The barriers due to the specific legal traditions now separating different legal orders could be lowered thanks to a better mutual knowledge and understanding, making a shared European legal culture possible.

FLORIAN H. KARIM THEISSEN, Leiden University - Leiden Law School
Email: f.theissen@berenschot.nl
HANS-MARTIEN TH.D. TEN NAPEL, Leiden Law School
Email: h.m.t.d.tennapel@law.leidenuniv.nl

In the following a detailed study of the multicultural democracy model shall be presented. The structure of this chapter will be as follows. First, the theoretical concept of 'multicultural democracy,' as presented in the Human Development Report 2004 will be examined. Next, we will illustrate the realization of the model in the Netherlands, which can be considered - at least it could be considered until recently - a near-perfect multicultural democracy in practice. Moreover, Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy was developed on the very basis of the Dutch case, that is in his groundbreaking work The Politics of Accommodation. Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (1968). Then, we will look at the extent in which the concept applies to the US and the EU, respectively.

FOLUKE AKINMOLADUN, affiliation not provided to SSRN
Email: ola4jc@gmail.com

This research is an analysis of the enforcement of domestic and foreign arbitral awards by Nigerian courts and the court's underlying policy considerations in light of the country's aim to join the comity of nations in ensuring expeditious enforcement of arbitral awards. It seeks to show the significance of the national courts’ role in the arbitration process in consideration of the present day exercise on the reform of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, the principal legislation governing arbitration in Nigeria. The need for the use of arbitration in international and sometimes national businesses is necessitated by the Courts seeming lack of promptness in dispensing matters relating to business and investment. This problem is more pronounced in disputes involving foreign investments where courts may be ill equipped to handle its technicalities. Although there are calls for the reform of Nigerian legislation on Arbitration, it is equally important to understand the reasons behind the attitude of the court by analyzing the development of case law in this area of Law in Nigeria. The analysis will look the legal regime on the recognition and enforcement of domestic and foreign arbitral awards. It would include an examination of the use of Customary Arbitration and the effect of the recognition and enforcement of customary arbitral awards.