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Education:
J.D., Columbia University
M.P.P., Harvard University
B.A., Brandeis University
Professor Backer concentrates his research and teaching in the fields of constitutional, corporate, and transnational law. The focus of his research is on issues of globalization. His most recent work touches on the regulation of multinational corporations, transnational and theocratic constitutionalism, the free movement of capital within European Union law, and the convergence of public and private law. Professor Backer teaches a variety of courses that reflect his research interests, including constitutional law, corporate law, European Union law, comparative corporate and constitutional law, and international business transactions. He broke new ground with the creation of an innovative course in transnational law and legal issues.
Professor Backer is a member of the American Law
Institute and the European Corporate Governance Institute.
He serves on the editorial board of Revista Seqüência
(Brasil) and has served as editor of the Association
of American Law School's Minority Groups Section Newsletter
since 2003.
Professor Backer has authored a casebook on Comparative
Corporate Law, and edited a collection of essays on
legal harmonization. He has authored over sixty-five
articles, book chapters, and book reviews. He is currently
working on a casebook Transnational Law and Legal
Problems: An Introduction to the Field and a monograph,
Corporate Governance, Financial Markets And Development:
The Convergence Of Public And Private Law. In
addition, he is currently researching materials on
theocratic constitutionalism, on the regulation of
multinational corporations and on sovereign wealth
funds.
Professor Backer was raised in Miami after arriving with his family from Cuba. After law school and a clerkship with Judge Leonard I. Garth (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit) he was in private practice in Los Angeles, California. Professor Backer joined the Penn State Dickinson Law faculty in 2000, after having served as professor of law and Executive Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law of the University of Tulsa College of Law. He has visited at the Tulane Law School (2007-2008) and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (1998). He has lectured and taught widely on public and private law aspects of globalization, including Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, Slovakia, Turkey, and Italy. At the law school he founded and sponsors the Latina/o Law Students Association.
Contact Information:
Email:
lcb11@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 863-3640
Papers available via SSRN
E-Essays ("Law at the end of the Day")
Personal Web page
Penn State Institutional Personal Web page
Selected Publications:
Comparative Corporate Law: United States, European Union, China and Japan (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2002) ISBN 0-89089-526-0; LCCN 2001088034.
Harmonizing Law in an Era of Globalization: Convergence, Divergence, Resistance (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2007) ISBN 0-89089-585-6 (editor and contributor).
"Theocratic Constitutionalism: Religion as Basis for Constitutional Legitimacy in a Global Age," 16:1 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies __ (forthcoming 2008).
"The Private Law of Public Law: Public Authorities As Shareholders, Golden Shares, Sovereign Wealth Funds, And The Public Law Element In Private Choice of Law," 82 Tulane Law Review __ (forthcoming 2008).
"From Moral Obligation to International Law: Disclosure Systems, Markets and the Regulation of Multinational Corporations," 39 Georgetown Journal of International Law __ (forthcoming 2008).
"From Hatuey to Che: Indigenous Cuba Without Indians and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," 33 American Indian Law Review __ (forthcoming 2008).
"LatCrit Symposium, Gendering the President Male: Executive Authority Beyond Rule of Law Constitutionalism in the American Context," 25 Florida International University Law Review __ (forthcoming 2008).
"Global Panopticism: Surveillance Lawmaking
by Corporations, States, and Other Entities,"
15 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies
__ (forthcoming 2008).
"Monitor and Manage: MiFID and Power in the
Regulation of EU Financial Markets, 26 Yearbook of
European Law" (Oxford U. Press, 2007); reprinted
in MiFid: A Competitive Landscape (Hyderabad,
India: ICFAI University Press (http://www.iupindia.org/default.asp),
__ forthcoming 2008).
"Symposium: Law and the State in the Transnational
Legal Order: Reifying Law: Understanding Law Beyond
the State," 26(3) Penn State International
Law Review 521 (2008).
"God(s) Over Constitutions: International and Religious Transnational Constitutionalism in the 21st Century," 27 Mississippi College Law Review 11 (2008).
"Multinational Corporations as Objects and Sources
of Transnational Regulation," 14 ILSA Journal
Of International & Comparative Law 499 (2008).
"Odious Debt Wears Two Faces: Systemic Illegitimacy,
Problems and Opportunities in Traditional Odious Debt
Conceptions in Globalized Economic Regimes,"
70 Duke Journal of Law & Contemporary Problems
1 (2007).
"Economic Globalization and the Rise of Efficient Systems of Global Private Law Making: Wal-Mart as Global Legislator," 39(4) University of Connecticut Law Review 1739 (2007).
"The Rule of Law, The Chinese Communist Party, and Ideological Campaigns: Sange Daibiao (the 'Three Represents'), Socialist Rule of Law, and Modern Chinese Constitutionalism," 16(1) Journal of Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 29 (2006).
"Ideologies of Globalization and Sovereign Debt: Cuba and the IMF," 24 Penn State International Law Review 497 (2006).
"Multinational Corporations, Transnational Law:
The United Nation's Norms on the Responsibilities
of Transnational Corporations as a Harbinger of Corporate
Social Responsibility as International Law,"
37 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 287 (2006).
"The Autonomous Global Corporation: On the Role of Organizational Law Beyond Asset Partitioning and Legal Personality," 41(4) Tulsa Law Journal 541 (2006).
"Economic Globalization Ascendant: Four Perspectives on the Emerging Ideology of the State in the New Global Order, 17(1) Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 141 (2006). Published as Globalização Econômica e Crise do Estado: um estudo em quatro perspectives, Sequencia No. 51: 255-276 (December 2005).
Director Independence and the Duty of Care: Race,
Gender, Class and the Disney-Ovitz Litigation,"
79 St. John's Law Review 1011 (2005).
"Emasculated Men, Effeminate Law in the United States, Zimbabwe and Malaysia," 17 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 1 (2005).
"Surveillance and Control: Internal, External and Governmental Monitoring of Corporate Insiders After Sarbanes-Oxley," 2004 Michigan State DCL Law Review 327 (2004).
"The Duty to Monitor: Emerging Obligations of
Outside Lawyers and Auditors to Detect and Report
Corporate Wrongdoing Beyond the Federal Securities
Laws," 77 St. John's Law Review 919 (2003),
reprinted 53(4) Defense Law Journal 671 (2004).
"Cuban Corporate Governance at the Crossroads: Cuban Marxism, Private Economic Collectives, and Free Market Globalism," 14 (2) Journal of Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 337 (2004).
"Retaining Judicial Authority: A Preliminary Inquiry on the Dominion of Judges," 12 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 117 (2003).
"Using Law Against Itself: Bush v. Gore Applied in the Courts," 55 Rutgers Law Review 1109 (2003).
"The Führer Principle of International Law: Individual Responsibility and Collective Punishment," 21 Penn State International Law Review 509 (2003).
"The Euro and the European Demos: A Reconstitution," 21 Year Book of European Law (England) 13 (2002).
"Defining, Measuring and Judging Scholarly Productivity: Working Toward a Rigorous and Flexible Approach," 52 Journal of Legal Education 317 (2002).
"Race, 'The Race,' and the Republic: Reconceiving
Judicial Authority After Bush v. Gore,"
51 Catholic University Law Review 1057 (2002).
"The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Federalizing Norms
for Officers, Lawyer and Accountant Behavior,"
76 St. John's Law Review 897 (2002).
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