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Black holes and the law

Professor Eric E. Johnson of the University of North Dakota School of Law tries to solve the legal conundrum of the Swiss black hole. In “The Black Hole Case: The Injunction Against the End of the World(Tennessee Law Review, no. 819, 2009, arXiv:0912.5480v2) he writes:

“What should a court do with a preliminary-injunction request to halt a multi-billion-dollar particle-physics experiment that plaintiffs claim could create a black hole that will devour the planet? The real-life case of CERN’s LHC seems like a legal classic in the making. Unfortunately, however, no court has braved the extreme factual terrain to reach the merits. This article steps into the void. First, the relevant facts of the scientific debate and its human context are memorialized and made ripe for legal analysis. Next, the article explores the daunting challenges the case presents to equity, evidence, and law-and-economics analysis. Finally, a set of analytical tools are offered…”

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