Joanna Diane Caytas

Disposing of Relics: Overt and Covert Blasphemy Statutes in Europe

Joanna Diane Caytas J.D. Candidate, Columbia Law School, 2017 Introduction The murderous rampages at Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015, in Copenhagen in February 2015, and all across Paris on November 13, 2015 not only shocked the world’s conscience but also resurfaced a controversy over blasphemy laws that, prior to the advent of fundamentalist religious terrorism, had been thought a relic of a bygone era. These rampages also sparked discussions concerning the existence of a common European identity of values, secular humanism as a minimum constitutional denominator, and the difference between attacking people and ideas. Islamic groups are the […]

Crowdfunding Venture Capital in Europe

Joanna Diane Caytas J.D. Candidate, Columbia Law School, 2017 Modern venture capital, at first invested by way of private equity, is a Swedish-American creation that started around WWI by ultra-high net worth families such as the Wallenbergs, Whitneys, Rockefellers, and Warburgs. Europe has always lagged significantly behind countries such as the United States[1] and Israel[2] with regards to transparent public markets. It has also never mustered commercial funding sources and government as well as legislative support for large-scale innovation finance, not to mention developed a comparable size and quality of market for risk capital. A recent EU initiative aims to […]