Law Commons^™

The Political Economy Of Foreign Sovereign Immunity, Maryam Jamshidi

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”) prohibits civil litigation against foreign states, their agencies, and instrumentalities unless one of several enumerated exceptions to immunity applies. The most important of these exceptions is for the commercial activity of foreign sovereigns. While underappreciated, various capitalist interests have comported with and been furthered by the FSIA. Applying a political economy lens, this Article demonstrates how the statutory framework for private litigation against foreign sovereigns has aligned with interests and prerogatives associated with particular stages of capitalist development—as evidenced by the historical evolution of foreign sovereign immunity doctrine and the FSIA’s eventual passage; the …

The Human Rights And Developmental Dimension Of Investment Laws: From Investment Laws With Human Rights To Development-Oriented Investment Laws, Ilias Bantekas

Florida Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Weapon System And Command Responsibility, Vivek Sehrawat

Florida Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Rights Litigation Piggybacking: Legal Mobilization Strategies In Lgbtiq International Human Rights Jurisprudence, Lucas Lixinski

Florida Journal of International Law

The article examines the LGBTIQ movement’s engagement with international human rights adjudication from the perspective of its borrowing from or piggybacking on the strategies and tactics of other international social movements for historically disadvantaged groups, particularly race, gender, and Indigenous peoples. Piggybacking has shaped the rights goals of the LGBTIQ movement, which are then translated into the language of international human rights law. In this translation process, certain objectives get foregrounded at the expense of others, and the movement essentializes itself in the pursuit of strategic gains, often to lasting unintended consequences that harm the movement itself. In mapping these …

Persistent Optimism: The Inherency Of Security Within International Space Law, Timothy M. Bass

Florida Journal of International Law

When thinking about security in the realm of outer space, it is tempting to focus on areas like militarization, defense from attacks, hacking systems, and espionage; however, in doing so, we overlook the fundamental principles that attempt to ensure security in space law from its inception. By taking a moment to reflect on the guiding principles and goals of space exploration as laid out in treaty and domestic law from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that space is overwhelmingly hopeful in continuing the reign of peace.

The Legal And Practical Framework For Psychiatric Diagnoses As Bases For Requests For Euthanasia And Physician-Assisted Suicide In The Netherlands, Kasey Joyce

Florida Journal of International Law

There is not a clear answer on what kinds of cases are the kinds that cause successful requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS), but most of them are diagnoses that hold severe and terminal physical symptoms or those that have chronic and severe psychiatric issues. A lingering question—one that is now being debated and revisited—is whether a diagnosed mental illness falls into the requisite terminal illness definition to pass through the procedure to get the end-of-life care available in the Netherlands. This Note will analyze the standards around what kinds of cases will pass through the Physician Review Board …

Direct And Structural Violence Against Transgender Populations: A Comparative Legal Study, Brian Kritz

Florida Journal of International Law

This Article is a comparative study exploring how the law impacts Transgender rights and Transgender access to justice. In countries where the law is hostile to Transgender rights, such law perpetuates structural violence, promotes discrimination and persecution, causing direct violence against Transgender populations. In countries where the law is more progressive, an interesting phenomenon exists. In these countries, where Transgender lives can be more openly lived, Trans-violence rates are noticeably higher than in countries where Transgender rights are restricted. This scholarship was developed with an eye towards reforming the law in countries with problematic legal structures and continuing efforts to …

War Crimes, Inc.: The Ats Case Against The U.S. Weapons Industry For Aiding And Abetting Atrocities In Yemen, Elizabeth Beavers

Florida Journal of International Law

The U.S. weapons industry provides much of the weaponry necessary to facilitate mass indiscriminate bombings by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, many of which amount to war crimes. The stories referenced in this note represent just a few of the lives harmed in the course of the Yemen civil war. Yet despite consistent public reporting detailing the damage, and calls from the international community to halt sales, the flow of weapons from the United States remains seemingly endless yet accountability is in short supply. The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) provides an avenue for Yemeni survivors to seek redress in U.S. …

Improving Sustainability And Promoting The Right To Holistic Food: The Role Of Agribusiness, Ying Chen

Florida Journal of International Law

This research provides an advanced interpretation of the right to food, arguing that it should include not only food security and food safety, but also sustainability. It further calls for the international community to replace the right to food with the right to holistic food. The new term highlights the holistic nature of food production. Monsanto (now Bayer) is used as an example to explain that agribusiness-specifically leading global companies-can play an important role in making the global food system safer, healthier, more productive, and more sustainable, primarily through their daily operations and technological advancements. In particular, agribusiness can make …

The Real Impact Of Impact Litigation, Susan Wnukowska-Mtonga

Florida Journal of International Law

This Article will first provide a brief background on the increasing role of impact litigation through U.N. mechanisms. It will then situate reproductive rights, specifically the right to a safe abortion, within the human rights framework and therefore subject to protection by states. Thirdly, this Article will provide a brief case commentary on the views of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), a U.N. treaty body, in the case of L.C. v. Peru. Finally, this article will propose three criteria to measure the effect of the outcome of the case on: L.C., the individual rights …

Implementation Of International Law In Indian Legal System, Vivek Sehrawat

Florida Journal of International Law

This Article explores the general stance of international law and domestic legal orders regarding the legal effects of international law in the Indian domestic legal system. This Article argues that India has been a significant contributor to the field of international law. However, India remains reluctant to draft treaties that restrict free rein and that seek expressly to accord domestic courts a judicial enforcement role. This Article examines the implementation process of international law in the Indian domestic system and addresses the requirements imposed by international law. It critically examines the fundamental dichotomy in approaches at the domestic constitutional level …

Towards A More Ethical Ll.M. Degree: Let's Give International Lawyers The Value They Deserve, Carrie W. Teitcher, Kathleen Darvil

Florida Journal of International Law

Created for international lawyers seeking American credentials, LL.M. programs have proliferated, filling a need in an increasingly global market. Yet the American Bar Association offers no guidance as to how programs specifically designed for international lawyers should be structured. The road to a more ethical LL.M degree necessarily begins with the American Bar Association and the need for it to establish guidelines for such programs, at least for those programs which qualify international lawyers to sit for the bar exam.

Nor do law schools do enough to ensure that LL.M. students seeking to become licensed attorneys in the United States …

Free Speech, Official History And Nationalist Politics: Toward A Typology Of Objections To Memory Laws, Rob Kahn

Florida Journal of International Law

The past two decades have seen an explosion of memory laws, especially in Eastern Europe, and an explosion of objections to them. According to critics, memory laws (i) violate freedom of speech, (ii) create an official history, and (iii) foster a narrow, particularistic politics. This essay evaluates these competing arguments. The tendency to oppose memory laws on free speech grounds, or as state-enforced history, does not get at the deeper, political threat posed by a newer generation of more particularistic memory laws. At the same time, however, the political objection leans on an a priori premise that a nationalistic, exclusionary …

A Critical Analysis Of The Rome Statute Implementation In Afghanistan, Abdul Mahir Hazim

Florida Journal of International Law

Afghanistan has been a war-torn country for the past forty years. Over this time, countless atrocities have been committed and the lives of thousands of innocents have been taken. For example, according to the most recent report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in 2018 alone 10,993 civilians were killed or injured in the country, one of the highest number of causalities since UNAMA started recording such numbers in 2007. Yet no one has been held accountable for the atrocities, neither in national nor in international courts, and an entrenched culture of impunity continues to flourish to the …

Terminology Matters: Dangers Of Superficial Transplantation, Silvia Ferreri, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

The history of legal transplantations from one legal system to another is as long as law itself. It has numerous edifications and names including reception, borrowing, and influence. Legal transplantations from one legal system to another come at various levels of substance and penetration including the transplantation of a legal tradition (English common law to the United States and the English Commonwealth), transplantation of national law (Turkey's adoption of Swiss Civil Code), transplantation of an area of law (Louisiana's adoption and retention of French sales law), transplantation of a rule or concept (Chinese adoption of principle of good faith), and …

The Rise Of Business Trusts In Sustainable Neo-Innovative Economies, Lee-Ford Tritt, Ryan Scott Teschner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article is organized as follows: Part I provides a basic understanding of business trusts in the United States. Next, Part II explores the differences between business trusts in the United States and those in Singapore. Finally, Part III discusses how historical and cultural influences may have shaped the success—or lack thereof—of the business trust form in Singapore and in the United States.

Immigration, Adoption And Our National Identity, Shani M. King

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I tell the story of intercountry adoption. Our starting point is the beginning of the adoption process, with so-called “sending countries,” in which I explore the reasons that countries enter their children into the intercountry adoption market. We begin in the aftermath of World War II and continue until the present day. The story starts in Europe (specifically, in Germany, Greece, and Italy) and Japan. It then continues throughout the Korean War and the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauseacu, until present-day Russia and China. Next, I tell the story of receiving countries; I discuss the social, political, …

Rational Basis Is The Only Rational Solution: Resolving Foreign Commerce Clause Confusion, Justin Senior

Florida Law Review

Congress enacted the PROTECT Act in 2003 to curtail the sexual abuse of children by U.S. citizens abroad. While the Act has not received much attention from scholars or courts, defendants in court consistently challenge its constitutionality. Congress maintains that it has the Foreign Commerce Clause power to prohibit the illicit sex activity in question. However, the Foreign Commerce Clause, unlike its Interstate and Indian Commerce Clause brethren, has received very little attention. The Supreme Court has rarely—and not at all recently—discussed the Foreign Commerce Clause; and its lack of guidance in this arena has led to a recently widened …

The Culture Of Gender/The Gender Of Culture: Cuban Women, Culture, And Change—The Island And The Diaspora, Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol

Florida Journal of International Law

The Culture of Gender/The Gender of Culture: Cuban Women, Culture, and Change—The Island and the Diaspora

Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Civil Code, And The Problem Of Transculturation, Pedro A. Malavet

Florida Journal of International Law

Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Civil Code, and the Problem of Transculturation

The Resolution Of Conflicts Of Law - A View From Private International Law In Cuba., Taydit Peña Lorenzo

Florida Journal of International Law

The Resolution of Conflicts of Law - A View from Private International Law in Cuba.

Us-Cuba Trade And The Challenge Of Diversifying A Sugar Economy, 1902-1962, Carmen Diana Deere

Florida Journal of International Law

Prior to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Cuban exports to the United States held a privileged position in the US market. Many of the country’s exports paid at least 20% less in duties than competitors and after 1934, Cuba’s main export—sugar-- had a guaranteed quota in the US market. Yet these trade agreements—specifically, the Reciprocity Convention of 1902 and the Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934—have often been criticized by Cuban and US scholars alike as having condemned Cuba to a monoculture economy.

Moreover, critics contend that the treaties led to the dominance of US capital in Cuba’s sugar industry, and …

Safeguards In The Cuban Legal System For The Promotion And Protection Of Foreign Investment, Marta Moreno Cruz

Florida Journal of International Law

Safeguards in the Cuban Legal System for the Promotion and Protection of Foreign Investment

Instruments Of Environmental Governance: A Guarantee Of Sustainability In Cuba, Dagniselys Toledano Cordero

Florida Journal of International Law

Instruments of Environmental Governance: A Guarantee of Sustainability in Cuba

General Overview Of Cuban Family Law Legislation, Ana María Álvarez-Tabío Albo

Florida Journal of International Law

General Overview of Cuban Family Law Legislation

Environmental Legislation And Institutional Framework In Cuba, Daimar Cánovas González

Florida Journal of International Law

Cuban environmental legislation was not born with the revolutionary process, at least in some of its aspects. Precursors exist from the nineteenth century, provisions related to natural resources, with a clear anthropocentric focus. The Hunting Act [Ley de Caza] of 1884 and the Hunting and Fishing Act [Ley de Caza y Pesca] of January 1909, classified species as useful or harmful, in accordance with a short-term and economic view, to such a point that those species changed place in the space of about 30 years.

In the 1930s, as a consequence of an international trend, the creation of areas under …

Misuse Of Information Under The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act: On What Side Of The Circuit Split Will The Second And Third Circuits Wind Up?, Robert D. Sowell

Florida Law Review

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has reached a breaking point. The much-discussed issue is whether the CFAA provides a cause of action against persons who use electronic information in a way that violates a relevant computer-use policy. Four circuit courts of appeals have held that the CFAA provides a cause of action for misuses of information, while two have disagreed. In two undecided circuits, the district courts have favored the latter interpretation. As the Supreme Court recently refused to address the issue, these two undecided circuits will play a pivotal role in determining the direction of the CFAA.

No Right At All: Putting Consular Notification In Its Rightful Place After Medellin, Alberto R. Gonzales, Amy L. Moore

Florida Law Review

This Article covers the history of consular notification and presentation in the U.S. federal and state courts and in the International Court of Justice. Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provides that nation-states should notify detained foreign nationals of their right to contact their consulate about their detention. This Article argues that the U.S. Supreme Court, as a matter of institutional responsibility and judicial economy, should have concluded that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations does not contain an enforceable individual right. Moreover, no analog for this right has been found in American jurisprudence.

New Decisions Highlight Old Misgivings: A Reassessment Of The Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act Following Minn-Chem, Robert D. Sowell

Florida Law Review

What role does the United States play in policing international commerce? At what point do the laws of the United States end and those of other nations begin? These questions, among others, arise in determining when U.S. antitrust laws apply to foreign conduct. Looking back, the Sherman Act, for some time, has applied to foreign conduct so long as that conduct satisfied certain requirements. However, common law tests proved inconsistent and difficult to apply. As a result, ninety-two years after the enactment of the Sherman Act, Congress intervened with the intent to clarify the common law by way of the …

Contractual Excuse Under The Cisg: Impediment, Hardship, And The Excuse Doctrines, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article will examine the law of excuse as espoused in the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). It will examine the relevant case law applying the doctrine of impediment found in CISG Article 79. The question posed in this analysis is whether the word “impediment” relates only to the occurrences of force majeure, impossibility and frustration of purpose events or if it also includes changed circumstances, impracticability and hardship events. For purposes of simplicity, the first set of excuse or exemption doctrines will be analyzed under the heading of “impossibility” and the second set will …