Law Commons^™

Engineering The Climate: Geoengineering As A Challenge To International Governance, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

The challenge of global climate change has attracted recommendations for remediation from a number of professions, including engineering. The possibilities suggested for “geoengineering” the climate generally fall into one of two categories: (1) carbon capture and storage; and (2) solar radiation management. Specific and often controversial proposals include the aerial dispersion of aerosols, launching reflective gratings into orbit around the Earth, and seeding the oceans with iron filings. These proposals share a number of characteristics, including the following: (1) they can often be undertaken within the territorial jurisdiction of a single state or in areas beyond national jurisdiction; (2) they …

Jurisdiction Revisited: The Inherent Supervisory Power Of The Courts To Review Administrative Decisions - The Case Of R (Ignaoua) V Sshd [2013] Ewca Civ 1498, Patrick Matthew Hassan-Morlai

Patrick Matthew Hassan-Morlai

The Court of Appeal handed down its decision in R (Ignaoua) v SSHD on 21 November. Ignaoua emphasizes that Parliament does not purport to remove the court’s jurisdiction to entertain judicial review proceedings under Section 15 of the Justice and Security Act 2013. This paper argues that the provisions in both the primary and secondary legislation in Ignaoua are clear enough to convey Parliament’s intention to give the Home Secretary the power to terminate judicial review proceedings or appeal from judicial review proceedings relating to a direction to exclude a foreign national from the United Kingdom. However, the Court of …

Congressional Control Over Federal Court Jurisdiction: A Defense Of The Traditional View, Julian Velasco

Julian Velasco

The extent of Congress's authority to control the jurisdiction of the federal courts has been the subject of unending academic debate. The orthodox view long has been that Congress possesses nearly plenary authority to restrict federal court jurisdiction. There has been no shortage, however, of commentators who have taken exception to that view. The heart of the debate lies in whether Congress is authorized to remove specific subjects from the jurisdiction of federal courts when motivated by hostility to their substantive decisions. According to the traditional view, Congress is free to use its power in this manner. While most traditionalists …

Taxing Citizens In A Global Economy, Michael S. Kirsch

Michael Kirsch

This Article addresses a fundamental issue underlying the U.S. tax system in the international context: the use of citizenship as a jurisdictional basis for imposing income tax. As a general matter, the United States is the only economically developed country that taxes its citizens abroad on their foreign income. Despite this broad general assertion of taxing jurisdiction, Congress allows citizens abroad to exclude a limited amount of their income earned from working outside the United States. Influential lobbying groups, including businesses that employ significant numbers of U.S. citizens abroad, argue that this exclusion is necessary in order to keep American …

United States Opposition To The 1998 Rome Statute Establishing An International Criminal Court: Is The Court's Jurisdiction Truly Complementary To National Criminal Jurisdictions?, Jimmy Gurule

Jimmy Gurule

No abstract provided.

The Icc's New Legal Landscape: The Need To Expand U.S. Domestic Jurisdiction To Prosecute Genocide, War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity, Douglass Cassel

Douglass Cassel

The United States was one of only seven nations to vote against the treaty. The ensuing debate within the United States has properly focused on whether the United States can and should ratify the treaty or, if not, whether as a non-party the United States should support or oppose the new court. Largely overlooked, however, are two separate but related questions: (1) should the existing, incomplete jurisdiction of U.S. courts over crimes within the ICC Statute be expanded to ensure that such crimes may also be prosecuted in U.S. courts, under universal jurisdiction or other bases allowed by international law?; …

Empowering United States Courts To Hear Crimes Within The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court, Douglass Cassel

Douglass Cassel

No abstract provided.

General Law In Federal Court, Anthony J. Bellia Jr., Bradford R. Clark

Anthony J. Bellia

No abstract provided.

Federal Regulation Of State Court Procedures, Anthony J. Bellia

Anthony J. Bellia

May Congress regulate the procedures by which state courts adjudicate claims arising under state law? Recently, Congress not only has considered several bills that would do so, but has enacted a few of them. This Article concludes that such laws exceed Congress's constitutional authority. There are serious questions as to whether a regulation of court procedures qualifies as a regulation of interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause. Even assuming, however, that it does qualify as such, the Tenth Amendment reserves the power to regulate court procedures to the states. Members of the Founding generation used conflict-of-laws language to describe a …

The Origins Of Article Iii "Arising Under" Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Bellia

Anthony J. Bellia

Article III of the Constitution provides that the judicial Power of the United States extends to all cases arising under the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. What the phrase arising under imports in Article III has long confounded courts and scholars. This Article examines the historical origins of Article III arising under jurisdiction. First, it describes English legal principles that governed the jurisdiction of courts of general and limited jurisdiction--principles that animated early American jurisprudence regarding the scope of arising under jurisdiction. Second, it explains how participants in the framing and ratification of the Constitution understood arising …

May A Federal Court Remand A Case To State Court After Federal Claims Have Been Deleted?, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

This Article provides a preview of Carnegie-Mellon University v. Honorable Maurice B. Cohill, Jr., argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on November 10, 1987. This case concerns the circumstances under which a lawsuit, properly commenced in a state court and then removed before trial to a federal court, may be sent back (remanded) to the state court.

On one level, this case seems only to involve technical interpretations of federal statutes governing procedure in the federal courts. At another level, however, it involves more general and important issues. Among these are how to allocate judicial power …

The Erie Doctrine Revisited: How A Conflicts Perspective Can Aid The Analysis, Joseph P. Bauer

Joseph P. Bauer

I have taught Civil Procedure for the past twenty-five years. Having returned to teaching Conflict of Laws last year, after not having taught that course since the mid-1980s, I was interested in re-examining the Erie doctrine from the vantage point of both of these subject areas. My goal was to see whether a combination of learning from these two related disciplines would introduce additional coherence into the analysis of this topic.

In one sense, the Erie doctrine and traditional choice of law determinations present analogous questions, since they both involve making a selection between competing legal rules. Choice of law …

Reverse-Commandeering, Margaret Hu

Margaret Hu

Although the anti-commandeering doctrine was developed by the Supreme Court to protect state sovereignty from federal overreach, nothing prohibits flipping the doctrine in the opposite direction to protect federal sovereignty from state overreach. Federalism preserves a balance of power between two sovereigns. Thus, the reversibility of the anti-commandeering doctrine appears inherent in the reasoning offered by the Court for the doctrine’s creation and application. In this Article, I contend that reversing the anti-commandeering doctrine is appropriate in the context of contemporary immigration federalism laws. Specifically, I explore how an unconstitutional incursion into federal sovereignty can be seen in state immigration …

"Standing" In The Shadow Of Erie: Federalism In The Balance In Hollingsworth V. Perry, Glenn Koppel

Glenn Koppel

Abstract “Standing” in the Shadow of Erie: Federalism in the Balance in Hollingsworth v. Perry In Hollingsworth v. Perry, one of the two same-sex marriage cases decided by the Supreme Court in 2013, the Court declined to address the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, finding that the initiative proponents lacked standing to appeal the district court’s judgment declaring the proposition unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement. Since the State’s Governor and Attorney General declined to appeal, the proponents sought to assert the State’s particularized interest in the proposition’s validity. State law, as interpreted by the California Supreme Court, grants authority to …

Erisa Preemption Of State “Play Or Pay” Mandates: How Ppaca Clouds An Already Confusing Picture, Mary Ann Chirba

Mary Ann Chirba

From the introduction: Although ERISA preemption was ranked among the top "eight pertinent issues" that needed to be addressed in order to achieve comprehensive health care reform, Congress opted to avoid it when it passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act on March 23, 2010, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act just one week later ("PPACA" or the "Act", collectively). Currently 180 million Americans receive employer-sponsored health benefits, and millions more will do so once PPACA takes full effect over the next few years. This expansion of employer based coverage, coupled with what the Act does …

Fetal Research: The Question In The States, Charles H. Baron

Charles H. Baron

This article is based on a paper delivered at the Third National Symposium on Genetics and the Law in Boston, April 1984.

The Battle For The Soul Of International Shoe, Eric H. Schepard

Eric H Schepard

In 2011, Justice Kennedy’s plurality opinion in J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro repeatedly cited International Shoe v. Washington, a 1945 decision that transformed the law of personal jurisdiction. Kennedy believed that International Shoe broadly supported his position that a state may hear a suit arising from a within-state workplace injury to its citizen only if the foreign (out-of-state) corporate defendant specifically markets its products to that state. This article reexamines the jurisprudence of International Shoe’s author, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, to argue that Kennedy hijacked International Shoe’s half-buried legacy of judicial restraint. Scholars have suggested that Stone hoped …

Improving Parity In Personal Jurisdiction And Judgment Enforcement In International Cases: A Domestic Proposal To Help Revive The Hague Judgments Convention, Eric Porterfield

Eric Porterfield

Two aspects of American law inadvertently discriminate against American consumers and businesses to the benefit of foreign nationals. Restrictive personal jurisdiction rules often prevent American courts from exercising jurisdiction over foreign nationals on the grounds that they lack sufficient “contact” with the forum. Foreign product manufacturers can use this to their advantage, structuring their business dealings to take advantage of confusing constitutional constraints on personal jurisdiction, reducing, if not eliminating, the risk of potential tort liability in American courts, often leaving American consumers without a remedy and disadvantaging American businesses. American companies, in contrast, cannot avoid American tort law at …

The Concept Of Objectivity In The Uk Supreme Court Through A Comparative Looking Glass, Vito Breda

Vito Breda

This essay reports on the result of hermeneutical research entitled Objectivity in the UK Judicial Discourse. The concept of objectivity generates a plurality of analysis. For instance, in legal theory, MacCormick suggests the possibility of an objective interpretation of cases. Objectivity in the UK Judicial Discourse focuses on the interpretation of the concept by common law judges. In particular, the project sought to map out the cluster of interpretations (and arguments derived therefrom) on the concept of objectivity by the House of Lords and the UK Supreme Court. The result of the study shows that within UK law there …

„Zuerst Schlichten, Dann Richten“: O Modelo Suíço De Solução De Litígios Pré-Processual É Adequado Para O Brasil?, Nelson Rodrigues Netto

Nelson Rodrigues Netto

Dieser Aufsatz analysiert die Schlichtung und die Mediation in der Schweizerische Zivilprozessordnung.

Kiobel, Extraterritoriality, And The "Global War On Terrorism", Craig Martin

Craig Martin

For the purpose of exploring the issues of extraterritoriality raised in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., this project sought to examine how the federal courts have considered extraterritoriality in cases arising in the so-called “global war on terror” (GWOT). The inquiry leads to some new and arguably important observations about extraterritoriality in the GWOT policies and related jurisprudence. The plaintiffs in Kiobel claimed, under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), that the defendant corporations were liable for complicity in Nigeria’s conduct of indefinite detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing. The U.S. Supreme Court departed from the issue of corporate liability under …

The Issue Is Being Intersex: The Current Standard Of Care Is A Result Of Ignorance, And It Is Amazing What A Little Analysis Can Conclude., Marla J. Ferguson

marla j ferguson

The Constitution was written to protect and empower all citizens of the United States, including those who are born with Disorders of Sex Development. The medical community, as a whole, is not equipped with the knowledge required to adequately diagnose or treat intersex babies. Intersex simply means that the baby is born with both male and female genitalia. The current method that doctors follow is to choose a sex to assign the baby, and preform irreversible surgery on them without informed consent. Ultimately the intersex babies are mutilated and robbed of many of their fundamental rights; most notably, the right …

Law's Dark Matter, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.

Choice Of Law As General Common Law: A Reply To Professor Brilmayer, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.

Technology Convergence And Federalism: The Case Of Voip Regulation, Daniel A. Lyons

Daniel Lyons

From the introduction The Vermont Supreme Court may soon consider whether federal law permits the Public Service Board to regulate certain voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP ) services. Across the Hudson, Governor Andrew Cuomo recently sought to bar the New York Public Service Commission from adopting similar regulations. And these states are not alone: from Maine to Florida, several states are considering whether their jurisdiction over traditional telephone service encompasses this new technology, through which nearly one third of American landline households receive telephone service. If so, nationwide VoIP providers could face up to fifty new legal regimes with which they must comply …

My Paper Makes Ssrn Top Ten List, Gabriela Steier

Gabriela Steier

My paper, "THE WTO'S BLIND SPOT: DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN THE INTERNATIONAL FOOD INDUSTRY", was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for: Food Law & Policy eJournal, PSN: Politics of the WTO (Topic), PSN: Politics of the WTO (Topic), SRPN: Agribusiness (Topic), SRPN: Biotechnology (Topic), SRPN: Politics of Food (Topic) and SRPN: World Trade Organisation (Topic).

The Extraterritoriality Of Eu Data Privacy Law - Its Theoretical Justification And Its Practical Effect On U.S. Businesses, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Dan Svantesson

Due to its extraterritorial effect, the European Union’s trailblazing data privacy law has long been a major concern for U.S. businesses. With the proposal for a new data privacy framework in the EU, with potential penalties of up to 2% of an offending enterprise’s annual worldwide turnover, such concerns are justified indeed; particularly as the EU at the same time seems to be expanding the extraterritorial reach of its data privacy law.

This article examines the extraterritoriality of current and proposed EU data privacy law and analyses whether those claims of extraterritoriality can be either justified or objected to by …

Holding Corporations To Account. Crafting Ats Suits In The Uk, Simon J. Baughen

Simon J Baughen

This is an updated version of the existing publication which has been amended in the light of the decision of the US Supreme Court on 17 April 2013 in Kiobel. It will be published in the Fall 2013 edition of the British Journal of American Legal Studies

Class Denied! Go Directly To State Court. Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Kevin Dulaney

Kevin Dulaney

No abstract provided.

Conflicting Federal And State Medical Marijuana Policies: A Threat To Cooperative Federalism, Todd Grabarsky

Todd Grabarsky

The legal status of medical marijuana in the United States is something of a paradox. On one hand, federal government has placed a ban on the drug with no exceptions. On the other hand, over one-third of the states have that legalizes the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of the drug for medical purposes. As such, the usage of medical marijuana is an activity that is at the same time proscribed (by the federal government) and encouraged (by state governments through their systems of regulation and taxation). This Article seeks to shed light on this unprecedented nebulous zone of legality in …