Law Commons^™

The Political Economy And Legal Regulation Of Transnational Commercial Surrogate Labor, Cyra A. Choudhury

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

India's commercial surrogacy business has been the focus of intense media scrutiny for the past decade. In that time, it has grown from a $400 million industry to over $2 billion. While the growth in the surrogacy market has been rapid and widespread, the Indian government has struggled to regulate it as a business, as a medical practice and for the protection of surrogates. After nearly a decade of proposed draft bills, the government has yet to enact comprehensive regulation. It is now clear that the state will not ban such a lucrative source of income. Scholars of surrogacy have …

Human Trafficking And Labor Migration: The Dichotomous Law And Complex Realities Of Filipina Entertainers In South Korea And Suggestions For Integrated And Contextualized Legal Responses, Yoon J. Shin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines the complex legal situation of Filipina "entertainers" in U.S. military camp towns in South Korea: the individuals located at the intersection of human trafficking and labor migration. The Article investigates how the dichotomous law fails to recognize these entertainers as either trafficking victims or as migrant workers. The law therefore denies proper legal rights and remedies for the serious rights violations they suffer in the destination state. This research demonstrates that these migrants have diverse needs, aspirations, and transnational experiences that embrace both victimhood and agency. It illuminates the fundamental problems of the current global anti-trafficking regime, …

Against Immutability, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts often hold that antidiscrimination law protects “immutable” characteristics, like sex and race. In a series of recent cases, gay rights advocates have persuaded courts to expand the concept of immutability to include not just those traits an individual cannot change, but also those considered too important for anyone to be asked to change. Sexual orientation and religion are paradigmatic examples. This Article critically examines this new concept of immutability, asking whether it is fundamentally different from the old one and how it might apply to characteristics on the borders of employment discrimination law’s protection, such as obesity, pregnancy, and …

Losing The Best And The Brightest: The Disappearing Wage Premium For H-1b Visa Recipients, Danielle M. Drago

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The pressure for immigration reform in the technology industry revolves heavily around the use of the H-1B visa, which allows companies to temporarily hire highly skilled workers. This Note provides an empirical analysis of the historical wages of H-1B workers and domestic workers in the technology industry to determine whether H-1B workers earn more or less than domestic workers in the same industry. In the technology industry, H-1B workers' wage premium has eroded in recent years relative to domestic workers, leading to stagnant wages that may deter the "best and the brightest" from choosing to enter into the H-1B process. …

The Ironies Of Automation Law: Tying Policy Knots With Fair Automation Practices Principles, Meg L. Jones

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Rapid developments in sensors, computing, and robotics, including power, kinetics, control, telecommunication, and artificial intelligence have presented opportunities to further integrate sophisticated automation across society. With these opportunities come questions about the ability of current laws and policies to protect important social values new technologies may threaten. As sophisticated automation moves beyond the cages of factories and cockpits, the need for a legal approach suitable to guide an increasingly automated future becomes more pressing. This Article analyzes examples of legal approaches to automation thus far by legislative, administrative, judicial, state, and international bodies. The case studies reveal an interesting irony: …

Invisible Labor, Invisible Play: Online Gold Farming And The Boundary Between Jobs And Games, Julian Dibbell

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

When does work become play and play become work? Court shave considered the question in a variety of economic contexts, from student athletes seeking recognition as employees to professional blackjack players seeking to be treated by casinos just like casual players. Here, this question is applied to a relatively novel context: that of online gold farming, a gray-market industry in which wage-earning workers, largely based in China, are paid to play fantasy massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) that reward them with virtual items that their employers sell for profit to the same games' casual players. Gold farming is clearly a …

An Empirical Analysis Of Noncompetition Clauses And Other Restrictive Postemployment Covenants, Randall Thomas

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Employment contracts for most employees are not publicly available, leaving researchers to speculate about whether they contain postemployment restrictions on employee mobility, and if so, what those provisions look like. Using a large sample of publicly available CEO employment contracts, we are able to examine these noncompetition covenants, including postemployment covenants not to compete ("CNCs" or "noncompetes'), nonsolicitation agreements ("NSAs"), and nondisclosure agreements ("NDAs'). What we found confirms some long-held assumptions about restrictive covenants but also uncovers some surprises.

We begin by discussing why employers use restrictive covenants and examining how the courts have treated them. We then analyze an …