Law Commons^™

Dean Melanie Leslie’S Office Hours, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Event Invitations 2024

Join Dean Leslie and Professor Emeritus Richard Weisberg, author of ‘Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France,’ for a discussion on World War II, the Nazi occupation of France and how the French legal system was changed to perpetuate the Holocaust in France.

Small Print, Big Impact: Examining The Effects Of Forced Arbitration, Myriam E. Gilles

Faculty Testimony

Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Toward The Substitutionary Promise Of Ptab Review, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Online Publications

Although administrative patent trial proceedings under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) have done much to improve the efficient reevaluation of patent validity, significant problems remain. Divergent burdens of proof among the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the U.S. district courts allow the agency to disregard prior judicial decisions about patent validity and for patents to be relitigated even after surviving judicial review. Divergent claim construction standards allow for similar arbitrage, and, although the USPTO has now aligned its claim construction approach with that of the courts through rulemaking, that …

Mmu: 04/08/24–04/14/24, Student Bar Association

Monday Morning Update

This Week @ NDLS

Mass Times

Commons Daily Menu

General Announcements

Vol. 66, No. 12 (April 8, 2024)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

1l Final Review Sessions, Cardozo Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Cardozo Office Of Student Services & Advising

Flyers 2023-2024

Con Law - April 8, 2024

Property - April 10, 2024

Contracts - April 15, 2024

Criminal Law - April 17, 2024

The Secret Lives Of Environmental Rights, Sonya Ziaja

Pace Environmental Law Review

Do constitutional environmental rights change hearts and minds? How could they? This Essay describes three possible hypotheses of the relationships among constitutional environmental rights, meaning, and behavior: The Separate Domains Approach, The Constitutive Approach, and The Mutually Constitutive Approach. The theories underlying these hypotheses, and explored in this Essay, may provide some insight into constitutional environmental rights and how they may evolve throughout generations.

State Constitutions In The Woods, Quinn Yeargain

Pace Environmental Law Review

Before the adoption of environmental rights provisions beginning in the 1970s, most state constitutions did not contain provisions that protected the natural environment from degradation. Instead, to the contrary, many constitutions—especially in western states—contained policies that have long entrenched carbon-intensive infrastructures and have favored extractive industries. But starting in the early 1900s, a handful of states began amending their constitutions to incorporate environmental policy provisions. These additions helped preserve forested lands by giving state governments the power to respond to uncontrolled forest fires and adopt policies to prevent deforestation. Other amendments established fish and game commissions as constitutional entities, safeguarding …

Some Lessons For Crafting A State Constitution-Based Right To A Clean Environment, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Pace Environmental Law Review

While New York most recently added an environmental rights amendment to its constitution, Pennsylvania and Montana have had these amendments in their constitutions since the seventies. Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Massachusetts have enacted weaker iterations of rights to a clean environment. Other states, like Maine, have faced challenges that blocked an amendment’s passage. This Article provides an initial analysis of the state environmental rights amendments currently in place, examining their origins, language, placement in the constitutions, and the major judicial decisions impacting their interpretation. It concludes by comparing the existing environmental rights amendments to the proposed amendment that failed …

Indigenizing The Right To A Healthy Environment, Elisabeth Parker, Heather Tanana

Pace Environmental Law Review

The most severe impacts resulting from environmental degradation are experienced by already-vulnerable populations, including Indigenous peoples. A growing number of countries are formally recognizing the basic human right to a healthy environment, which can help realize environmental and climate justice for these communities. On July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a landmark resolution formally recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The adoption of this resolution represents a pivotal moment in the understanding and implementation of a human rights-based approach to protecting the environment. However, it is important to recognize that historically, Indigenous …

Green Amendments, Land Use, And Transportation: What Could Go Wrong?, Michael Lewyn

Pace Environmental Law Review

As more states amend their constitutions to include a green amendment, the vague nature of these amendments leaves a concerning amount of interpretative power to courts. This article examines how some courts have interpreted green amendments and how these interpretations risk the misuse of green amendments. Additionally, this article examines how such misuse may be avoided.

The Value Of Constitutional Environmental Rights And Public Trusts, John C. Dernbach

Pace Environmental Law Review

As part of the modern environmental movement of the 1970s, five states (Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, and Pennsylvania) adopted constitutional amendments recognizing a right to a quality environment, a public trust for public natural resources, or both. Half a century later, there is a renewed interest in constitutional environmental rights, inspired in no small part by the failure of existing laws to adequately address the climate crisis. A sixth state (New York) recognized a constitutional right to a quality environment in 2021, and more than a dozen states are considering such amendments. Still, the great majority of environmental protection at …

130 Years And Counting Into Forever — New York's Forever Wild Constitutional Amendment And Lessons For Modern Green Amendments, Timothy E. Cox

Pace Environmental Law Review

In the 135 years of New York’s Forever Wild Amendment’s existence, it has been challenged by a range of court cases and thereby interpreted by courts throughout New York. The results of these cases frequently have upheld the heart of Forever Wild: to protect New York’s Forest Preserve land. This Article provides a history of the Forever Wild Amendment, an analysis of the courts’ and New York Attorney General’s interpretations of the Amendment, and a discussion of how this information can guide the future of New York’s Green Amendment.

Administering Environmental Justice: How New York’S Environmental Rights Amendment Could Transform Business As Usual, Rebecca Bratspies

Pace Environmental Law Review

Since New York became the latest state to pass an environmental rights amendment, there has been a great deal of analysis regarding how the judi- ciary will interpret the Green Amendment; however, state and local officials need not wait for the courts to enforce the Green Amendment. This Article explores the authority state and local officials have to carry out the purpose of the Green Amendment. Additionally, it discusses what the passage of the Green Amendment means in practice and how, and why, state officials such as the Attorney General should implement the Green Amendment.

Introduction, Marisa Barber

Pace Environmental Law Review

Introduction

Use Of Restrictive Housing In The Juvenile Justice System, Caleb D. Purvis, April Terry

SACAD: John Heinrichs Scholarly and Creative Activity Days

In recent years, the term solitary confinement was replaced with restrictive housing (RH) as it had a less negative tone. However, the terms both represent the same process of isolating individuals in cells with nearly no contact with others. Restrictive housing has many negative effects, including, but not limited to deteriorating mental health and increased rates of recidivism. Such practices are not limited to the adult system as incarcerated youth are also subjected to various forms of restrictive housing (e.g., protective custody, disciplinary and administrative segregation). While those who oppose the use of RH call this cruel and unusual punishment, …

The Anti-Racist Imperative Of Infancy, Laura Cohen

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In 2019, a widely disseminated video of the arrest of a six-year-old girl in her Florida elementary school provoked outrage across the country. The footage shows the girl sobbing as an armed police officer in full uniform and bullet-proof vest handcuffs and leads her from the principal’s office to a waiting patrol car. Her crime was having a temper tantrum in class after a sleepless night. When it was revealed that another six-year-old was arrested at the same school by the same officer on the same day and for similar reasons, media pundits and the general public debated questions of …

“I Saw Guns And Sharp Swords In The Hands Of Young Children”: Why Mental Health Courts For Juveniles With Autism Spectrum Disorder And Fetal Alcohol Spectrum/Disorder Are Needed, Michael Perlin, Heather Cucolo, Deborah Dorfman

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In this Article, we offer—we believe for the first time in the scholarly literature—a potentially (at least partially) ameliorative solution to the problems faced by persons with autism (ASD) and fetal alcohol disorder (FASD) in the criminal justice system: the creation of (separate sets of) problem-solving juvenile mental health courts specifically to deal with cases of juveniles in the criminal justice system with ASD, and with FASD. There is currently at least one juvenile mental health court that explicitly accepts juveniles with autism, but there are, to the best of our knowledge, no courts set up specifically for these two …

Learning Law In Elementary And High School: Innovating Civics Education For A More Empowered Citizenry, Ariel Liberman, Michael Broyde

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

A principal objective of the public school system in a democracy is to promote societal cohesion by way of preparing students for civic engagement. There exists a founding belief that a democratic nation ought to be composed of educated activists, run by innovators, and kept in check by involved citizens. For, indisputably, the democratic experiment—our values, our institutions—can only be upheld anew with each generation on the backs of critique, reinvention, and reinvigoration. But, as so many have mentioned when discussing the civics education paradigm, the increase in educational opportunities and the marked expansion of our school system has not …

Applying Movement Lawyering Principles To The Redistricting Movement, Lavanya Prabhakar

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Despite national attention to unfair congressional district maps, efforts to make maps more representative through litigation have felt futile. However, despite unfavorable Supreme Court rulings, organizing around redistricting has seen wins on the state level, through the creation of independent redistricting commissions and map redraws. First, this Note reviews the history of race-based and partisan gerrymandering and the volatile swings of redistricting litigation. Then, it considers the role of organizing in redistricting, focusing on case studies from Ohio and North Carolina. Finally, relying on firsthand interviews and available data, this Note argues that organizing and litigation must work together under …

Incarcerated Workers Will Be Heard: Protecting The Right To Unionize Prisoners Through Dignity, Samuel Richter

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Comment posits that incarcerated workers possess an inherent right to unionize pursuant to human dignity. Centering dignity in this discussion highlights the ways in which prisoners’ unions secure the economic and political conditions needed to express their autonomy and foster rehabilitation. By reviewing the historical successes and missteps of the incarcerated workers’ labor movement in the United States, this Comment demonstrates that an appreciation for dignity is crucial to prevent factional violence between incarcerated people on the one hand and the over-professionalization of prisoner organization on the other. Recognizing that unionization is a matter of dignity, not free speech …

Reproductive Rights And Felony Disenfranchisement: The New Frontier Of An Old Voter Suppression Tactic, Jessie Rubini

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Voter suppression and anti-abortion, anti-reproductive care efforts are mutually reinforcing, working together to diminish political participation, especially for women of color. I argue that politicians could use the Dobbs decision to further suppress Black voters, specifically Black women voters, by prosecuting abortions as felonies. The effect would be disenfranchisement of thousands of people. This Comment covers the connected histories of voting rights and abortion rights in America. The first section of this Comment will briefly cover the history of voting rights in America with a focus on racial discrimination. The second section will cover one voter suppression, felony disenfranchisement. Finally, …

The Epistemic Preconditions Of Markets And Their Historicity, Lisa Herzog

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

The Monetary Structure Of Economic Activity: A Constitutional Analysis, Christine Desan

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Concepts, Contexts, Contests, Roy Kreitner

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Methodological Tensions In Understanding Markets, Marietta Auer, Hanoch Dagan, Roy Kreitner, Ralf Michaels

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Aristotle On Reciprocity, Equivalent Value, And The Embeddedness Of Markets, Rachel Z. Friedman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

The Epicycles Of General Equilibrium Theory, David Singh Grewal

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

"Just What Is Going On Here?" An Homage, Barak D. Richman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Bargaining With Giants And Immortals: Bargaining Power As The Core Of Theorizing Inequality, Marietta Auer

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.