Law Commons^™

By Any Other Name: Image Advertising And The Commercial Speech Doctrine In Jordan V. Jewel, Kelly Miller

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Comment focuses on the commercial speech doctrine as applied to modern advertising strategies, specifically, corporate image advertising. It centers on the recent litigation between basketball superstar Michael Jordan and a Chicago-area grocery chain, Jewel-Osco. When Michael Jordan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Jewel-Osco was invited to submit a congratulatory ad for a commemorative issue of Sports Illustrated devoted exclusively to Jordan’s career and accomplishments. Because Jordan had spent the bulk of his storied professional basketball career with the Chicago Bulls, the ad seemed a natural fit. Jordan, who did not give permission for his name to …

Set The Statutes Straight: Amending The Lanham Act To Dispel The Confusion Regarding Reverse Confusion, Inna Kaminer

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

The typical case of alleged trademark infringement, i.e., “forward confusion,” involves a larger and more established “senior user” and a smaller and less powerful “junior user.” The secondary junior user wrongfully uses the first senior user’s mark as its own, and thus benefits from the senior user’s more established goodwill. In ruling on a senior user’s trademark infringement claim, the court will use a set of “likelihood of confusion” factors to determine if consumers are confusing the junior user’s goods for that of the senior. Each circuit’s factors vary, but they are harmonious. The issue that this Note explores is …

Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act: The True Culprit Of Internet Defamation, Heather Saint

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Note highlights the growing concern of Internet defamation and the lack of viable legal remedies available to its victims. Internet defamation is internet speech with the purpose to disparage another’s reputation. At common law, a victim of alleged defamation has the right to file suit against not only the original speaker of the defamatory statements, but the person or entity to give that statement further publication as well. In certain cases even the distributor, such as a newspaper stand, can be held liable for a defamation claim. However, liability due to defamatory speech on the Internet is quite different. …

Balancing Disclosure And Privacy Interests In Campaign Finance, Sarah Harding

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The law of campaign finance pits two important First Amendment interests against each other: disclosure and privacy. The Supreme Court has recognized the need to balance these two interests to allow for effective elections and to safeguard individual rights. However, through the years the Court has failed to balance these interests equally, resulting in vacillating decisions that unfairly sacrifice one for the other. From Burroughs v. United States in 1934 to Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, the Court has failed to provide a workable roadmap for legislatures in the creation of campaign finance disclosure laws and for lower courts …

Back To The Congressional Drawing Board: Inapplicability Of The Aumf To Al-Shabaab And Other New Faces Of Terrorism, Pierce Rand

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Chemical Weapons Convention: Hollow Idealism Or Capable Mechanism? The Syrian Intervention As A Test Case, David Martin

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Towards An Internet Bill Of Rights, Giovanna De Minico

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restoration Constitutionalism And Socialist Asia, Bui Ngoc Son

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defeating Trolls: The Impact Of Octane And Highmark On Patent Trolls, Aria Soroudi

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Comment discusses two Supreme Court cases, Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc. and Highmark, Inc. v. Allcare Health Management Systems, Inc., and their impact on patent litigation involving patent trolls. Prior to these cases, patent troll litigation was on a continual rise and Congress’s proposed measures were failing to curb the problem. Many companies, particularly startups, were left vulnerable to a patent troll threat because they could not afford the potential court costs to defend their case. This problem was compounded by the fact that traditional attorney fee shifting awards were extremely rigid and difficult to …

The Saga Of 5pointz: Vara's Deficiency In Protecting Notable Collections Of Street Art, Timothy Marks

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Note focuses on the protection of collections of street art under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (“VARA”). It centers on the recent litigation surrounding 5Pointz, a complex of unused industrial buildings in Long Island City, Queens, New York, that were used to exhibit works of street art by many well-known street artists. Since 2002, the site was used by artists to exhibit their works with the permission of the property owner and an appointed curator. In November 2013, several of the 5Pointz artists filed a claim in district court to prevent the planned destruction of 5Pointz to …

From Due Diligence To Discrimination: Employer Use Of Social Media Vetting In The Hiring Process And Potential Liabilities, Jennifer Delarosa

Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review

This Note analyzes the regulatory and legal issues potentially triggered by an employer’s screening and use of an applicant’s social media profile(s) in the hiring process. The Note proceeds in three parts. Part I provides background information, including a history of the rise and use of social media in the hiring process, current various state and federal legislative measures designed to protect applicants’ online privacy, and the reasoning behind such legislation. Part II discusses the potential discrimination and other labor and employment-related lawsuits to which employers may be exposed by using online information in hiring practices. It is important to …

Election Law—Introduction, Jessica A. Levinson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Boundless War: Challenging The Notion Of A Global Armed Conflict Against Al-Qaeda And Its Affiliates, Andrew Beshai

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The U.S. military response to the 9/11 attacks has expanded into a “global war” without a definite geographic scope. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have executed attacks in several countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen under the “global war” paradigm. This Article challenges the concept of a global armed conflict, instead favoring the “epicenter-of-hostilities” framework for determining the legality of military action against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups. This approach, rooted in established international law, measures the existence of specific criteria in each nation where hostile forces are present to determine if an armed conflict in …

The Ndaa, Aumf, And Citizens Detained Away From The Theater Of War: Sounding A Clarion Call For A Clear Statement Rule, Diana Cho

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In the armed conflict resulting from the September 11 attacks, the executive authority to order the indefinite detention of citizens captured away from the theater of war is an issue of foreign and domestic significance. The relevant law of armed conflict provisions relevant to conflicts that are international or non-international in nature, however, do not fully address this issue. Congress also intentionally left the question of administrative orders of citizen detainment unresolved in a controversial provision of the 2012 version of the annually-enacted National Defense Authorization Act. While plaintiffs in Hedges v. Obama sought to challenge the enforceability of NDAA’s …

The Falcon Cannot Hear The Falconer: How California's Initiative Process Is Creating An Untenable Constitution, Rudy Klapper

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Californians have always cherished the idea that ultimate political power lies in the people, an idea best represented by the state’s hugely influential initiative process. Today, however, that initiative power threatens to spiral out of control, thanks in large part to the California Supreme Court’s inability to construe appropriate limits on it. This has created an unbalanced government where the rights of minorities are easily circumscribed and the financial and political infrastructure of the state is in danger of buckling under the combined weight of dozens of initiatives. This Article argues that the judiciary’s haphazard interpretation of various rules and …

Silencing The Call To Arms: A Shift Away From Cyber Attacks As Warfare, Ryan Patterson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Cyberspace has developed into an indispensable aspect of modern society, but not without risk. Cyber attacks have increased in frequency, with many states declaring cyber operations a priority in what has been called the newest domain of warfare. But what rules govern? The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare suggests existent laws of war are sufficient to govern cyber activities; however, the Tallinn Manual ignores fundamental problems and unique differences between cyber attacks and kinetic attacks. This Article argues that several crucial impediments frustrate placing cyber attacks within the current umbra of warfare, chiefly the problems …

Beginning To Learn How To End: Lessons On Completion Strategies, Residual Mechanisms, And Legacy Considerations From Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals To The International Criminal Court, Dafna Gozani

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Caucasian Powder Keg: Ramil Safarov’S Transfer And Its Effect On Armenian-Azerbaijani Relations, Daniel Rossi

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Carrots And Sticks: Safer Fresh Produce In The United States Through British Style Supermarket Co-Regulation, Victoria Tokar

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Re-Clarifying China’S Trust Law: Characteristics And New Conceptual Basis, Kai Lyu

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

The common law trust institution always encounters modifications when it is transplanted to civil law jurisdictions. China designs its Trust Law with three characteristics in the process of localization: indeterminate title of trust assets, settlor’s intrusive rights, and beneficiary’s right in personam with two peculiarities. By virtue of these characteristics, Chinese lawmakers and politicians expect to make the trust institution more acceptable for the general public and orchestrated with the civil law tradition. However, these characteristics give rise to theoretical confusions and practical obstacles. This unintended result is not caused by insufficient rules in the Trust Law but by a …

Why Should We Not Protest For Consumption Tax Reduction? Consumption Tax Rate As A Partial Mechanism For Increasing Consumer Wealth, Limor Riza, Noam Sher

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

If you are an activist protesting against the high costs of living, we would like to offer you one suggestion: do not demand that the government reduce consumption tax. Social activists tend to believe that a government policy reducing consumption tax can, by itself, benefit the general population. This paper explains our suggestion to the contrary.

The tax field alone is insufficient for consumption tax reduction to be effective in increasing consumer wealth over benefiting suppliers. Due to cognitive biases, or heuristics, when the government changes consumption tax rates in order to increase consumers’ well-being, suppliers are able to …

Law Of War Developments Issue Introduction, David Glazier

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Rhetoric Obscures Reality: The Definition Of Corruption And Its Shortcomings, Jessica Medina

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Due to public scorn after the unraveling of the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the Federal Election Campaign Act’s restrictions on political contributions and expenditures. Buckley v. Valeo established that no legitimate government interest existed to justify restrictions on campaign expenditures, and only the prevention of corruption or the appearance of corruption could justify restrictions on campaign contributions. Since then, the Court has struggled to articulate a definition of corruption that balances First Amendment protections with the potential for improper influence. This Article argues that the Court’s current definition of corruption is too narrow, and proposes …

"The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself": The Constitutional Infirmities With Felon Disenfranchisement And Citing Fear As The Rationale For Depriving Felons Of Their Right To Vote, Erika Stern

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Felon disenfranchisement, a mechanism by which felons and former felons are deprived of their right to vote, is a widespread practice that has been challenged on many grounds. However, felon disenfranchisement has not yet been properly challenged under the First Amendment. This Article argues that states implicate felons’ First Amendment rights through felon disenfranchisement without citing adequate or compelling rationales to justify this severe intrusion. In fact, at least one rationale, a rationale based on the fear of the way felons might vote, is itself inconsistent with First Amendment principles. Disenfranchising felons based on a fear of the way that …

The Pacific Alliance And Its Effect On Latin America: Must A Continental Divide Be The Cost Of A Pacific Alliance Success?, Christine Daniels

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dynamic Allocation Of Burden Doctrine As A Mitigation Of The Undesirable Effects Of Iqbal’S Pleading Standard, Nicolás J. Frías Ossandón

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Age Of ‘Depoliticisation’ And ‘Dejuridification’ And Its ‘Logic Of Assembling’: An Essay Against The Instrumentalist Use Of Comparative Law’S Geopolitics, Luca Siliquini-Cinelli

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

While comparative law has become a key discipline, its instrumentalist use has turned out to be a powerful weapon: it is the ‘pen’ by which the identity of and differences in law’s geopolitics are continually written and rewritten. Given its attractive functionalist essence, comparative law is gaining increasing international credit as a way of developing newer theories of sovereignty and governance in a framework in which law is conceived of less as a set of rules and more as a symbolic vestimentum of global soft power. The present contribution critically investigates the relationship between distortive views of comparative law’s geopolitics …

Repatriate . . . Then Compensate: Why The United States Owes Reparation Payments To Former Guantánamo Detainees, Cameron Bell

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In late 2001, U.S. government officials chose Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as the site to house the “war on terror” detainees. Since then, 779 individuals have been detained at Guantánamo. Many of the detainees have endured years of detention, cruel and degrading treatment, and for some, torture—conduct that violates well-established prohibitions against torture and inhumane treatment under both general international law and the law of war. Under these bodies of law, the United States is required to make reparation—through restitution, compensation, and satisfaction—for acts that violate its international obligations. But the United States has not offered financial compensation to any Guantánamo …

Autonomous Weapons And Accountability: Seeking Solutions In The Law Of War, Kelly Cass

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Autonomous weapons are increasingly used by militaries around the world. Unlike conventional unmanned weapons such as drones, autonomous weapons involve a machine deciding whether to deploy lethal force. Yet, because a machine cannot have the requisite mental state to commit a war crime, the legal scrutiny falls onto the decision to deploy an autonomous weapon. This Article focuses on the dual questions arising from that decision: how to regulate autonomous weapon use and who should be held criminally liable for an autonomous weapon’s actions. Regarding the first issue, this Article concludes that regulations expressly limiting autonomous weapon use to non-human …

Franchise And Contract Asymmetry: A Common Trans-Atlantic Agenda?, Tibor Tajti

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

Normative legal theories, no matter whether pluralist or monist, tend to formulate what the law should be. Based on what values, either on a purely theoretical plane, or based on a single or a few paradigm contracts – the contours of which seem to be most solidified according to common opinion – like sales contracts. They fail, however, to answer the query about what happens in cases of newer-generation contracts, such as franchise contracts, one of the quintessential features of which is information and strategic asymmetry. The basic premise of this article is that given the European popularity of business …