Law Commons^™

Unleashing The Beast: Confronting Animal Trafficking As Organized Crime In The Americas, Erick J. Wilson

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Wildlife trafficking is a serious yet often overlooked issue across the Americas. This Note examines wildlife trafficking across the Americas, analyzing the legal frameworks and challenges facing countries like the United States, Guatemala, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, and Brazil. Three key obstacles emerge: the lack of recognition of trafficking as organized crime, limited resources for enforcement, and deficient penalties. Though the United States has laws like the Lacey Act to address importation of illegally traded wildlife, weak foreign laws constrain efficacy. Many Latin American nations do not categorize wildlife trafficking as organized crime, despite its intricate parallels with activities like drug …

Haitian Climate Migrants: Heralds Of The United States’ Unprepared Immigration System, Noah Rust

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This note explores the complex relationship between climate change and Human migration, and the ensuing complications for the United States immigration scheme. Climate change can both directly and indirectly contribute to human migration, yet the United States’ regulatory scheme is unprepared for this reality and its consequences. Through analyzing several separate migratory events in Haiti, the specific failures of the United States status quo immigration systems become clearer. Further, the note will identify frameworks that could offer relief to climate-related migrants.

The Law Of The Territories Of The United States In Puerto Rico, The Oldest Colony In The World, Carlos Iván Gorrín Peralta

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

The territorial law and policy of the United States changed towards the turn of the 20th century, as territorial expansion was no longer motivated by the extension of national borders, but by geopolitical, strategic and economic objectives. The new territories acquired in the Spanish American war were different from those previously annexed. The resulting constitutional doctrine of the Insular Cases differentiated the previous incorporated territories from the new unincorporated territories, which were not destined to be part of the U.S. nor to be admitted as new states. Despite purported changes in the relation with the United States in 1950-1952, Puerto …

The United States Should Take A Page Out Of Canadian Law When It Comes To Privacy, Genetic And Otherwise, Ashley Rahaim

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

Genetic information is intimate and telling data warranting privacy in public and private realms. The privacy protections offered in the United States and Canada vastly differ when it comes to genetic privacy. Search and seizure law mirrors the privacy gap in the countries, as well as their treatment of DNA database information.

This note explores the foreshadowing of the creation of genetic privacy laws and their varying levels of protection based on the way private information was treated by state actors through search and seizure caselaw, the creation of legal precedent, and the treatment of intimate personal data in the …

Proving Intra-Racial Discrimination In The U.S. And Canada: The Room For Making The Artificial Distinction Between Genealogical Relatedness And Race, Martin Kwan

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This article takes the role of the Devil’s advocate in order to question the judicial willingness to distinguish “race” from comparable notions. It suggests that, depending on the exact circumstances, a defendant can make an arguable case that the alleged intra–racial discrimination is motivated by perceived genealogical relatedness, but not because of belonging to the same “race.” Factually, the defendant claims to believe in being remotely genealogically related to the plaintiff. This is not unworthy of credence, because it is academically recognized that modern genealogy and root tracing can be an imaginative, forged exercise. Legally, this argument is supportable because …

Are We Atoning For Our Past Or Creating More Problems: How Covid-19 Legislative Relief Laws Are Shaping The Identities Of Indigenous Populations In North America, Samuel Kramer

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This student’s note will attempt to answer three questions: 1) How Canadian and American legal precedent affects the modern identity of Indigenous Populations? 2) How COVID-19 legislative relief continues to shape indigenous identities? and 3) Can a comparative study teach legislators about enacting legislation that withstands shifts in political climates?

Emergency Powers: Understanding The Benefits While Mitigating The Consequences, Savannah Valentine

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This note compares the short-term benefits and long-term consequences of emergency powers using examples from several countries and offers solutions to mitigate those consequences. Historically, emergency powers were only granted in times of true crises. In those circumstances, emergency powers can serve an important purpose: to help the government run smoothly and efficiently. Unfortunately, permanent power grabs are now more common and the standard for what constitutes an emergency has weakened severely, often resulting in civil rights infringements. Possible solutions to this problem include understanding the negative effects of sunset clauses in emergency acts, increased awareness of manufactured emergencies, encouraging …

What The United States Could Learn From Norway: Training Police Officers To Be Social Workers, Not Warriors, Liana Brown

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This note compares the training of police officers and its consequential effects in the United States versus that of Norway. In the United States, the lack of national training standards, in conjunction with an emphasis on technical skills and weaponry, has further perpetuated the “Warrior mindset.” The “Warrior mindset” reflects the rhetoric that officers are akin to combatants in a war, in which they have a duty to safeguard the rest of civilization against criminals that can strike at any moment. Contrastingly, the training programs for police officers in Norway include a consolidated and robust three-year education program that emphasizes …

Revengence Taken: Russian Active Measures And Our Entrenched Racial Divide, Erin Berhan

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Our racial divide has always been a national security threat. An early observer of our American project, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote about this threat to our future union in “Democracy in America,” learned by merely travelling the young nation thirty years before our Civil War.1 Despite generations of societal and legal evolution, our nation has not overcome the wounds and disabilities that our racial divide left behind — now ripe for modern security threats. In 2019, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released Volume II of their years long investigation into Russian Active Measures of interference with our …

The Flag Can Travel But The Constitution Must Ask Permission: How The First Circuit And The District For Puerto Rico Commit To Equal Protection Without Abandoning The Insular Cases Doctrine, Alejandro J. Anselmi González

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

For American citizens, one of the most important safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States is the equal protection of the law. The United States prides itself on the doctrine and jurisprudence of equal protection because of the social progression achieved since the end of the Civil War. The Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution eliminated the institution of slavery and were supposed to guarantee equal civil and legal status to all citizens. The Constitution, however, has not been consistently interpreted in this way since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. The nation emerged from this conflict …

Legal And Ethical Implications Of U.S. And Canadian Vaccine Contracts: The Impact Of Vaccine Nationalism On The Global Pandemic Response, Ryan S. Tahiri

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This note explores the COVID-19 vaccine contracts between the U.S. and Canada and the impact of these types of agreements on the global pandemic response. These “pre-purchases,” many of which were executed before the development of a vaccine, have afforded a select few nations the opportunity to stockpile vaccines, while other nations with fewer resources are unable to secure any doses. An effective method to counter the effects of the pandemic is the creation of a global vaccine network that provides equitable access to vaccine doses for nations in need. COVAX was launched to ensure that lower and middle-income nations …

Covid–19, Housing And Evictions: A Comparative Case Study Of Housing Law And Policy In The United States And Argentina Through An International Human Rights Lens, Lily Frances Fontenot

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This Note seeks to address the impact of international human rights obligations on domestic housing laws and policies through a comparative case study of Argentina and the United States. Specifically, it will discuss each country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, their housing obligations under international human rights law, and how each country is addressing their own unique housing and eviction crises. Finally, this Note will offer recommendations on how each country should modify their housing policies in light of the pandemic in order to comply with international human rights standards.

Does It Really Matter?: Making The Case For A Materiality Requirement In False Claims To U.S. Citizenship Under The Immigration And Nationality Act, Elizabeth Montano, Edward F. Ramos

University of Miami Law Review

Materiality plays an important role in limiting the reach of laws that penalize misrepresentations. Laws that include no materiality element punish any covered misrepresentation regardless of its relevance—like lying about hair color on a loan application. By contrast, laws that include a materiality element withhold punishment for immaterial misrepresentations of that kind—in other words, misrepresentations that have no tendency to affect the ultimate decision.
Our immigration laws make it a deportable offense for a noncitizen to “falsely represent” herself as a U.S. citizen for a purpose or benefit under the law. Although this law has been on the books for …

Information Age Imperialism: China, ‘Race,’ And Neo-Colonialism In Africa And Latin America, James Dever, Jack Dever

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Live: How North Atlantic Right Whales Are Going Extinct Despite Environmental Protections, Justin Weatherwax

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Right To Food In Puerto Rico: Where Colonialism And Disaster Meet, Gabriela Valentín Díaz

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Small Business And Bankruptcy: Recent Changes In Kosovo And The United States Compared, Bruce A. Markell

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

United States, small businesses account for 99.7% of all employers, and about 47.3% of private sector employment.1 In the European Union (EU) non-financial business sector, SMEs accounted for 99.8% of all enterprises.2 These enterprises employed almost ninety-eight million people—66.6% of total employment—in the EU.

SMEs are variously defined. In the United States, until recently the definition of an SME was an enterprise that employed less than 500 individuals.4 In the EU, SMEs are defined as businesses which employ less than 250 staff and have an annual turnover of less than €50 million, or whose balance sheet total is less than …

How Hard Can This Be? The Dearth Of U.S. Tax Treaties With Latin America, Patricia A. Brown

University of Miami Law Review

The United States has fewer tax treaties with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and even China have with such countries. After first describing ways in which tax treaties reduce barriers to cross-border trade and investment, this Article considers in turn various possible explanations for this situation. It examines, and rejects, the hypothesis that Latin American countries are reluctant to enter into tax treaties in general. It then considers, and rejects, the possibility that Latin American countries are opposed to in-creased trade and investment from the United States in particular. It then …

Their Cheese Has Holes But Their Gun Policy Doesn’T: A Review Of The Swiss Gun Policy Compared To The United States, Nikolaos Manuel Hernandez

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

“With the right to bear arms come a great responsibility to use caution and common sense on handgun purchases.” – Ronald Reagan

The left will say we need more gun control, the right will say it is our constitutional right to bear arms. Is one truly better than the other? Does the answer lie simply in gun education? This note will scrutinize the history of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution as it relates to gun rights, gun laws, and gun violence. Next, this note will compare those rights, laws, and statistics to that of Switzerland. Switzerland’s gun …

The Shortcomings Of The “Public Charge” Doctrine: Why The Dhs Final Rule Should Be Abandoned And Why The United States Should Look To The Progressive Immigration Policies Of Sweden, Emily Demetree

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

The United States has a longstanding history of denying aliens admission based on a wide range of grounds that we have deemed to demonstrate the alien would be either dangerous to society or a financial burden on the state. “Self-sufficiency” has been a basic principle of US immigration law since the country’s earliest immigration statutes. It is the contention of the Department of Homeland Security that the availability of public benefits can create an incentive for immigration to the United States at a rate that cannot be financially supported by the government. Certain European countries, such as Sweden, see a …

Environmental Racism: How Governments Are Systematically Poisoning Indigenous Communities & The U.N.’S Role, Maia Dombey

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This note examines the practice of toxic waste dumping on indigenous lands and how it fits within the broader concept of environmental racism. It further evaluates the international human rights framework and how the United Nations and other international bodies interact with this concept and provide means for protection against this illicit practice. Further, it examines the role of the Special Rapporteur on the Implications for Human Rights of the Environmentally Sound Management and Disposal of Hazardous Substances and Wastes and how he, in his role as Special Rapporteur, can provide relief to indigenous communities suffering the effects of this …

Reforming Expansive Crime Control & Sentencing Legislation In An Era Of Mass Incarceration: A National And Cross-National Study, Rebecca Wasif

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Variations On A Theme: Corporate Law In Latin America, Continental Europe, And The United States, Ángel R. Oquendo

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

The regulation of incorporated companies in Latin America and Continental Europe appears to distance itself from that in the United States. It differs in how it structures itself and handles incorporation, incorporators, piercing, governance, discipline, and shareholders. In their regulatory exertions, both regimes rely, certainly, on legislation and adjudication yet do so differently, qualitatively in addition to quantitatively.

Apparently, civil and common law continue to specialize respectively though not exclusively in statutes and binding precedents. Still, they ever more frequently intrude into each other’s apparent specialty, while leaving their own imprint on it. The tendency to converge coexists with that …

Haiti – U.S. Migration Through A Labor Lens: The H-2 Visa Program, The Temporary Protected Status (Tps), And Its Policy Implications, Tatiana Devia

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Process & Industrial Developments Limited V. Nigeria: Exception Under The Fsia When Award Has Been Set Aside By A Court Of The Country “Under The Law Of Which” The Award Was Made, Ndifreke Uwem

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

In March 2018, Process & Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) filed a petition at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to confirm an arbitral award against the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The proceedings were conducted in three phases – jurisdictional, liability, and damages. The arbitration provision in the underlying contract hardly represented a model of clarity. It provided for the application of the Nigerian arbitration act to any dispute between the parties. On the other hand, it specified London as the “venue” of the proceedings. This posed a problem as to whether Nigeria was the juridical seat …

Nafta/Usmca Dispute Settlement Mechanisms And The Constitution, John S. Baker Jr., Phd, Lindsey Keiser

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Canada’S Summary Trial Procedure: A Viable Alternative To Summary Judgment On Trademark Likelihood Of Confusion Actions In The United States, Elaine Kussurelis

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

“So Teacher, What Is The Right Answer?” Incorporating Critical Thinking Into The Mexican Legal Education: The Application Of The Us Model, Dr. Ying Chen

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Custody Rights Of Same-Sex Couples In The United States V. Chile: More Progress Needed, Isabel Jolicoeur

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Impeachment Process Of Brazil: A Comparative Look At Impeachment In Brazil And The United States, Alexandra Rattinger

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.