Science and Technology Law Commons^™

The Best Data Plan Is To Have A Game Plan: Obstacles And Solutions To Reaching International Data Privacy Agreements, James Y. Wang

Michigan Technology Law Review

The modern digital world relies on the instantaneous transfer of data. This digital highway is essential for the growth of the modern digital economy and contributes to the rise of globalization. In order to facilitate these data transfers, ground rules must first be put into place. To date, there are few, if any, binding international data privacy agreements. This is in part due to practical considerations, such as high administrability costs, inadequate enforcement agencies, and complex jurisdictional procedures. More fundamentally, however, this is due to competing incentive structures, as countries are incentivized to protect their own digital sovereignty by limiting …

The Ping-Pong Olympics Of Antisuit Injunction In Frand Litigation, King Fung Tsang, Jyh-An Lee

Michigan Technology Law Review

In the past two years, antisuit injunctions (ASIs) and subsequent legal proceedings associated with standard-essential patents (SEPs) subject to fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) commitments have proliferated in multiple jurisdictions. This phenomenon reveals not only the transnational nature of technical standards and FRAND-encumbered SEPs but also the jurisdictional tension between different national courts. This Article explains the emergence of ASIs in FRAND scenarios and recent developments in six jurisdictions with major interests in standard development and adoption. Countries have developed different approaches to ASIs based on their own domestic rules and interests. We believe that to promote technical compatibility and …

Fostering Production Of Pharmaceutical Products In Developing Countries, William Fisher, Ruth L. Okediji, Padmashree Gehl Sampath

Michigan Journal of International Law

The ways in which pharmaceutical products are currently developed, manufactured, and distributed fail to meet the needs of developing countries. The recent emergence of new infectious diseases, the associated surge of healthcare nationalism, and the prevalence of substandard and falsified drugs have strengthened substantially the net benefits of augmenting the capacity of developing countries to produce such products locally. Most previous efforts to do so have foundered. The chance of success in the future would be maximized by the adoption of five strategies : (a) clarifying the zones of discretion created by the relevant treaties to ensure that local firms …

Arms Control 2.0: Updating The Cyberweapon Arms Control Framework, Evan Mulbry

Michigan Technology Law Review

This Note analyzes multiple problems with the existing arms control framework for cyberweapons as well as surveillance technology and calls for four specific areas of reform. First, the existing framework does not specifically enumerate the software controlled under existing arms control treaties, which can lead to gaps in international export control compliance. Cyberweapons should be enumerated with greater specificity to prevent confusing and disjointed implementation by states. Second, the divide between Wassenaar and Shanghai Cooperation Organization conceptions of what constitutes a cyberweapon reduces the effectiveness of international control because nations do not share an agreed upon cyberweapon definition. States should …

Reinvigorating The Human Right To Technology, Haochen Sun

Michigan Journal of International Law

The right to technology is a forgotten human right. Dating back to 1948, the right was established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“UDHR”) in response to the massive destruction wrought by technologically advanced weapons in the Second World War. This human right embodies one of the most profound lessons the framers of the UDHR learned from this war: Technology must benefit humanity rather than harm it.

It has been more than seventy years since the adoption of the UDHR, and technology has advanced at a rapid pace and become more important than ever in our daily lives. Yet …

Tiny Things With A Huge Impact: The International Regulation Of Nanomaterials, Dario Picecchi

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Mounting evidence demonstrates that nanotechnology and nanomaterials impose severe environmental risks. To minimize these risks, the usage and handling of certain nanomaterials could be addressed under existing treaties such as the Rotterdam Convention, the Stockholm Convention, and the Basel Convention. However, even if existing treaties govern the handling of certain nanomaterials, no treaty effectively regulates all the specific challenges that nanomaterials pose to the global environment. Consequently, a completely new regulatory instrument is required. An international organization could take responsibility for developing and promoting such a nanospecific international legal framework. By incorporating the precautionary principle, a technology transfer, research cooperation, …

International Law In The Anthropocene: Responding To The Geoengineering Challenge, Karen N. Scott

Michigan Journal of International Law

From The Odyssey to The Tempest and beyond, the control and deliberate manipulation of the weather constitutes an enduring and universal theme in myth and literature. In the twenty-first century, it is scientists and engineers rather than authors and artists who dream of weather and climate control, and their story, as described by James Rodger Fleming, "is not, in essence, a heroic saga about new scientific discoveries that can save the planet, as many of the participants claim, but a tragicomedy of overreaching, hubris, and self-delusion." This notwithstanding, the argument that we should deliberately manipulate earth systems and natural processes …

States, Markets, And Gatekeepers: Public-Private Regulatory Regimes In An Era Of Economic Globalization, Christopher M. Bruner

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article illuminates the spectrum of international economic regimes through discussion of an under-theorized regulatory structure in which traditional distinctions between State and market, public and private power, hard and soft law, and international and domestic policy realms, essentially collapse-the "public-private gatekeeper."

Biopiracy And Beyond: A Consideration Of Socio-Cultural Conflicts With Global Patent Policies, Cynthia M. Ho

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article provides afresh and multi-dimensioned approach to a long-standing claim of biopiracy patents made by developing countries and communities. The basic principles of patent law and policy are first established to provide a foundation from which to evaluate the claim that genetic resources and traditional knowledge from developing countries are being misappropriated in a variety of ways that are loosely referred to as biopiracy. The Article distinguishes rhetoric from reality in examining biopiracy allegations from the perspective of national patent laws, as well as international agreements. In addition, the Article explains the underlying conflicts, misconceptions, and historical biases that …

The Universal Declaration On Bioethics And Human Rights: Promoting International Discussion On The Morality Of Non-Therapeutic Research On Children, Anna Gercas

Michigan Journal of International Law

After describing the Declaration and its drafting history, this Note will summarize several international, national, and regional guidelines regarding children as research subjects. The Note then argues for a prohibition of non-therapeutic research on children and concludes that international human rights law offers the most appropriate basis for the development of regulations on human experimentation.

Prescriptive Treaties In Global Warming: Applying The Factors Leading To The Montreal Protocol, Jasmine Abdel-Khalik

Michigan Journal of International Law

In order to combat the ever-increasing problem of global warming, developing nations need technology that will limit emissions while allowing for economic growth. This paper will first examine the problem of global warming. In Part II, the paper will explore the reasons developing nations currently are unable to reduce their emissions. In Part III, the paper will look at the factors leading to the success of the Montreal Protocol and examine the global warming debate in light of these factors.

Protecting Biodiversity: Recognizing International Intellectual Property Rights In Plant Genetic Resources, Rebecca L. Margulies

Michigan Journal of International Law

Accelerating deforestation in many tropical countries with the concomitant loss of plant species diversity incites increasing international concern. Until very recently, international environmental law tended to regard natural plant species as a "common heritage," a universal resource immune to private property claims. This common heritage approach to the problem of biodiversity loss has left the majority of plant species in a jurisprudential void, unprotected by property rights and subject to conflicting claims by countries with divergent goals. Unrelieved economic pressures force impoverished peoples in species-rich developing nations to resort to activities that ravage the forests, and the tragedy of biodiversity …

International Regulation And Control Of The Production And Use Of Chemicals And Pesticides: Perspectives For A Convention, Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz

Michigan Journal of International Law

A wide variety of instruments and mechanisms for the regulation and control of chemicals and pesticides is already available internationally. What is missing is an analysis that attempts to systematize the different approaches, to create transparency, to define where they overlap, and to discover prospective deficiencies and shortcomings. In order to accomplish this task, this article covers legally binding rules as well as recommendations and codes - the international soft law. The overall purpose is to outline a framework for future international regulation of chemicals and pesticides and to propose an international convention as a possible solution.

Direct Television Broadcasting And The Quest For Communication Equality, Howard C. Anawalt

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the immediate past modem communication means such as efficient telephone and television systems have been viewed as the luxuries of well developed economies. Rapid advances in the field of communications and computer technologies have changed this basic outlook. Now, it is possible to use these technologies as tools of economic growth in both developed and developing countries. This is primarily because cost has gone down while efficiency has gone up. A recent article concerning small computers demonstrates the point. "If the aircraft industry had developed as spectacularly as the computer industry over the past twenty-five years, a Boeing 767 …

Stein: Impact Of New Weapons Technology On International Law: Selected Aspects, Egon Schwelb

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Impact of New Weapons Technology on International Law: Selected Aspects by Eric Stein

Boskey & Willrich: Nuclear Proliferation: Prospects; And Willrich: Civil Nuclear Power And International Security, Charles N. Van Doren

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Nuclear Proliferation: Prospects for Control edited by Bennett Boskey and Mason Willrich, and Civil Nuclear Power and International Security edited by Mason Willrich

Diplomats, Scientists, And Politicians: The United States And The Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations, Harold Karan Jacobson, Eric Stein

Michigan Legal Studies Series

This study began in 1961 as a limited attempt to assess the impact of science and modern technology on the negotiating process and concepts of international organization, using the test ban negotiations then in progress as a case study. When the Moscow Treaty was signed, however, it seemed wise to broaden the focus and to capture as many of the details as we could that might help to explain this first formal arms control agreement between East and West in the nuclear age. Our analysis is clearly not definitive, but hopefully, it will be a useful source, even after all …

Space Communications And The Law: Adequate International Control After 1963?, Samuel D. Estep, Amalya L. Kearse

Michigan Law Review

During the current year, a space event of legal and technological significance will occur. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (A.T. & T.), using the launching facilities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will launch its first satellite for research in the area of commercial communications.† The A.T. & T. sphere will be the first tested by a private, commercial organization specifically for business purposes- to implement a plan eventually to provide increased and improved telecommunications on a grand scale at a lower cost. The satellite will relay television signals from the United States to England, Germany, and …

The Law-Making Treaties Of The International Telecommunication Union Through Time And In Space, J. Henry Glazer

Michigan Law Review

On the twenty-fifth of June, the Government of the United States of America received an invitation to attend in Russia a conference of plenipotentiaries to consider the revision of an important multilateral convention. Since the conference involved matters which, by American municipal practice, were solely within the competence of private enterprise and not subject to the control of government, the United States at first refused to attend. Russia, however, assured the United States that representatives of private enterprises would be welcome. Relations between these two countries were on such a friendly basis that the United States accepted the invitation extended …

International Control Of The Safety Of Nuclear-Powered Merchant Ships, William H. Berman, Lee M. Hydeman

Michigan Law Review

In recent years we have witnessed the transition of nuclear-powered ships from an imaginative dream to an engineering reality. This vast step from the drawing board to successful operation on the high-seas has taken place in a remarkably short span of time. Nevertheless, in the :flush of enthusiasm over the technological achievement, we must not lose sight of the fact that the promise of nuclear power for the propulsion of ships will not have been fulfilled until nuclear vessels are operating safely and economically over the maritime trade routes of the world. It would be unrealistic to assume that further …

Atomic Energy - Patents - Patent Aspects Of Domestic Law, Euratom, And The International Atomic Energy Agency, Peter H. Hay

Michigan Law Review

With the growing importance of atomic energy, conventional legal concepts must be adapted and remodeled to fit new situations. In the area of patent law, the traditional notion that the inventor's reward should be a legal monopoly in the invention, in the form of a patent, has to be reconciled with the need for wide dissemination of technical information. The need for secrecy, for government control over weapons, and for cooperation with other countries affects the atomic patent system. These factors are reflected in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and in the agreements establishing two international organizations concerned with …

Atoms For Peace: The New International Atomic Energy Agency, Bernhard G. Bechhoefer, Eric Stein

Michigan Law Review

On October 26, 1956 seventy states signed an international agreement described as the Statute of an International Atomic Energy Agency. This signing followed a conference of over a month in which eighty-two states participated. All of the participating states supported the text which resulted from this conference-a truly remarkable result considering that the subject of the conference was atomic energy with its far-reaching international security implications.