Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking Ubuntu Philosophy In Nigeria's Environmental Law: A Pathway To Sustainable Plastic Pollution Regulation, Ndubuisi Augustine Nwafor

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Sea Changes In Sue-And-Settle Policy: The Tides Of Transparency And Expediency, Evan B. Fitzgerald

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Boots On The Ground, Toxins In The Water: A Look Into The Present State Of Camp Lejeune Water Contamination, Kaitlyn N. Helt

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The House Of Ai: Intellectual Property Law As It Relates To Generative Ai And Fashion, Abhilasha Praveen

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Over the past decade, artificial intelligence has permeated nearly every aspect of society, yet American legislation in this field remains largely archaic. The absence of specific legislation governing generative AI in the United States has led to numerous intellectual property (IP) and copyright disputes, infringing on both creator’s rights and discouraging innovation. Given the rapid evolution of generative AI in society, comprehensive legislative action is necessary to establish clear guidelines balancing intellectual property rights with the need for innovation through technological advancement. While this issue spans multiple industries, this article focuses on fashion, examining how AI regulation can foster innovation …

Productive Systems And The Problems Of Agricultural Development, R. Badouin

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article discusses how agricultural development requires changes in productive systems under conditions of population growth, rising incomes, and urbanization. It distinguishes between cropping systems, production systems, and farm management systems, and examines how each should evolve in response to food demand. The author analyzes the balance between food crops and export crops, as well as between plant and animal production, emphasizing food security, resource efficiency, and the risks of dependence on external markets or animal-based consumption patterns. The article frames agricultural strategy as a structural response to development pressures rather than a purely technical adjustment.

Concealed Feudal Privilege: The Past And The Future In The Making Of Property Law, Ugo Mattei

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article critically examines the evolution of private property law from its origins in European and American legal traditions to its current entanglement with global capitalism and digital technology. Drawing on historical analysis and recent scholarship, the author argues that modern private property, far from realizing the promise of emancipation from feudal privilege, has served to cloak new forms of class domination. Through narratives crafted by jurists, property law has continually mediated the interests of the powerful and marginalized popular masses, substituting class-based privilege for blood privilege. The article explores how legal concepts—such as privacy and the social function of …

Property In The Short Twentieth Century, Fernando Atria

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This article examines the evolution of property law in the "short twentieth century," focusing on the shift from a classical, unified, and individualistic concept of property toward one defined by its "social function." Drawing on Anna di Robilant's historical analysis and legal developments in Chile, the article discusses three interrelated strands of the social critique of property: the doctrine of abuse of right, the concept of the social function of property, and the pluralist ("tree-like") model of property regimes. It contrasts the Will Theory and Interest Theory of rights to clarify the nature of "fractured rights," where legal powers may …

Judicial Independence As A Constitutional Commitment In Montana, John Carr

Montana Law Review

No abstract provided.

The End Of Peremptory Strikes?: Free Exercise And Religion-Based Batson Challenges, Jeremy Ross

Montana Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Authoritarian Semiotics Of The New Campus Mask Bans, Rob Kahn

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In 2024, students took part in protests for and against Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Some protests were disruptive and violent— most were not. In response, calls arose across the country to ban masks. In New York, a broad organization of civil rights groups called for a statewide mask ban under the hashtag #UnmaskHateNY, while New York Governor Kathy Hochul—with the support of New York City Mayor Eric Adams—called for a mask ban on the New York City subways. There were also calls in North Carolina and Los Angeles for new, or enhanced, mask bans. Meanwhile, Ohio’s Attorney General …

The U Visa At 25: Legislative Missteps, Bureaucratic Neglect, And Geographic Roulette, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

A quarter century ago, Congress created the U visa with dual goals: protecting immigrant crime victims and facilitating law enforcement cooperation by removing deportation barriers to crime reporting. Yet the program as implemented has fallen dramatically short of these aims. This Essay provides the first comprehensive analysis of the U visa's structural failures at its twenty-fifth anniversary. Two fundamental design flaws plague the program. First, Congress capped U visas at 10,000 annually-far below actual need-while the immigration agency has consistently failed to implement congressionally-authorized interim protections. The result is that, as of 2025, applicants wait five years for work authorization …

Gambling In Pre-Statehood Alaska, Robert M. Jarvis

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

This article concerns gambling in Alaska in the period prior to statehood (1867– 1958). While the courts in this era did not generate very many gambling opinions, the ones they did issue provide a feel for what life was like in the region. In addition, Alaska’s current ban on most forms of gambling can be directly traced back to its first gambling law (1884).

"In Better Times": The Basis Of Representation And The Forgotten History Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Jessica I. Gorovitz

Fordham Law Review

Over the past several years, the U.S. Supreme Court has incorporated history into the analysis of unenumerated individual rights, like abortion, and enumerated ones, like the right to keep and bear arms. But it has not incorporated history into its approach to individual rights claims of racial discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause, a methodological gap the Court has left unexplained. Rather, it has held that the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment is to prevent racial classifications, largely citing its own precedent, eschewing the Amendment’s history. This approach conflicts with section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states …

The Fourth Amendment's Right To Be Secure, Thomas K. Clancy

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Beginning with a 1998 article and through the editions of my treatise, I have argued that the right to be “secure” must be properly understood. The right to be secure is the powerful ability to exclude the government, and it protects against physical and technological intrusions. As will be discussed, my interpretation has had some influence among courts and scholars. Several academics have taken time to discuss it, and it has been noticed in the Supreme Court. This Essay seeks to dispel some of those characterizations and clarify the meaning of the right to be secure.

The Amendment in its …

Behind Every Case Is A Conversation, Donna Shestowsky

Nevada Law Journal

Lawyers play a central role in guiding clients through critical decisions that shape the trajectory of litigation. Among the most consequential of these is the choice of procedures by which disputes will be resolved—whether through trial, mediation, arbitration, or other mechanisms. Despite the weight of these decisions, legal scholarship offers little guidance on how lawyers might structure conversations about procedural options. This Article seeks to address that gap by drawing on empirical research from psychology and related disciplines to develop recommendations for educating and counseling clients—particularly those with little or no prior exposure to the civil justice system—so that they …

Glp-1 Drugs And The Emerging Mass Tort Crisis: Navigating Legal Risks And Regulatory Gaps, Angelina Ferrara

UMKC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Lawyer’S Swan Lake: Generative Ai, Legal Epistemology, And The Nondelegable Duty To Think, Angie Zinzilieta

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

Generative artificial intelligence (“GAI”) has entered law wearing the costume of competence: fluent, confident, and fast. But legal practice is not a memory sport despite the bar exam. Lawyers are paid to create, test, and refine ideas (arguments, narratives, and theories of liability) inside an adversarial system that punishes error, rewards precision, and demands accountability. This article argues that the central risk of GAI in legal work is not merely “hallucinations” or confidentiality breaches; it is epistemic atrophy, an outsourcing of the intellectual labor by which lawyers understand where law comes from, how it changes, and why it applies. Using …

Thirty Years, Give Or Take: Reflections On My Life In Banking, Joseph A. Smith Jr.

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

A Right Without A Remedy: The Court’S Failure To Quantify The Agua Caliente’S Federal Reserved Water Rights, Lauren Block

Washington Law Review

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has inhabited the Coachella Valley region since time immemorial. Through a series of 1870s executive orders, the United States government reserved land for the Tribe to establish a permanent home within the bounds of their ancestral homeland. Underlying this permanent home is the Coachella Valley aquifer, a groundwater source that has been in a continuous state of overdraft for decades. Against the backdrop of climate change, water scarcity, and other concerns, the Tribe sued Coachella Valley’s water management agencies in 2013, alleging the Tribe owned a portion of the water in the aquifer …

Less Fisher More Doe: Non-Testimonial Mental Content And A New Rule For Unlocking Digital Devices, Jordan Wallace-Wolf

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Roughly fifteen years ago, courts started to regularly confront a fact pattern that I refer to as the unlocking scenario. In this kind of case, the government seeks evidence on a criminal defendant’s digital device, but it cannot access it due to a sufficiently strong system of password protection or encryption. May the government compel the defendant to unlock the device, or would this compulsion make the defendant “a witness against himself”?

Courts gave different answers to this question right from the start, but their answers have started to diverge even more markedly in recent years, notwithstanding two formative papers …

Free Speech Trapped In Amber: The Rise Of The 'History And Tradition' Test, From Unregulated Guns To Highly Regulated Speech, Matthew D. Bunker, Emily Erickson

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

An insidious virus appears poised to invade First Amendment free speech doctrine. “History and tradition,” a deeply flawed variant of originalism, threatens to transform speech law from a rational enterprise, employing tiers of scrutiny to evaluate potential infringements on speech, to a random scavenger hunt through the distant past that could upend numerous vital First Amendment principles.

Traditionalism’s ascendence to the forefront of history-centric constitutional interpretation was heralded in three dramatic cases decided at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s October 2021 term. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen elicited particular concern among First Amendment scholars, …

Sidewalk Living, Michael C. Pollack

Articles

In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a city from enforcing a criminal ban on encampments on public property such as parks and sidewalks. But even if municipalities are now permitted to use tactics such as policing, encampment clearing, arrests, and imprisonment, these are not the right ways to address the problems of public homelessness.

Instead, homelessness must be understood as one of many conflicts over limited public space. At its best, vibrant sidewalk life enhances communities and local economies. But at its worst, every use of these finite …

Sex, Gender, And The Blogosphere: Looking Back At The Feminist Law Professors Blog, 2006-2024, Bridget J. Crawford

UMKC Law Review

The Feminist Law Professors blog began in 2006 as a modest effort to make feminist legal scholars more visible to one another and to the broader world. What emerged from this effort was a dynamic, collectively imagined space that bore witness to generational shifts in feminist legal thought, the rise and fall of blogging culture, and the enduring challenges of feminist community-building. This Essay reflects on the origins, evolution, and legacies of the Feminist Law Professors blog, situating it within its legal, cultural, and technological moments. It also offers my reflections—as one of two blog editors—on the risks and rewards …

Trademasks, Matthew Sipe

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Against The Drafter: An Empirical And Theoretical Analysis Of The Doctrine Of Contra Proferentem, Farshad Ghodoosi, Tal Kastner

Fordham Law Review

Contra proferentem, the enduring maxim that directs courts to interpret an ambiguity in a contract against its drafter, appears simple on its face. Although it might be best known as a fundamental principle of insurance law, contra proferentem figures in courts’ interpretation of a range of contract types. As an interpretive rule of thumb that parties can easily override with a simple contract provision, the doctrine and its boilerplate antidote seem to offer a straightforward means to facilitate private ordering—a central goal of contract law.

However, neither courts’ application of the doctrine in case law nor contract drafters’ treatment …

From Doctrine To Practice: Shūrā-Centred Islamic Ethics For Sustainable Ecological Solutions, Fatima Dhanani, Cecilee Glaus Jones

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

This paper examines how Islamic ethics, when translated into lived practice, generate both moral frameworks and scalable solutions to pressing ecological challenges. Focusing on shūrā, tawḥīd, khilāfa, and taʿaddudiyya, and drawing on case studies of Stewardship Canada and the Aga Khan University’s Carbon Management Tool, the authors show how Islamic values move beyond doctrinal abstraction to guide institutional decision-making, programme design, and community engagement. More than treating ethics as fixed theological propositions, they frame them as negotiated, context-sensitive processes that align with ecological resilience, distributive justice, and economic viability.

Grounded in shūrā …

Lies That Matter: Retheorizing Rape And The Limits Of Consent, Seran Gee

Nevada Law Journal

This Article proposes a novel assent-based framework for understanding rape law, challenging the traditional focus on consent as the sole determinant of rape. It argues that rape occurs when there is an absence of assent, rather than simply a lack of consent. The Article distinguishes between assent, which reflects a feeling of willingness, and consent, which is an exercise of autonomy that waives one’s right to bodily integrity. By incorporating this distinction, the assent model provides a more nuanced approach to rape law, explaining why certain deceptions—such as misrepresenting the nature of a sexual act—constitute rape, while others do not. …

Discriminatory Effect(S), W. Kerrel Murray

Faculty Scholarship

In constitutional law, “discriminatory effect” often matters. So it’s surprising how often we don’t quite know what it means. That opacity is trans-substantive; it has been a recent pitfall in contexts as diverse as admissions-policy challenges under the Equal Protection Clause, personal-jurisdiction disputes under the “dormant” Commerce Clause, and, under the Free Exercise Clause, requests for exemptions from facially neutral laws.

This Article’s first corrective is a novel typology. Constitutional discriminatory effect is murky, in part, because it has many types; we perceive it in myriad ways across constitutional domains. Comprehending this complexity enhances our understanding of what discriminatory-effect rules …

Reconstructing The "Best Interests" Inquiry In Termination Of Parental Rights Cases: Setting The Threshold At "Affirmative Need", Vivek Sankaran, Timothy Pinto

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of Execution: The Introduction Of Nitrogen Hypoxia In Death Penalty Methodology, And The Need For Statutory Scientific Review, Madeline Ostrander

Hofstra Law Review

No abstract provided.