Digital Commons Network^™

Governing The Internet Of Everything, Scott J. Shackelford

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Since the term was first coined in the late 1990s, the "Internet of Things" has promised a smart, interconnected world enabling your toaster to text you when your breakfast is ready, and your sweatshirt to give you status updates during your workout. This rise of "smart products" such as Internet-enabled appliances has the potential to revolutionize both business and society. But the smart wave will not stop with stuff with related trends such as the Internet of Bodies now coming into vogue. It seems that, if anything, humanity is headed toward an Internet of Everything. Yet it is an open …

Regulating From The Ground Up: Controlling Financial Institutions With Bank Workers’ Unions, Emma Cusumano

Law Student Publications

In the Wells Fargo accounts scandal, millions of banking accounts were created for customers without their consent. The scandal cost Wells Fargo customers millions of dollars in direct and indirect charges. Investigations revealed that employees were pressured into creating these false accounts through abusive banking practices promulgated from the top. These practices are not unique to Wells Fargo; instead, they are ubiquitous in the financial services industry.

Current financial regulations do not adequately address how to mitigate banks’ harmful practices. This comment explores the premise that bank worker unionization could serve as a much-needed check on the power of financial …

Freedom And Prison: Putting Structuralism Back Into Structural Inequality, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

Critics of structural racism frequently miss structuralism as a field of historical inquiry. This essay reviews the rise of structuralism as a mode of historical analysis and applies it to the mass incarceration debate in the United States, arguing that it enriches the work of prevailing scholars in the field.

Can Soft Regulation Prevent Financial Crises?: The Dutch Central Bank's Supervision Of Behavior And Culture, John M. Conley, Lodewijk Smeehuijzen, Cynthia A. Williams, Deborah E. Rupp

Faculty Publications

Financial regulation has traditionally been "hard": national legislatures and regulators (and sometimes international bodies) require certain kinds of behavior and forbid others, on pain of business sanctions, fines, or even criminal penalties. When a financial crisis happens, the usual after-the-fact response is more hard regulation-new laws, stricter regulations, and often entirely new regulatory agencies. That pattern goes back at least to the 1929 market crash that precipitated the Great Depression.

But the fact that financial crises still occur is leading many observers to wonder if more hard regulation is the best way to prevent the next one. However elaborate the …

Water And Life. A Cross-Sectional Study On Determinants Of Beverage Consumption And Water Access In One Tribal Community, Christina White

All Master's Theses

Increasingly, poor diet has been shown to be one of the most crucial factors associated with cause of death, even more critical than smoking. Research in the past two decades has consistently linked increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) to the obesity epidemic contributing to a public health crisis all over the United States. Native Americans, among other minority groups, suffer obesity disproportionately from the rest of the US population, yet they continually fail to be included in research on the subject. Traditional research methods, sparse care coverage on reservations, consolidation of unique tribes into one classification, and failure to …

The Human Element: The Under-Theorized And Underutilized Component Vital To Fostering Blockchain Development, Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Cleveland State Law Review

Blockchain is about one-third math and two-thirds game theory. The math runs on silicon processors. The game theory runs on grey matter. Earlier in this symposium, the last panel essentially asked, "What's different about blockchain and its relationship to humans?" That will be our focus: What is the right relationship between technology and the community that builds it? And, why would we care?

The Rogue Sovereign: Trump, Sovereignty & Revolution, A. Kayum Ahmed

City University of New York Law Review

In his inaugural U.N. General Assembly address, President Donald Trump mentioned the words ‘sovereign’ or ‘sovereignty’ 21 times. This article offers an analysis of the president’s invocation of the concept of sovereignty and the political effects of such an appropriation. While one must take caution to avoid over-analyzing a presidential speech or ascribe meaning where none exists, there may be a greater risk in failing to properly analyze Trump’s remarks or dismissing them as simply a reflection of an inconsistent, contradictory or uninformed understanding of the principle of sovereignty. As a result, Part I of this article offers a brief …

The Role Of Lawyers In Removing Economic Activity From State Supervision, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

The Transformation Of Marriage As A State Institution, John Makdisi, June Mary Zekan Makdisi

Faculty Articles

The first section of this essay explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the procreation of children by the act of physical-spiritual love between a man and a woman. The second section explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the upbringing of children by the lasting, exclusive, and faithful commitment of the couple. The third section explains why Obergefell's removal of the requirement of a legal union between a man and a woman as an essential aspect of marriage not only destroys the function of the marriage institution …

The Moral Imperative To Change Unjust Laws And The New Haven School, Carol Castleberry

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

The theme of this issue of the Intercultural Human Rights Law Review involves profound issues of law and morality. Professors John and June Mary Makdisi chose this theme as one close to their hearts. Throughout their professional and personal lives, both Professors Makdisi have been teachers, mentors, and examples of how law and morality fit together. This essay is dedicated to them.

Trickster Law: Promoting Resilience And Adaptive Governance By Allowing Other Perspectives On Natural Resource Management, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The Anthropocene requires a new approach to natural resources law and policy, an approach that this short article terms "trickster law." Trickster law incorporates insights from resilience theory, adaptive governance scholarship, and cultural/anthropological studies of trickster tales to create a legal approach to natural resource management that is precautionary, engaged in proactive planning, based in principled flexibility, and pluralistic. This article focuses on the "pluralism" component, presenting three examples of how law modified to be more inclusive and respect different value systems has generated new approaches to natural resources management that better promote social-ecological resilience to climate change and other …

Taxing Trades: Proposals To Keep Moneyball Out Of Tax Law, Cody Wilson

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating From The Ground Up: Controlling Financial Institutions With Bank Workers’ Unions, Emma Cusumano

University of Richmond Law Review

In the Wells Fargo accounts scandal, millions of banking accounts were created for customers without their consent. The scandal cost Wells Fargo customers millions of dollars in direct and indirect charges. Investigations revealed that employees were pressured into creating these false accounts through abusive banking practices promulgated from the top. These practices are not unique to Wells Fargo; instead, they are ubiquitous in the financial services industry.

Current financial regulations do not adequately address how to mitigate banks’ harmful practices. This comment explores the premise that bank worker unionization could serve as a much-needed check on the power of financial …

Emergency Removals: Does The Statutory Language Of N.Y. Fain. Ct. Act § 1024 Safeguard Vulnerable Families From Foster Care Panic?, Sydney Myones

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note examines the surge in emergency child removals by the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) in New York City following the high-profile death of Zymere Perkins, arguing that these removals are driven by "foster care panic" rather than a genuine change in family conditions. It critiques the broad discretion granted to ACS under N.Y. Fam. Ct. Act 1024 and advocates for a more balanced approach that prioritizes family preservation and addresses systemic biases.

Persons And The Point Of The Law, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This short essay is a comment and reflection on a manuscript by Professors John Breen and Lee
Strang, "A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States." It is based on remarks presented at a February 14, 2020 conference, sponsored by the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies and the Center for Law and Religion at St. John's University School of Law. It
addresses, among other things, Breen and Strang's argument that a Catholic law school should have a distinctive "intellectual architecture" and proposes that a distinctive moral anthropology -- that is, an account of what the …

California Indian Tribes And The Marine Life Protection Act: The Seeds Of A Partnership To Preserve Natural Resources, Curtis G. Berkey, Scott W. Williams

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Vision For Cura Apostolica, John Topel

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Freezing The Future: Elective Egg Freezing And The Limits Of The Medical Expense Deduction, Tessa R. Davis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What’S The Craic? Health Care For Deaf People In Northern Ireland, Michael A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring Paths For Water Services And Human Capabilities In U.S.-Mexico Border Colonias, Chilton Tippin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis examines causes and consequences of water insecurity in colonias on the U.S.-Mexico border and explores potential pathways for improving situations wherein low-income households lack reliable access to water and sewer services. Colonias are low-income, rural and/or semi-rural communities that lack basic services, such as paved streets, water, and sewer. Through in-depth interviews, surveys, and ethnographic observations, the research presented here describes needs, desires, and capabilities of residents in two high-needs Texas colonias. First, findings elucidate the lived experiences of water insecurity in colonias households, leading to an argument that lacking water access constitutes a nexus, wherein water insecurity …

Strengthening The International Clinical Scholarly Community: Opportunities For The Clinical Law Review And Beyond, Leah Wortham

Scholarly Articles

In its first 25 years, the Clinical Law Review (CLR) provided a ground-breaking foundation to build a scholarly field inspired and informed by clinical work and to legitimate that scholarship within the academy. The CLR broadened the window for clinicians to put their work in a wider context of other clinicians' experience, and with that context and comparison, to build theory from this common body of endeavor.

As Part I describes, 12 of the CLR's 404 works in its 25-year history include voices from outside the United States. While some countries' clinical education history is as old, or older, than …

Threats To The Brazilian Environment And Environmental Policy, Thomas J. Trebat, Laura Nora, Inga Caldwell

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The Columbia Global Centers | Rio de Janeiro, in partnership with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University and the Brazil-American Institute for Law and Environment at Pace University, organized a Workshop on November 13, 2019 in New York City. The Workshop was convened to discuss and raise awareness of the scope and severity of the environmental crisis in Brazil with a focus on the severe threats to the Amazon.

The consequences of the Bolsonaro government´s environmental actions are serious for Brazil and for the world. That is one of the reasons why the Columbia Global Center …

Menstrual Justice, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

Menstrual injustice is the oppression of menstruators, women, girls, transgender men and boys, and nonbinary persons, simply because they menstruate. Acts of menstrual injustice occur every day in the United States. The narrative of menstruation is that it is a taboo, shameful, and that menstruators are dirty, impure, even dangerous. Menstruation has been shunned generally from public discourse as a result. This narrative negatively impacts menstruators. Menstruators are essentialized as women, often of means, excluding transgender men and nonbinary persons, and menstruators who experience poverty or are young. Menstruating workers, especially low-wage workers, are harassed, penalized, or fired for heavy …

Preserving Humanity’S Heritage In Space: Fifty Years After Apollo 11 And Beyond, Andrea J. Harrington

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

As numerous governments and commercial entities plan ambitious expeditions into outer space and to celestial bodies, humanity’s heritage in space is threatened. Fifty years following the Apollo 11 landing, we have recognized the historic, scientific, and cultural importance of this event and other spacefaring firsts, but the existing means to protect the resulting heritage is inadequate. This Article examines the protections currently available to those objects and sites that represent the great achievements of humankind in using and exploring space, with a focus on Tranquility Base—the Apollo 11 landing site. Existing protections are analyzed under both cultural heritage law and …

Snapchat's Gift: Equity Culture In High-Tech Firms, Amy Deen Westbrook, David A. Westbrook

Journal Articles

Snap, Inc., the company that owns the platform Snapchat, controversially offered nonvoting common shares to the public in 2017. This Article asks what it means to invest in Snap or other (mostly technology-based) companies in which common shareholders collectibely have little or no power to influence corporate policy. In particular, why do such investors expect to be compensated? This Article explores the familiar rationales for equity investing, including stock appreciation and dividends, and the logical shortcomings of those rationales in these circumstances. Adopting Henry Manne's "two systems" approach to corporate affairs through both law and economics, we show that corporation …

Technologies Of Suspicion And The Ethics Of Obligation In Political Asylum, Bridget M. Haas, Amy Shuman

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Across the globe, migration has been met with intensifying modes of criminalization and securitization, and claims for political asylum are increasingly met with suspicion. Asylum seekers have become the focus of global debates surrounding humanitarian obligations, on the one hand, and concerns surrounding national security and border control, on the other. In Technologies of Suspicion and the Ethics of Obligation in Political Asylum, contributors provide fine-tuned analyses of political asylum systems and the adjudication of asylum claims across a range of sociocultural and geopolitical contexts.

The contributors to this timely volume, drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives, offer critical …

Peace And Subjectivity, Louis E. Wolcher

Articles

So long as there is law there can be no universal human right to peace. This is because legalized violence, whether in threat or in deed, constitutes the very antithesis of peaceful relations from the point of view of those whom law represses. Law cannot define peace as the absence of all violence—and still less as the absence of all legalized suffering—without gainsaying justice, for as Pascal says, “Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.” Although legal outcomes, like falling boulders and pouncing lions, can always be imputed to historical causes, experience teaches that legal actors generally …

A Watershed Moment In The Education Of American Indians: A Judicial Strategy To Mandate The State Of New Mexico To Meet The Unique Cultural And Linguistic Needs Of American Indians In New Mexico Public Schools, Preston Sanchez, Rebecca Blum-Martinez

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Contemporary Aspects Of Female Genital Mutilation Prohibitions In The United States, Limor Ezioni

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

What Should Law School Rankings Measure And How Should We Measure It: A Comment On Heald & Sichelman's Rankings, Adam Chilton, Jonathan S. Masur

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

There are obvious benefits to ranking academic departments based on objective measures of faculty research output. However, there are considerable difficulties associated with producing reliable and accurate rankings. In this short comment, we offer an evaluation of Heald and Sichelman's recent foray into the project of ranking law schools. Heald and Sichelman are to be commended for the transparency and rigor of their rankings effort. At the same time, it is important to note that their rankings involve a series of contestable discretionary choices and could give rise to potential counterproductive gaming by law schools seeking to improve their place …