Digital Commons Network^™

Broken Lands And Trusts: The Omnipresence Of The Natives’ Land Act Of 1913 And The Persistence Of Its Inequity, Emily Venkatesan

Emory International Law Review

The hallmark of all colonial and ex-colonial states is the preservation of racial hierarchy where a minority of white colonizers reserve complete control over the political, social, and economic landscape of a colonized nation. One of the most powerful exercises of this colonial oversight is the use of western property law to strip native landowners of their property interests and redistribute that land to white colonizer for economic and social power. Access and ownership of land is crucial for maintaining the colonial state. Land provides social and economic leverage in the hands of the indigenous nation, but strengthens the colonial …

Gamification: The Viability Of Using Genai To Create Games To Teach Legal Concepts, Nicole Belbin

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines whether generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can lower the technical, time, and cost barriers that have limited the use of game-based learning (GBL) in legal education. It first considers the science of learning, focusing on spaced practice, retrieval practice, and concrete examples, and explains how GBL can incorporate these strategies. It then evaluates four general-purpose GenAI tools—Perplexity, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude—by testing their ability to state legal rules accurately and create games that teach personal jurisdiction.

The results demonstrate both GenAI’s promise and its limitations. Although all four tools incorporated core concepts of general jurisdiction, each omitted at …

Peeking Inside The Black Box: Discovery In Fair Housing Act Cases Arising From Ai Decision Making, Jessica Mahon Scoles

Faculty Scholarship

In today’s real estate market, more housing decisions are being automated. If artificial intelligence renders a biased decision, will the person impacted have any legal recourse? Commentators have expressed concern that the proprietary nature of AI will allow defendants in discrimination lawsuits to avoid discovery, effectively shielding their decision making from judicial scrutiny. This article examines whether AI and algorithm-related information is the discovery black box that some fear it to be.

Addressing the issue in the context of Fair Housing Act (FHA) litigation, the article argues that concerns about access to AI and algorithm-related discovery are overstated. In real …

Sharenting And Child Rights In The Age Of Platform Capitalism, Christiana Essie Sagay, Unyime Abasi Odong

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

The boundaries between private life, work, and visibility have become increasingly blurred in the digital age. Nowhere is this more evident than in the phenomenon of sharenting, a portmanteau of “sharing” and “parenting,” where parents routinely post images, videos, and personal narratives of their children on social media platforms. While often framed as acts of familial affection or digital memory-keeping, sharenting implicates commercial content creation and positions children as de facto participants in global digital labor markets. In this context, childhood increasingly unfolds within algorithmic and economic contexts that transcend domestic boundaries and challenge conventional legal norms, protections, and understandings …

Seizing Responsibility: International Investment Law's Shifting Understanding Of Jurisdiction In Occupied And Annexed Territory, Lena Raxter

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

Following Russia’s 2014 occupation and annexation of Crimea, Ukraine pursued the unusual strategy of encouraging its nationals to file investment claims against Russia under the 1998 bilateral investment treaty between Russia and Ukraine. The resulting “Crimea arbitrations” consistently upheld jurisdiction, reasoning that Russia’s effective control over Crimea resulted in the assumption of legal obligations in the region. Many scholars, however, contend that this conclusion was incorrect because the disputes were outside the respective tribunals’ jurisdiction. The resulting fragmentation begs the question: how can international investment law reconcile these competing positions?

In the interest of promoting stability and consistency in international …

Bridging Divides, Building Futures: Affirmative Action From A Global Perspective, Irene Rhodes

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

Affirmative action in higher education has long been central to U.S. constitutional debate, but the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) ended race-conscious admissions. This Article uses a comparative framework to examine how Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and India reconcile equality, diversity, and meritocracy. Common law systems emphasize incremental positive action, while Brazil and India employ quota-based statutory models. These contrasts reveal that effective diversity policies must align with constitutional traditions. For the United States, durable reforms should include race-neutral socioeconomic indices, statutory authorizations, and programmatic supports with built-in review mechanisms. By drawing on …

The Unspeakable Unspoken: Terrorist Imagery, Symbolic Expression And The Shifting Boundaries Of Free Speech, Ayşe Yağmur Tunçak

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

A simple fruit like a watermelon can convey many meanings: solidarity for some, terrorism sympathies for others. Among other things, increasing restrictions on speech drive individuals to the use of symbols for political expression, which may lead to legal controversies at the international level due to the untended complexity of symbolic speech in legal discussions. Unlike verbal communication, the meaning and communicative content of symbols are often indirect and open to interpretation. Thus, international human rights standards should rely on context-sensitive evaluations to prevent arbitrary limitations. Although the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), due to its subsidiary role, assumes …

Institutional Authority Without Ratification: Rethinking International Organizations’ Governance In The Post-Treaty Era, Izadora Coutinho

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

This Article examines the growing normative authority exercised by international organizations through informal governance mechanisms that operate without treaty ratification or formal consent. It argues that international law is undergoing structural transformation: global standards increasingly emerge from flexible, network-based arrangements rather than negotiated treaties. Using the OECD/G20 Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) Rules as a case study, this Article illustrates how nonbinding instruments can generate de facto binding effects. Their adoption by numerous jurisdictions reflects systemic incentives, reputational pressures, and tax base erosion threats. While such mechanisms enhance flexibility and responsiveness, they also raise significant concerns about legitimacy, sovereignty, and accountability. …

Talking Foreign Policy: "Turning Points And Paradigm Shifts In U.S. Foreign Policy" June 23, 2025 Broadcast, Talking Foreign Policy

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Consensus Decision-Making: Decision-Making Model Of Chinese Constitutional Review, Songfeng Li

Emory International Law Review

The judgment model of constitutional review in China adopts a consensus-based judgment model involving multiple stakeholders, including review authorities, drafting authorities, relevant interest parties, and the general public. Through multi-level, multi-stage, and multi-round interactive communication and negotiation, consensus is reached on constitutional judgments. This judgment model aligns with the power division political system under the NPC system, reflecting the institutional concept of people’s sovereignty and the cultural foundation of valuing harmony. It is also a result of the decentralization of constitutional review authority leading to insufficient power for actual reviewers, the parallel nature of factual and normative judgments in constitutional …

Treating Social Media Corporations As Quasi-State Actors To Address The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Content Moderation, Michael T. Tiu Jr.

Emory International Law Review

Corporations have become powerful actors in the international system. They have the potential to disrupt the protection of values that states have been performing for decades. One of these values–freedom of expression–has been the recipient of impact of emerging technologies owned by corporations. Social media platforms have become new governors of expression. Content moderation rules cause adverse impacts on freedom of expression. The vagueness of certain criteria and the inconsistency of their application have led to censorship of speech which would have been protected offline. This situation is exacerbated by the use of artificial intelligence in content moderation, owing to …

The Right Of Access To The Court In The Practice Of The European Court Of Human Rights And Constitutional Courts In Europe, Filip Novaković

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

The right of access to a court is recognized as a fundamental component of the right to a fair trial under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) and has emerged as a cornerstone of the European human rights system. Initially conceived as an implicit guarantee, the right has been progressively shaped by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) and further developed through the practice of constitutional courts across Europe. This article examines the evolution of the right of access to courts, focusing on its scope, permissible limitations, and relationship to the broader …

The Right To Seek Joy, Tyler Rose Clemons

Faculty Publications

Within the past three years, roughly half of American states have restricted access to gender-affirming medical treatment for children. In this article, I argue that these bans violate transgender children’s right to liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. I do so by excavating the Framers’ understanding of liberty as the right to seek joy. Rooted in the philosophies of John Locke and Epicurus, the Framers understood liberty as the right to make important life decisions according to one’s subjective preferences without undue interference from the government. Based on this understanding, I develop a new framework for substantive …

Treatment Sentences, Evelyn Malavé

Faculty Publications

One of the most common mandates of a non-incarceratory sentence is to submit to treatment. Across the criminal legal system, from problem-solving courts to probation, millions of defendants sentenced to non-incarceratory sentences—including people not diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder—are required to attend drug treatment programs. After decades of policies that criminalized drug use, non-incarceratory sentences that match people with treatment may appear to be a step forward—or at least not the most pressing problem.

But criminal law scholarship has not fully reckoned with the harms of treatment sentences, including the harms of mandated treatment itself. Analysis of treatment sentences …

Can Federalism Protect Subnational Liberal Democracy From Central Authoritarianism?, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Liberal democracy is eroding rapidly around the globe, including in the United States, raising alarming questions about whether American democratic institutions will endure. Nevertheless, some have speculated that federalism may protect liberal democracy at the subnational level when the central government turns authoritarian. This article argues that such optimism is premature: there is no a priori basis on which to predict the effect of central democratic backsliding on the quality of subnational democracy. Federal theory does suggest that internal heterogeneity in basic political commitments is likely to produce an escalating pattern of severe and possibly intractable intergovernmental conflict. Empirical evidence …

Immigration Adjudication, Judicial Review, And The Uneven Incorporation Of Administrative Law Norms, John Harland Giammatteo

Journal Articles

This article examines the interaction between immigration law and administrative law. Scholars and courts regularly treat immigration as outside of, or exceptional to, the normal operation of administrative law and its norms of judicial review. Yet in the past decade, the Roberts Court has radically reshaped administrative law. This broader administrative law project has largely emphasized the primacy of the federal courts and judicial review, enlarging the putative rights of regulated parties, at the cost of agency power. Within that project, immigration adjudication is a frequent conversation partner. Immigration adjudication is used to undermine the administrative state’s claim to policymaking …

Rethinking Transnational Adjudication: The Normative Foundations Of Institutional Design, Sanctions-Related Arbitration Frameworks, And Digital Recognition Systems, Avaskhan Asanaliyev

SJD Dissertations

This dissertation examines how emerging judicial and dispute resolution architectures can sustain cross-border commerce, investment, and enforcement in the post-Soviet space and beyond, at a time of institutional fragility, geopolitical tension, and rapid digitalization. Drawing on the experience of Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and key global hubs, it argues that institutional innovation in courts, arbitration, and enforcement mechanisms is central to rebuilding credible governance frameworks for international business. It does so through three interconnected studies that together explore the evolution of modern adjudication: first, through the transplantation of a common law judiciary model within a civil law state; second, through the …

Blurred Lines: Did Booker Change Federal Sentencing Outcomes?, Hugh Mundy

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fear, Delay, And Preventable Death: Rethinking Wyoming's Legislative Framework To Reduce Barriers In Overdose Emergency Reporting, Shoshana Sangros

Wyoming Law Review

This Comment asks whether Wyoming’s current immunity framework for reporting overdoses truly reduces delays in emergency treatment when distance, weather, and limited emergency medical service (EMS) capacity already regularly extend response times. It proposes that by amending two Wyoming statutes and funding statewide education, the goal of reducing barriers to calling 9-1-1 to report overdoses can be better achieved, and residents better protected. To support these proposed changes, Part II provides a concise account of relevant Wyoming statutory protections. Part III proposes specific amendments that would address the on-the-ground challenges of the Wyoming emergency response system. These adjustments will utilize …

The Bigotry Of The Future: Ai Recruitment Tools & Hiring Discrimination Law, Lily Manshel

City University of New York Law Review

As one-click applications and a competitive job market result in hundreds of applicants per listing, hiring tools that use Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) promise recruiters a convenient way to sort through the crowd and find the “perfect” candidate, all while eliminating human bias. These tools—which include resume screeners, gamified assessments and personality tests, and video interviewing software—are proliferating so rapidly that their ubiquity is positioned as inevitable by both the software companies that produce them and the employers who use them. However, the use of these automated decision-making tools creates a paradox under existing antidiscrimination law: the systems clearly perpetuate and …

How The Proposed Esa Habitat Rule Harms Species On Public Lands, Sandi Zellmer

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

At present, there are 1,684 federally listed endangered and threatened species in the United States. Habitat modification is the primary reason for listing. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have proposed a rule that would rescind their decades-old definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Currently, “harm” is the only term within ESA Section 9’s prohibition on “take” that encompasses habitat modification. If modifying habitat is no longer a “take,” the ESA itself would be rendered incapable of satisfying Congress’s goal: “to halt and reverse the trend toward species …

A Mandate With Teeth: Biting Back At The Neglect Of New York's Humane Education Law, Mei Brunson

Animal Law Review

New York passed its compulsory humane education law in 1917, which obligates school districts to provide weekly instruction in the “humane treatment and protection of animals” to all elementary school students. Though this mandate is clear, New York school districts routinely ignore it and deprive students of the humane education that they are statutorily entitled to. To make matters worse, the New York Commissioner of Education has abdicated their responsibility to enforce this minimum educational standard. Over the years, the laudable efforts of advocacy groups, educators, and legislators have brought about some instances of district compliance. Nevertheless, widespread district noncompliance …

Toward Interspecies Reproductive Justice, Asha A. Ramakumar

Animal Law Review

Reproductive justice discourse has largely overlooked non-human animals, despite the parallel forms of biopolitical control exercised over human women and female animals’ reproductive labor. By examining the shared logics underlying the subordina-tion of both human women and dairy cows, this Article argues that any genuine conception of reproductive justice must inter-rogate reproductive exploitation beyond the human experience. Drawing from Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower and Carol J. Adams’ framework of the “absent referent,” this Article elucidates how powerful institutions control those with the capacity for preg-nancy by perpetuating narratives of biological essentialism and obligation.

Part II examines several examples of …

A Golden Age For Us . . . Or For The Airlines? Ensuring Robust Federal Consumer Protections To Make Flying Great Again For Everyone, David S. Nahmias, Julian Sanghvi

Journal of Law and Mobility

Flying today is not meaningfully better for passengers than it was twenty years ago—and the airlines are largely to blame. Airlines leverage opaque pricing practices and junk fees to extract greater revenue from passengers, while the quality of air travel has deteriorated. Despite its mandate to protect the flying public and the air travel market from deceptive and anticompetitive practices, the Department of Transportation has been largely captured—adopting industry-favorable regulations and procedures while cutting commonsense consumer protections. This Essay examines the airlines’ coordinated campaign to circumvent and dismantle consumer protections, and how the industry have largely captured the federal agency …

Yars 19(33)

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

YARS Vol. 19(33)

Health Care Fraud And The End Of Chevron, Joan H. Krause

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

What do the Environmental Protection Agency’s “plantwide” definition of a “stationary” pollution source,” a National Marine Fisheries Service determination of who pays for fishing boat observers, and a Department of Health and Human Services rule governing the marketing of prescription drugs have in common? In short, a government agency’s interpretation of a federal statute. All three cases go to the heart of the administrative state: the ability of an agency, staffed by experts in the field, to interpret static statutory language to offer practical guidance to an ever-evolving industry.

The same is true of health care fraud, although it is …

English Only: The Increasing Problem Of National Origin Discrimination In Federally Funded Clinical Research, Sarah Reckess

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act prohibits institutions receiving federal financial assistance from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin. The term “national origin” includes people with limited English proficiency (“LEP”). The number of LEP residents has increased in the United States to over 10% of the residents in the most populous states (Texas, California, New York, Florida, and Nevada). Executive Order 13166, issued in 2000, requires all federal agencies to comply with Title VI by establishing guidelines that remove language barriers to federal programs, services, benefits, and activities. Additionally, it allows federal agencies to withhold funding …

Richmond Electronic Monitoring: The City Sees You While You're Sleeping, Fakira D. Johnson

Law Student Publications

The United States has increasingly recognized its reputation as a prison state, with widespread acknowledgment of its high incarceration rates. As of 2021, the United States imprisoned one out of every five prisoners in the world. Additionally, of its own population, the United States imprisoned one out of every one hundred people.

In response to this notoriety, worsening prison overcrowding, and the heightened risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government increased their utilization of alternative measures to traditional incarceration. As both an addition and an alternative to traditional incarceration, criminal …

The Civil Justice Business, J. Maria Glover

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Our civil justice system rests on certain foundational commitments: to make rights real for those the law protects, regardless of their station; to hold wrongdoers accountable, no matter their power; and to deter misconduct in a landscape that depends, above all, on private enforcement for the regulation of wrongdoing. We put great faith in these values.

Civil justice, for all its lofty goals, is also a business. Attorneys and liability insurers have long had their own economic stakes in litigation, under their own professional and regulatory norms. But now, a new litigation finance industry has arisen: outside investors provide equity …

Women’S Exposure To Incel Content, Perceived Safety, And Gender-Based Violence Risk In The United States, Deja Bledsoe

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses

The rapid proliferation of incel-related content across digital platforms has raised concerns about online misogyny and its potential impact on women’s perceived safety. However, less is known about how exposure to such content shapes women’s perceptions of risk and emotional responses in everyday digital environments. This study examines the relationship between exposure to incel-related content and women’s perceived risk of gender-based violence and safety-related anxiety. Guided by strain theory, social control theory, hegemonic masculinity, and intersectionality, the study employs an anonymous cross-sectional online survey of women aged 18 and older. Quantitative analyses were conducted to assess whether exposure to incel-related …