Digital Commons Network^™

The Public Health Cost Of Online Behavioral Targeting, Arthi Annadurai

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Behavioral targeting is an increasingly popular marketing technique that utilizes users’ online activity to personalize advertisements aimed at consumers. However, since personalized advertisements aim to influence individual consumers, behavioral targeting can negatively impact vulnerable users. For instance, it may reinforce harmful behaviors—like showing alcohol advertisements to individuals with alcohol dependency—or worsen mental health struggles, such as prolonging grief by continuing to serve parenting advertisements to those mourning the loss of a child. These practices can perpetuate harmful behaviors, such as relapse or heightened psychological distress, and contribute to long-term health problems, such as addiction or other mental health problems, creating …

The Effectiveness Of Public-Private Partnerships In Addressing Residential Urban Development Challenges In Greater Cairo, Sara Nagy Abdelmessih

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in tackling the residential urban development challenges facing Cairo today. In the past two decades, PPPs have emerged as a dominant mode of housing production, positioned as collaborative ventures between state agencies and private developers. They have become integral to the expansion of Greater Cairo, producing vast new urban extensions under the promise of mobilizing private capital, technical expertise, and delivery capacity. Yet, questions remain about whether these arrangements genuinely address Egypt’s most urgent housing needs, or whether they reproduce market-driven logics that leave large segments of the population excluded. The …

Criminal Court's Disability, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Do criminal courts meaningfully accommodate psychiatric disability? A review of competency proceedings across the United States suggests not. In competency to stand trial proceedings, criminal court actors offer a narrow vision of psychiatric disability that excludes many defendants. Ultimately, the institutional context of criminal court undermines even the meagre accommodations that the competency framework provides.

Competency proceedings are the constitutional accommodations available to disabled defendants if they can establish that they are unable to consult with their lawyers or if they do not have a rational or factual understanding of the proceedings against them. After a finding of incompetency, the …

Benchmarking Age-Gates, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how legal actors—particularly legislators, judges, and attorneys—invoke chronological age to justify the application of legal rules to adolescents. In doing so, they often rely on comparisons to existing “age-gates,” treating these thresholds (such as ages 18 or 21) as self-justifying reference points. Age 18, marking the legal transition from childhood to adulthood, and age 21, the former age of majority and current sales age for certain controlled substances, serve as especially powerful rhetorical anchors in age-based legal reasoning. These anchor points shape how legal actors advocate for or against particular age thresholds, often substituting analogy for substantive …

Performance Leads Governance: A Comment On Professor Tallarita’S Dual-Class Analysis, David J. Berger, Pierluigi Matera

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of dual-class stock structures in corporate governance has sparked intense academic, legal, and regulatory debate. In his recent contribution, Dual-Class Contracting, Professor Tallarita persuasively challenges some contemporary interpretations of contractarian theories by showing that dual-class structures do not reflect bespoke bargaining or firm-specific negotiation, but rather result from lawyer-driven standardization, social norms, and path dependency.

Drawing on Tallarita’s empirical findings, we argue that the reality of dual-class structures extends beyond governance formality. Specifically, we contend that investor behavior is driven not by structural governance ideals, but by corporate performance and mission alignment. Companies increasingly design governance structures based …

De Minimis Copying: An Empirical Study, Jessica Silbey, Samantha Zyontz

Faculty Scholarship

In the internet age, the copyright de minimis defense has increased in relevance as copyright lawsuits (and IP generally) are more mainstream and infringement liability more widespread. This Article is the first empirical analysis of copyright de minimis defense cases, collecting and analyzing all such decisions since the mid-19th century. It traces the doctrine’s development over the past century and its evolution in the digital era, when copying has become even more ubiquitous but its triviality remains widely disputed. The Article’s aim is not only to map the de minimis defense to learn more about it doctrinally—asking when is copying …

The Crime Of Being Immoral, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

Despite a general abhorrence of retrospective laws as a matter of legal theory and Constitutional dictate, US. courts continue-in es sence-to create new crimes by injecting fazzy moral considerations into determinations under the federal fraud statutes. They do so by deeming a failure to act with "moral uprightness" sufficient to consti tute criminal fraud. Under such an amorphous standard, the unwitting find themselves in a legal bind, even though their conduct may not in volve any of the traditional elements of common-law fraud. This Article traces the roots of novel fraud theories with tools drawn from legal theory, linguistics, and …

Original Public Meaning And The Rule Of Recognition, Andrew Jensen Kerr

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Framer intent no longer possesses the same cachet it once held. But Framer influence still matters for public meaning originalism, particularly for communications like The Federalist Papers, in which Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison marketed the work of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention to state ratifying conventions and the constituencies they represented. Contemporary originalists posit that what the Constitution meant to this public audience at the time of ratification is cemented in time forever (the fixation thesis). The starting point for my analysis is the prosaic observation that our Framers occasionally changed their minds about the meaning of …

Laboratories Of Judicial Ethics: A Comparative Analysis Of Judicial Conduct Commissions In Tennessee, Rhode Island, And North Carolina, And Their Implications For Regulating The U.S. Supreme Court, Johnny Galloway

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

It is hardly necessary to recite the recent ethics controversies that have embroiled the Supreme Court. In the last several years, several revelations have rocked the Supreme Court and led members of Congress, President Joe Biden, and the public to question the Court’s ethical standards and impartiality. Whether the Court’s partiality and imprudence are real or perceived, recent developments like these have spurred calls for a binding code of ethics to be either adopted voluntarily by the Court or imposed involuntarily by congressional action. Given the fierce debate over ethics regulation of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is noteworthy that …

The Endorsement Test’S Early Years, 1983–1985: Notes From The O’Connor Files, Jay Wexler

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

One of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s signature contributions to U.S. constitutional law was the endorsement test, a subtle but critically important reformulation of the Court’s then prevailing approach to applying the Establishment Clause that focused on the message sent by government action supporting religion and the potentially harmful effects of that message on religious minorities and the political community. Now that the current Court has discarded the endorsement test, leaving the government freer than ever to support religion in a variety of ways, we should expect to see the harms that Justice O’Connor cared about become increasingly widespread and prevalent. …

Breaking The Chains: Addressing Criminal Records For Sex Trafficking Survivors Through Vacatur Laws, Charlotte Kessinger

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

No abstract provided.

Methodology Of Market Definition: Case Of Digital Multi-Sided Platforms, Anzhelika Gerasymenko, Vasyl Hanovskyi

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

The rapid expansion of the digital economy has significantly contributed to the increasing market power of digital multi-sided platforms, making its precise measurement increasingly challenging. The main reason is the lack of efficiency of SCP-tools in digital markets that push competition authorities to look for alternative ways of competition regulation in such markets (like the DMA approach), while its results are still poor. This paper provides the methodological grounding of a vertical breakdown of a complex product traded by digital multi-sided platforms to bring back the conventional tools of market definition and to adjust them to the specifics of digital …

Security And Terrorism Vs Free Expression: Analytical Study On The European Court Of Human Rights, Mariam Adel Massoud

Theses and Dissertations

The 11 of September attacks provide a paradigm shift when it comes to protection of national security. It results in a trending vision that prioritized security over national security, which makes it essential to think about balancing national security with free expression as a pillar of democratization. This study focusses on how the balance between freedom of expression and national security interests is achieved. It studies the legal approached of the European court of human rights and its legal assessment to strike this balance. The findings of this analytical study asserts that in order for the ECtHR to achieve this …

The Deferential Asian American: Low Racial Status And The Invisibility Of Asian Americans In Leadership And The American Narrative, Reginald Oh

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article will proceed in five parts. First, an important caveat. When the Article refers to Asian Americans, it refers to all Asian American subgroups except for South Asian Americans, because South Asian Americans are not perceived to be deferential in the same way as other Asian American subgroups. Consequently, their experience with leadership is unique among Asian Americans, and much of the analysis in this Article does not apply to them.

With that caveat, Part I will discuss the invisibility of Asian Americans generally, but particularly in leadership positions. Part II will discuss the concept of social status …

Vestigial Fiscal Constitutions, Joe Schomberg

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article examines the history and original intent of fiscal constitutions in the United States, providing helpful context for their usefulness today. It argues that, due to the rigidity of states’ fiscal constitutions, they are ultimately ineffective at preventing state and local governments from incurring more and more debt. Ultimately, it suggests that the weakness of state fiscal constitutions is a result of their functionality being overtaken by increased efficiencies in the capital markets and Tiebout-Tullock markets. Our state fiscal constitutions have suffered the same fate as our wisdom teeth or appendixes—they have become less useful and less relied …

Realities Of Mexican Civil Society Organizations: Index For The Promotion Of Activities Of Civil Society Organizations, Pablo Armando Gonzalez Ulloa Aguirre

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

This article presents the findings derived from the construction of an Index that evaluates the state of promotion of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) across Mexico’s 32 federal entities during the year 2021. It also outlines the criteria considered in building the Index and the results obtained in each of its dimensions. The Index provides a comprehensive and multidimensional perspective on the study of CSO promotion, analyzing legal, institutional, and programmatic dimensions with the aim of comparing progress and setbacks in this area. In doing so, it offers an opportunity to improve certain aspects as more data is generated and made …

Addressing The Abuse Of Monopsony Power In Labor Markets: Examining Potential Public And Civil Law Remedies And Sanctions, Zofia M. Mazur

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Although thousands of reported cases involve allegations of firms illegally forming cartels in product markets, relatively few deal with similar allegations in labor markets. Moreover, as observed in legal doctrine, labor markets tend to be more concentrated than product markets and, consequently, more susceptible to anticompetitive conducts by undertakings. The article, therefore, analyzes the so-called monopsony power in the labor market, which refers to any case where employers hold labor market power that allows them to unilaterally determine wages or to worsen working conditions by reducing employment.

It is argued that competition law should be used to effectively curb abuse …

Defederalizing Opioid Addication Care, Matthew B. Lawrence

San Diego Law Review

Lack of access to evidence-based care for drug addiction is an urgent problem amid a decades-long overdose crisis that kills more than one hundred thousand Americans a year. Opioid addiction is the primary driver of overdoses today, and medicines exist to treat such addiction that can dramatically improve quality of life while reducing the risk of deadly overdose by more than half. Yet fewer than one in four of the nine million Americans who need such evidence-based medical care for their addiction receive it. Chief among barriers to access are restrictive and burdensome federal requirements limiting the use of narcotic …

การกำหนดบทลงโทษทางปกครองและทางอาญาร่วมกันในกรณีความประมาทเลินเล่อของ ภาระผูกพันหลังการทำเหมืองขององค์กร: กรณีศึกษาเปรียบเทียบกฎระเบียบการทำเหมืองแร่ของประเทศอินโดนีเซีย ไทย และแอฟริกาใต้ (A Combined Imposition Of Administrative And Criminal Sanctions For Negligence Of Corporate Post-Mining Obligations: A Comparative Study Of Indonesian, Thailand, And South African Mining Regulations), Fachrian Rizki

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

วิธีการทางกฎหมายอันเหมาะสมและบทบัญญัติของกฎหมายที่เพียงพอต่อการลงโทษนิติบุคลคลซึ่งละเลยหน้าที่อันต้องกระทำการหลังการขุดเหมืองแร่นั้นถือเป็นประเด็นในทางกฎหมายที่หลายประเทศทั่วโลกไม่ได้ให้ความสนใจเท่าไรนัก นอกจากการละเว้นหน้าที่ดังกล่าวโดยประมาทจะส่งผลร้ายทั้งทางตรงและทางอ้อมต่อสิ่งแวดล้อมและชุมชน บริเวณรอบพื้นที่แล้ว การกระทำดังกล่าวยังส่งผลเสียต่อตัวนิติบุคคลด้วย ในอินโดนีเซียมีผู้เห็นว่าการบังคับใช้มาตรการบังคับทางปกครองเพียงอย่างเดียวก็สามารถป้องปรามการกระทำดังกล่าวได้อย่างเพียงพอ แต่อย่างไรก็ตาม เมื่อได้ศึกษาเปรียบเทียบกฎหมายของอินโดนีเซียกับประเทศไทยและแอฟริกาใต้แล้ว พบว่ามีการใช้มาตรการทางอาญาควบคู่ไปกับมาตรการบังคับทางปกครอง ดังนั้น กรณีดังกล่าวจึงนำมาสู่ปัญหาของงานวิจัยฉบับนี้ว่า การบังคับใช้มาตรการทางอาญาควบคู่ไปกับมาตรการบังคับทางปกครองต่อความผิดฐานละเลยหน้าที่ที่พึงต้องกระทำหลังการขุดเหมืองแร่โดยประมาทจะมีผลสัมฤทธิ์มากกว่าการใช้มาตรการบังคับทางปกครองเพียงอย่างเดียวหรือไม่ และการใช้โทษทางอาญาในความผิดฐานดังกล่าวนั้นขัดต่อหลักความได้สัดส่วนและหลักการกำหนดความผิดในทางอาญาหรือไม่ บทความวิจัยนี้จึงมุ่งศึกษาปัญหาดังกล่าวโดยเน้นการวิเคราะห์หลักเกณฑ์ทางทฤษฎีที่เกี่ยวข้อง และเปรียบเทียบกฎหมายของประเทศไทยและแอฟริกาใต้

Brief For Amici Curiae Brian L. Frye, Jess Miers, And Mateusz Blaszczyk In Support Of Appellant, Bryan L. Frye, Jess Miers, Mateusz Blaszczyk

Scholarly Works

This is an amicus curiae brief filed by Brian L. Frye, Jess Miers, and Mateusz Blaszczyk in support of ROSS Intelligence, Inc., arguing that Thomson Reuters's claim for copyright infringement should be dismissed.

Delay, Deny, Tax, Samuel D. Brunson

Emory Law Journal Online

Health insurance companies are having a moment in the United States. Their moment involves widespread public objections to their seemingly random and increasing willingness to deny coverage and reimbursement to insureds. These denials are in large part not part of a program to improve health coverage but, rather, to reduce insurance companies’ expenses and, in turn, increase their profits.

There is broad consensus that something has to change. The public demands it. Bipartisan groups of senators and representatives have investigated it. Even the health care industry acknowledges that something needs to change. To actually make the health care system better …

Amicus Brief In Support Of Ross Intelligence In Ross Intelligence V. Thomson Reuters, Jess Miers, Bryan L. Frye, Mateusz Blaszczyk

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This amici curiae brief, filed in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH and West Publishing Corp. v. ROSS Intelligence Inc. before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, argues that Thomson Reuters failed to state a viable claim for copyright infringement against ROSS Intelligence. The amici—law professors specializing in copyright and technology—contend that Westlaw’s headnotes are uncopyrightable factual summaries of judicial opinions and that the West Key Number System has long been in the public domain. The brief distinguishes between AI “pretraining” and “fine-tuning,” emphasizing that ROSS’s fine-tuning process relied on expert-created materials rather than wholesale copying. It cautions …

Duck, Duck, Prisoner Abuse: Trump Presidency, Prison Labor, And The Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act (Rico), Maya Huffman

Immigration and Human Rights Law Review

The use of compulsory prison labor in American jails and prisons has reached alarming levels. Despite the Thirteenth Amendment’s purpose of abolishing slavery in the United States, slavery-like conditions persist under the guise of compulsory prison labor. The Thirteenth Amendment created an important caveat to the prohibition of slavery in the United States: involuntary servitude is permissible as a punishment for crime. Across the country, incarcerated individuals are forced against their will to engage in physical labor with sub-standard safety protocols, endure physically and mentally abusive superiors, and receive little to no pay. Despite domestic and international condemnation of the …

Ecocide, Justice And Accountability: Legal Pathways Through Cop30, Marina Soares Da Fonsêca

COP30

This paper examines how international legal frameworks can evolve to address environmental destruction caused by companies, specifically through the recognition of ecocide as an international crime. Thus, using the case of Braskem in Brazil as an example, the document exposes the systemic weaknesses in holding companies accountable for ecocidal acts that displace communities and destroy ecosystems. Three strategic recommendations are proposed: the codification of ecocide in the Rome Statute, the creation of a Global Climate Justice Observatory, and the reform of climate finance to include justice-centered mechanisms. These suggestions are discussed in the context of recent developments at COP29, especially …

Cross-Border Climate Adaptation – Transboundary Agreement For Climate Justice & Security, Andre Ferreira

COP30

This policy paper shall highlight the need for COP30 negotiators to adopt a Transboundary Adaptation Compact (TAA), a rights-based framework meant to coordinate climate adaptation across shared resources, mobilize finance, and manage the growing challenges of ecocide risks/cross-border migration. While shared bodies of water provide crucial resources for billions of people globally, their international governance is often fragmented. The climate crisis is compounding already existing tensions over water allocations that emerge from lack of cooperation between nation-states, threatening ecocide in river deltas, wetlands, and mangroves. Therefore, this paper aims to draw from existing case studies of successful regional cooperation, such …

Empowering Courts For Climate Justice: A Policy Proposal To Enhance Judicial Capacity Through The Paris Agreement Framework, Nourine Gad

COP30

This policy paper asserts that the strengthening of judicial capacity to deal with climate harm, especially ecocide, is urgently needed and that the Paris Agreement can play a huge role in this. Given that climate change has become a more political battle between justice and rights, courts have been playing a major role in holding governments and corporations accountable. Nevertheless, many national judiciaries do not have the instruments, jurisdiction, or the training to successfully adjudicate on complex climate cases. It is then argued that as a case study, Brazil has moved forward on the issue of climate rights through the …

The Formalisation Of The Judiciary In The International Climate Governance Vis-À-Vis A Solution For The Accountability Gap In Political Institutions, Shristi Gautam

COP30

The international governance of climate change has historically been led by political institutions operating under multilateral frameworks, such as the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. Under these frameworks, the mitigation ambition and implementation of NDCs remain subject to state discretion, with no binding consequences for non-compliance, creating an enduring enforcement deficit. The paper examines the increasing judicialization of climate governance as a means of addressing this deficit, positioning the judiciary as an active enforcer rather than a passive adjudicator. Drawing on Urgenda v. The Netherlands, Leghari v. Pakistan, Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell, and the 2025 ICJ Advisory Opinion, the …

The Invisible Chains: Framing Abuse Of Dominant Position In Labor Markets, Giulia Mangiafico

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

This paper examines how the concept of abuse of dominant position can be applied to the labour markets, where demand-side concentration and supply-side fragmentation generate monopsonistic dynamics that suppress wages, limit mobility, and reduce job security. It argues that traditional antitrust tools can be adapted to labour-specific contexts by redefining market boundaries through commuting zones, occupational substitutability, and recognition of artificial fragmentation. The study also addresses how exploitative practices such as non-compete agreements illustrate the concrete impact of employer power, and it highlights the need for a more coherent regulatory approach. Ultimately, it suggests that competition law, when enforced alongside …

Collective Dominance Under Scrutiny: Closing The Enforcement Gap Or Complicating Eu Competition Policy?, Miroslava Marinova

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

This paper examines the European Commission’s Draft Guidelines on Article 102 TFEU, focusing on their treatment of collective dominance in oligopolistic markets. While the Guidelines adopt a structured framework derived from merger control, they fail to address a key challenge specific to Article 102: the need for clear evidentiary standards in retrospective enforcement. The paper argues that parallel conduct by independent firms can, in certain cases, serve as evidence of collective dominance where such behaviour is not rational absent joint market power. However, the Draft Guidelines offer little guidance on how to integrate such conduct into the dominance analysis. This …

You Are What You Eat: Using Trademark Law To Address Consumer Confusion In Food Labeling, Brooke Raniere

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

America is experiencing a health crisis. Our grocery store promulgates illusions of endless food choices; however, this abundance is sustained by only a handful of dominating food conglomerates. With the increased centralization of power in the food supply system, foods have generally become ultra-processed and unhealthier. Companies often use strategic marketing through packaging design, labeling, and food names to capture additional consumers through health claims that often do not reflect these foods' contents. As American citizens' average health continues to decline, large food conglomerates have increasingly pushed the boundaries of what they can claim, creating vast confusion and mislabeling in …