Digital Commons Network^™

Towards A Just Transition Impact Assessment Framework, Adebayo Gbenga Majekolagbe

PhD Dissertations

Just transition is a contested notion. Its definitions range from status quo enforcing to transformation engendering. Traditionally, just transition focuses on local jobs and workers. Its application within the climate change context retains this traditional focus. From its recognition in the Paris Agreement to its incorporation in domestic transition laws and policies, just transition is essentially interpreted as jobs transition. Further, the scholarship and law of just transition are primarily normatively built on the distributive and procedural conceptualizations of justice. Also, although planning is construed as central to a just transition, there is no clarity on how abstract proposals on …

Justice, Resilience, And Disruptive Histories: A South Florida Case Study, Craig (Tony) Anthony Arnold, Frank Bencomo-Suarez, Pierce Stevenson, Elijah Beau Eisert

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Diverse Patients’ Attitudes Towards Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Diagnosis, Christopher Robertson, Andrew Woods, Kelly Bergstrand, Jessica Findley, Cayley Balser, Marvin J. Slepian

Faculty Scholarship

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy. Yet people are often reluctant to trust automated systems, and some patient populations may be particularly distrusting. We sought to determine how diverse patient populations feel about the use of AI diagnostic tools, and whether framing and informing the choice affects uptake. To construct and pretest our materials, we conducted structured interviews with a diverse set of actual patients. We then conducted a pre-registered (osf.io/9y26x), randomized, blinded survey experiment in factorial design. A survey firm provided n = 2675 responses, oversampling minoritized populations. Clinical vignettes were randomly manipulated in eight …

Tea And Donuts, Derek E. Bambauer, Robert W. Woods

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

U.S. trademark law often permits simultaneous use of the same brand by multiple entities. Its approach to deciding when and how this concurrent use is permissible has become antiquated, rooted in outdated assumptions about trade and telecommunications. By using the physical location of mark-users as a proxy for consumer confusion, trademark law creates doctrinal inconsistencies, undercuts trademark law’s notice function, and can cause the confusion it seeks to prevent. In theory, someone who registers their mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office obtains nationwide rights; in practice, those rights remain limited to the places where the registrant actually conducts …

When Justice Depends On It: The Need For Professional Standards For Mitigation Development In All Criminal Cases, Elizabeth S. Vartkessian, Thea Posel, Anthony Ginez, Lela Hubbard

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Development & Validation Of A Scale Of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Alexander Davy

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are important to organizations and their employees. However, confusion in conceptualization and operationalization hinders the development of DEI research and application. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, I conceptualized DEI as a composite construct of three interrelated but differentiated components, that is, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Possible relationships among the three constructs were discussed. Second, I developed a three-dimensional scale to measure diversity, equity, and inclusion as separate constructs. The scale showed acceptable reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha levels for the overall scale and subscales range from .81 to .94. Convergent and divergent validity …

Beyond States: A Constitutional History Of Territory, Statehood, And Nation-Building, Craig Green

University of Chicago Law Review

The United States has always been more than simply a group of united states. The constitutional history of national union and component states is linked to a third category: federal territory. This Article uses an integrated history of territory, statehood, and union to develop a new framework for analyzing constitutional statehood. Three historical periods are crucial—the Founding Era, the Civil War, and Reconstruction—as times when statehood was especially malleable as a matter of constitutional law. During each of those formative periods, the most important constitutional struggles about statehood and the union involved federal territories.

Conflicts about territories reveal an important …

Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit

Faculty Scholarship

Transforming the electric power grid is central to any viable scenario for addressing global climate change, but the process and politics of this transformation are complex. The desire to transform the grid creates an “energy trilemma” involving often conflicting desires for reliability, cost, and decarbonization; and, at least in the short run, it is difficult to avoid making tradeoffs between these different goals. It is somewhat shocking, then, that many crucial decisions about electric power service in the United States are made not by consumers or their utilities, nor by state public utilities commissions or federal regulators. Instead, for much …

Christians And/As Liberals?, Steven D. Smith

Notre Dame Law Review

Christianity and liberalism were made to fit each other, like hand and glove. According to some interpretations, anyway. Liberal constitutionalism, with its commitments to freedom and equal human dignity, is the political system that reflects and embodies Christian commitments; and the constitutional legal order that accompanies liberalism, centrally including legally enforced rights of religious freedom, is the mode of government that best permits Christians to live in accordance with their faith in a fallen and deviant world. Thus, a couple of decades ago, Robert Kraynak reported that “[a]lmost all churches and theologians now believe that the form of government most …

The Battle Of The Narrative In Jones V. Mississippi: Consideration Of Youth “In Name Only”, Stevie Leahy

Mercer Law Review

Juvenile sentencing within the United States is but one illustration of how the legal system reinforces the marginalization of populations that have been historically underinvested and underrepresented. Throughout the past century, the macro-narrative on sentencing has fluctuated nationally, as well as within individual states, with the reasoning used to justify decisions sliding between the conflicting lenses of rehabilitation and punishment. This has necessarily impacted the micro-narrative—the way that an individual’s story is considered and weighed (or ignored) within sentencing. There are endless factors that affect outcomes in sentencing: class, race and or ethnicity, gender, and access to counsel are just …

Transferred Emissions Are Still Emissions: Why Fossil Fuel Asset Sales Need Enhanced Transparency And Carbon Accounting, Jack Arnold, Martin Lockman, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Shraman Sen, Michael Burger

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

In a widely reported trend, the “Oil Supermajors” — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies — are selling off many upstream fossil fuel assets.

Selling these assets to entities that will continue producing and selling the fossil fuel resources does not necessarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the supermajors have used these asset sales to support claims that they are making progress toward reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions reporting frameworks allow companies to conflate the apparent emissions reductions from asset sales with direct reductions from efficiency improvements and asset retirements. In doing so, they hinder the ability …

25 Is The New 18: Extending Juvenile Jurisdiction And Closing Its Exceptions, Dylan Raymond

Utah Law Review

Courts are in broad agreement that juveniles—defined as people under 18-yearsold — are less culpable than adults and thus punish them differently. Indeed, few would disagree that the adult criminal system should apply only to adults—people “fully developed and mature.” If separating adults and juveniles based on culpability is the goal, it begs a simple question: should the split happen at age 18? Some U.S. institutions imply that they believe an 18-year-old lacks the requisite maturity to assume certain responsibilities, including the House of Representatives and car rental agencies, which permit participation at 25. Looking globally, important institutions like the …

The Common Law Inside Social Media, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Governance Seams, Brett Frischmann, Paul Ohm

Faculty Publications

This Essay formalizes the concept of governance seams and develops theories for what they enable; how they arise; why they are some- times dismantled; and how, why, and when regulators might step in to protect endangered governance seams or to create new ones. Governance seams are socially constructed boundaries, borders, and interfaces that harness friction-in-design to enable governance. Governance seams mediate interactions among components of sociotechnical systems and between different parties and contexts. Delineating boundaries, borders, and interfaces as loci of transparency, coordination, and oversight supports mechanisms for deliberation, contestation, and protection, both by those within and those outside the …

Where Neutrality Stops And Reality Begins: Why Considering Identity Is Vital To Lead And Class Counsel Selection, Melissa Mortazavi

UC Law Journal

When courts consider a choice of class or lead counsel in multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) or class action suits, they often follow the idea of a neutral partisan model. Such a model idealizes lawyer conduct as a blank conduit for client interests. In theory, lawyers should be able to bring their legal expertise absent any personal experiences, individualized identity, and morality outside of practice. But the reality is that neither lawyers nor their clients can fully divorce their identities or moral viewpoints from the legal system.

This Essay argues that an identity-blind choice of class or lead counsel, grounded in a …

Spac Mergers, Ipos, And The Pslra's Safe Harbor: Unpacking Claims Of Regulatory Arbitrage, Amanda M. Rose

William & Mary Law Review

Communications in connection with an initial public offering (IPO) are excluded from the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA). Unsurprisingly, IPO issuers do not share projections publicly—the liability risk is too great. By contrast, communications in connection with a merger are not excluded from the safe harbor, and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) routinely share their merger targets’ projections publicly. Does the divergent application of the PSLRA’s safe harbor in traditional IPOs and SPAC mergers create an opportunity for “regulatory arbitrage” and, if so, what should be done about it? …

The Intersection Of Urban Heat Islands And The Cdc Social Vulnerability Index In Two Border Cities, Ileana Morales

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Managing Threats To Beaches From Storms And Rising Seas, Travis O. Brandon

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Dialogue, published in the Environmental Law Reporter, examines the escalating threats to U.S. beaches from intensified storms and accelerating sea-level rise driven by climate change. Drawing on a January 2023 panel convened by the Environmental Law Institute, the discussion integrates scientific, legal, policy, and community-based perspectives on sustaining beach and dune ecosystems. Panelists outline projected shoreline retreat, sediment dynamics, and modeling tools used to forecast erosion and coastal flooding. They assess the ecological and socioeconomic tradeoffs associated with shoreline armoring, beach nourishment, and coastal development, highlighting how regulatory frameworks—particularly under the Coastal Zone Management Act and Clean Water …

The Civil War Conflict Between Anglophones/Francophones In The Northwest And Southwest Regions Of Cameroon, Myriam Jeter

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The Civil War conflict between Anglophones and Francophones, also known as the Ambazonia war, is a long-standing issue that continues to plague the people living in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. This paper explores the colonial history of the nation, the cause of the ongoing conflict, the reasons for its escalation, and how it gave rise to the Ambazonian separatists who want to have a separate nation called the Ambazonia Republic.

This study contributes to conflict understanding in two ways. First, it sheds light on the cultural and economic impacts of internally generated crises in a country. Second, …

Unidentified Deceased Persons: Who Are At-Risk?, Sarah Duncan

All Theses

This study explores the silent mass disaster of unidentified deceased persons that is occurring across the United States and identifies the individual and community level characteristics that make a person “at-risk” of becoming an unidentified deceased person within the United States. This study identifies trends-based hotspots by using data reported on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and comparing those trends to the gender United States population. It finds that males, and age of death between 20-64 are overrepresented and White persons are underrepresented in the unidentified deceased person sample when compared the general population. Social and human …

Etuaptmumk: A Means To Advance Indigenous Economic Development “In A Good Way”, Frankie Young

Dalhousie Law Journal

A reckoning is required on how Eurocentric laws and economic systems are biased toward Western worldviews while not accounting for Indigenous realities, legal orders, or economic perspectives. Most notably, Eurocentric laws have been instrumental in advancing non-Indigenous economic interests to the detriment of Indigenous interests, largely because Indigenous laws have not been respected. The strengthening of certain Eurocentric property and contract laws have limited Indigenous peoples’ legal and economic interests and continues to constrain positive economic outcomes and advancement for Indigenous nations. This article argues that re-centering Indigenous legal traditions is a means to advance Indigenous economic interests. The principle …

Improving Nasa’S Earth Satellite And Model Data Discoverability For Interdisciplinary Research, Applications, And Education, Zhong Liu, Chung-Lin Shie, Suhung Shen, James Acker, Angela Li, Jennifer C. Wei, David J. Meyer

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Since the Internet era began, numerous earth science data services have been developed to facilitate data discovery (for example, data sources, documents, facts, visualization, opinions) and data access for research and application activities. For example, a large collection of NASA’s earth science data has been made searchable and freely downloadable over the Internet. Some value-added services even allow users to analyze and visualize many variables online (for example, 2,000+ in NASA Giovanni) without downloading data and software.

However, finding and discovering suitable datasets and information for interdisciplinary research (involving two or more scientific disciplines), applications, education, and other emerging activities …

Unrelated Scandal, Unprotected Defamation: Why Courts Should Reject A Problematic Framing Of The Germaneness-Scope Rule Which Prioritizes Potential Impact On Public Opinion, Zachary R. Cormier

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Weed For Me, But Not For Thee: How The Legalization Of Cannabis Has Created A Pot-Hole On The Road To Naturalization, Kevin Cortright

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Zoning By A Thousand Cuts, Sara C. Bronin

Pepperdine Law Review

Zoning is increasingly viewed as a constraint on the nation’s housing supply, and as zoning enters its second century, there is a strong drumbeat for reform. Across the country, reformers have targeted the elimination of single-family zoning, pointing to research showing that single-family zoning drives up development costs, degrades the environment, and homogenizes communities. While allowing more multi-family options could help address these issues, reformers should not exclusively focus on the elimination of single-family zoning. Process requirements including mandatory public hearings, and substantive requirements involving lot configuration, building size, and occupancy, among other things, play a significant role in determining …

علاقة النمو السكاني بتغير الوظيفة السكنية دراسة في محلة 817 في حي التأميم في بغداد, المدرس المساعد/ نوال محمد سلمان محمد سلمان

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

تتصف استعمالات الارض داخل المدينة ومنها الاستعمال السكني بصفة تنافسية على وحدة المساحة المبنية وغير المبنية في الاحياء السكنية، بفعل وجود قوى الجذب والطرد وخاصة في المناطق المركزية وحوافها، وهذا ما يؤدي بدورة الى حدوث ظاهرة إحلال (تبدل وتغير) وظيفي وعمراني.

ولما كانت الوظيفة السكنية ضعيفة المنافسة أمام الوظيفة التجارية والصناعية، لذا فأن المساحة التي تشغلها سوف تقل كلما أزداد أو تضخم حجم المدينة بفعل النمو السكاني، فسرعان ما تتخلى عن جزء من مساحتها لاستعمالات أخرى تجارية أو صناعية.

ولأن المسكن يتغير شكلا ووظيفة تبعاً للتغيرات البيئية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية الحاصلة في المجتمع نتيجة التطور التكنولوجي والزيادة السكانية الطبيعية، لذا فان …

التوزيع المكاني للمراكز الصحية في مدينة بعقوبة وعلاقتها بالكثافة السكانية وشبكات النقل ( دراسة تطبيقية في جغرافية المدن ), م.د . مثنى ناظم داود سلمان العبيدي

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

النقل هو مسألة حيوية من أجل الوصول إلى الرعاية الصحية، لا سيما في مناطق الحضر والريف لمدينة بعقوبة ، حيث مسافات التنقل بين المراكز الصحية والسكان (سهولة الوصول). هناك أدلة هامة على أن استخدام الرعاية الصحية يكون بنسبة أقل في المناطق الريفية مقارنة بالمناطق الحضرية. فهناك عددا من التفسيرات المحتملة لهذه الاختلافات من حيث تلك المقارنة، فإن نسبة الكثافة السكانية ومسافات السفر وعدد خيارات النقل المتاحة في المناطق الريفية يمكن أن يكون عاملا هاما. ويمكن أن تكون المسافات إلى مراكز الرعاية الصحية الإقليمية في المناطق الريفية كبيرة في كثير من الأحيان. وتزداد المشكلة تعقيدا عندما يكون جزء متزايد من السكان …

Displacement And Replacement: The Political History Of David Duke, Patrick Buchanan, And Racial Resentment, Dylan Weir

Journal of Hate Studies

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Duke and Patrick Buchanan drew on long-running discourses about White replacement and displacement in their political campaigns. Duke, former leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, used White displacement fears to earn elected office in the Louisiana state legislature. He then ran for governor, senator, and president, but was thwarted in these campaigns partly thanks to Black voters. Duke’s presidential ambitions were also undercut by the journalist and television personality Patrick Buchanan, who coopted Duke’s message to seize his base. Despite trying several times, however, Buchanan was also unable to …

European Approaches To Stopping Islamophobia Are Inadequate: Lessons For Canadians Combating Anti-Muslim Racism And Hatred, Hassina Alizai

Journal of Hate Studies

The United Kingdom, France, and Spain have in common a large and growing Muslim population. The influx of immigrants and refugees has left many European states fearful of Muslim migrants because they perceive potential increases in terrorism and job insecurity, which would have significant social and economic policy implications. European governments have sought to strengthen security measures and immigration laws, often with consequences that disproportionately and negatively affect Muslims. At the same time, European governments have increased their efforts to address Islamophobia and improve Muslim integration, partly in response to the growth in the reporting of anti-Muslim hate crimes. Each …

Nuclear Threat As Race Hatred, John Streamas

Journal of Hate Studies

Nuclear weapons, since their advent in the 1940s, have been regarded as so massively destructive and lethal that few have questioned whether particular groups might be targeted. Deaths across their geographical sweep seem to be total and indiscriminate. I argue, however, that it is no accident or coincidence that the Bomb was first used on a non-White nation; people of color in the United States such as Langston Hughes believed it would never be used against a White enemy. On the other hand, even if it is a race weapon, it is also still a species weapon, so that even …