Digital Commons Network^™

Sustainable Communities Or The Next Urban Renewal?, Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Eric Biber

Faculty Scholarship

Inadequate housing supply in California’s most expensive metro areas drives a statewide housing crisis that challenges climate policy implementation, fair housing goals, and poverty reduction. Many scholars and policy makers agree that increasing dense infill transit-oriented residential development (TOD) in high-cost metro areas could address this housing crisis while also mitigating the impacts of climate change. But some advocates and scholars liken state policy that promotes TOD to twentieth century urban renewal—contending that state-incentivized TOD disproportionately displaces lower income communities. To explore this issue, and to examine the relative influence of both state law promoting TOD and local law regulating …

The Persistent Objector Doctrine: Identifying Contradictions, Shelly Aviv Yeini

Chicago Journal of International Law

The persistent objector doctrine (POD) in international law provides that a rule of customary international law (CIL) will not oblige a state that has persistently objected to the development of the rule. The doctrine requires that the objection be “persistent” and “consistent” and that it not be contradictory. Yet, while in this context the meaning of persistency and consistency, in this context, has been discussed in the legal literature, the term “contradiction” has not. Therefore, it is not clear what type of behavior would represent a contradiction that would disqualify a state from persistent objector (PO) status. In practice, this …

Tightwire Of National Interests And Publicity In The Evolved Process Of Democratization And Constitutional Transformation: Lessons From Taiwan, Hsin-Hsuan Lin

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

Achieving an optimal balance between government secrecy and democratic accountability has led to long-standing questions in the discussion of contemporary constitutionalism. To address the complex contemporary phenomenon of government secrecy within a democratic society, a more in-depth understanding of its tension with democratic accountability and transparency is essential. This article provides a descriptive overview of Taiwan's legal system, its legal implications in relation to government secrecy, and its normative implications. The article begins with a historical background of Taiwan's legal system, focusing on legal reform as it relates to government secrecy. The article investigates the complex interactions between the administrative, …

Unservice: Reconceptualizing The Utility Duty To Serve In Light Of Climate Change, Heather Payne

University of Richmond Law Review

Many facets of utility monopoly regulation are approaching a minimum of eight decades as part of our legal landscape. A bedrock principle of state utility regulation is the duty to serve, which demands that utilities provide nondiscriminatory service to all those within their geographic territory for the specific service for which they have been granted a monopoly. Within its exclusive territory, a utility is required “to serve all present and reasonably to be anticipated future users.” Each state has adopted some form of this for its regulated monopolies, although formulations differ. This Article argues that in light of climate change …

Disaster Vulnerability, Lisa Grow, Brigham Daniels, Douglas M. Spencer, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades, Teresa Gomez

Publications

Vulnerability drives disaster law, yet the literature lacks both an overarching analysis of the different aspects of vulnerability and a nuanced examination of the factors that shape disaster outcomes. Though central to disaster law and policy, vulnerability often lurks in the shadows of a disaster, evident only once the worst is past and the bodies have been counted. The COVID-19 pandemic is a notable exception to this historical pattern: from the beginning of the pandemic, it has been clear that the virus poses different risks to different people, depending on vulnerability variables. This most recent pandemic experience thus provides a …

Civil Rights In Times Of Uncertainty (The Anthropocene), Jeffrey Omari

Law Faculty Scholarship

Although there have been significant civil rights gains made in recent decades, the United States is now experiencing a resurgence of many of the societal ills that have plagued the country for decades. From an insurrection that was seemingly inspired by white supremacist ideology to ongoing examples of police brutality against Black people, anti-Asian violence, anti-LGBTQ violence, and recurring islamophobia, the country sits at an apparent crossroads. There is an urgent need to advance a civil rights agenda that addresses the impact of these societal ills on the affected communities. At the same time, however, we are confronting these ills …

Panel 3: The Universal Museum Myth, Irini Stamatoudi, Patty Gerstenblith, Elena Korka, Joe Baker

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The article critiques the concept of the "universal museum," arguing that it often justifies the removal of cultural heritage from its origin communities under the guise of public education and universal access. The discussion emphasizes the ethical and legal issues surrounding colonial-era acquisitions and advocates for a shift towards restitution and collaboration with source communities to address historical injustices.

The Gendered Interpretation Of Child Marriage: A Niger Case Study, Melissa Safi

Dissertations and Theses

This paper seeks to answer the question, what is the primary factor driving child marriage? I explore the literature in several scholarly articles that explain why the harmful, traditional practice of child marriage is an issue that predominantly affects girls globally. I also utilize the feminist theory of international relations to support my analysis of child marriage as a gender issue. Incorporating evidence from annual international reports, scholarly articles, and mixed methods studies, this paper examines a case study of Niger, where child marriage affects more than half the population of girls under the age of 18. In studying Niger, …

The Criticism Of Eurocentrism And International Law: Countering And Pluralizing The Research, Teaching, And Practice Of Eurocentric International Law, Makane Moïse Mbengue, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This Chapter draws on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) in examining the question: how does the research and teaching of international law in the Global South challenge Eurocentrism in international law. The Chapter focuses on the emergent activities within Global South that pluralize Eurocentric international law’s dominance in the research production, teaching, and practice arenas. The Chapter pushes against the unfair over-representation of European countries in the scholarly production and institutions of international law. To illustrate the often-underexplored regional diversity of international law outside Europe, the Chapter reflects on the contemporary roles of critical Global South scholars and …

Structural Biases In Structural Constitutional Law, Jonathan S. Gould, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

Structural constitutional law regulates the workings of government and supplies the rules of the political game. Whether by design or by accident, these rules sometimes tilt the playing field for or against certain political factions – not just episodically, based on who holds power at a given moment, but systematically over time – in terms of electoral outcomes or policy objectives. In these instances, structural constitutional law is itself structurally biased.

This Article identifies and begins to develop the concept of such structural biases, with a focus on biases affecting the major political parties. Recent years have witnessed a revival …

Criminal Injustice, Edward Rubin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

As its title suggests, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free is a wide-ranging critique of our criminal justice system. While it is hardly the first, it offers a number of distinctive insights. Most of the now voluminous work on this topic is written by scholars, policy analysts, or journalists and is addressed to the legislature or the executive. This certainly makes sense. External observers are well positioned to critique a system that punishes without purpose, and the major determinants of its dysfunction are the legislature that enacts the criminal law and the executive that enforces it. …

Survival Voting And Minority Political Rights, Douglas M. Spencer, Lisa Grow Sun, Brigham Daniels, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades

Publications

The health of American democracy has literally been challenged. The global pandemic has powerfully exposed a long-standing truth: electoral policies that are frequently referred to as "convenience voting" are really a mode of "survival voting" for millions of Americans. As our data show, racial minorities are overrepresented among voters whose health is most vulnerable, and politicians have leveraged these health disparities to subordinate the political voice of racial minorities.

To date, data about racial disparities in health has played a very limited role in assessing voting rights. A new health lens on the racial impacts of voting rules would beneficially …

Checklist For Open Access Publishers On Implementing The Unesco Recommendation On Open Science, Unesco, Oaspa

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Within the subset of open scientific knowledge, this document refers to scientific publications that include, inter alia, journal articles and books, research reports and conference papers. These publications may be, contain or be accompanied by original scientific research results, research data, software, source code, source materials, workflows and protocols, digital representations of pictorial and graphical materials and scholarly multimedia material. According to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, access to scientific knowledge should be as open as possible, and may need to be restricted, in specific circumstance, for example to protect human rights, confidentiality, intellectual property rights, personal information, threatened …

Roundtable Two: Environmental Law Education: New Techniques In The Classroom And Beyond, Lincoln Davies, Karrigan Bork, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Blind Justice: Algorithms And Neutrality In The Case Of Redistricting, Douglas M. Spencer, Moon Duchin

Publications

In several areas of law and public policy, there have been longstanding dreams that computers can secure decisionmaking that takes only some things into account, while remaining demonstrably neutral to other factors. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider mandating race-neutrality in multiple domains, notably in college admissions and redistricting. In this piece, we clarify the real and imagined uses of computers in redistricting, considering their application for optimization approaches and, more recently, for representative sampling. The current pitch to the Court for a race-blind Voting Rights Act is discussed at length.

Using Adaptive Governance To Protect Oregon’S Water Resources, Lauren Butz

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Over 30 years ago, Oregon adopted the innovative In-Stream Water Rights Act, which introduced new regulatory tools and incentives for encouraging efficient water consumption, and paved the way for the emergence of water trusts. However, Oregon’s water resources are under increasing strain as the state faces the challenges of over-appropriation and climate change. New solutions are needed to augment the existing regulatory framework. This Comment draws on the principles of adaptive governance and ecological resilience to formulate possible legal solutions to help the state adapt to increasing demands for water, proposing that Oregon leverage corporate social responsibility to encourage investments …

Protecting The Sublette Antelope Migration: An Analysis Of The Evolution Of The Legal Tools Employed To Protect The Sublette Antelope Herd From Fencing Obstructions, Colin Reynolds

Lewis & Clark Law Review

A biological marvel of the natural world, each year a small herd of pronghorn antelope—called the Sublette herd—migrate over 300 miles through a mix of public and private land in Wyoming. The Sublette herd’s annual movement constitutes one of the largest remaining “big game” migrations within the continental United States. Unfortunately, this migration faces an increasing number of obstacles threatening its long-term viability; chief among them being fencing obstacles. This Comment examines the evolution of the legal tools the federal government, the state of Wyoming, and everyday citizens can use to protect the Sublette herd’s migration.

Set Up To Fail: Youth Probation Conditions As A Driver Of Incarceration, Jyoti Nanda

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Youth probation is the most common form of punishment for youth in the United States criminal legal system, with nearly a quarter of a million youth currently under supervision. Yet the role youth probation conditions play in the incarceration of youth has not been the focus of legal scholarship. Youth probation is a court-imposed intervention where young people remain at home under the supervision of a youth probation officer and are required to adhere to probation conditions, rules, and court-ordered conditions. The orders rely on standardized terms on youth probation condition forms. This is the first scholarly Article to excavate …

From Exceptionalism To Solidarity: The Rhetoric Of The Case For The Parthenon Sculptures' Return, Elizabeth Marlowe

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The article critiques the "exceptionalism" argument often used to justify keeping the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum, emphasizing their supposed uniqueness and the fear of setting a precedent for other repatriation claims. It argues that this approach is both factually and ethically flawed, as it ignores the broader ethical imperatives of decolonization and restorative justice. The author advocates for a shift towards solidarity with other repatriation movements, aligning with global efforts to address colonial legacies and promote ethical museum practices.

Revisiting A Jurisprudence Of Obligation, Ariel Evan Mayse, Kenneth A. Bamberger

Touro Law Review

Through his landmark exploration of obligation as the conceptual touchstone of what he describes as the “Jewish jurisprudence of the social order,” Robert Cover offered an alternate language for legal regimes grounded in a rhetoric of individual rights. The present essay revisits Cover’s account of the socially embedded nature of law and juridical process, taking seriously both its claims, as well as the cautions of its critics. The essay thus neither abandons the concept of rights as key to jurisprudence nor seeks to present a naïve or romantic characterization of Jewish legal thought, and proceeds wary of the pitfalls inherent …

Bargaining For Abolition, Zohra Ahmed

Scholarly Works

What if instead of seeing criminal court as an institution driven by the operation of rules, we saw it as a workplace where people labor to criminalize those with the misfortune to be prosecuted? I offer three different ways to think about labor in criminal court: (1) labor as a source of sociological value, (2) labor as an input that generates certain measurable outcomes, and (3) labor as a vehicle to advance abolitionist reforms. First, through their quotidian activities, criminal courts’ workers enact a practical philosophy that communicates lessons about who and how we value each other. Drawing on ethnographic …

Collected Wisdom On Selecting Leaders And Managing Mdls, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Stephen Bough

Scholarly Works

Today, nearly one out of every two new suits filed in federal civil court is part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL). Initially designed to organize antitrust cases against electrical equipment manufacturers, MDL’s adaptability and minimal requirements made it the preferred approach for coordinating pretrial process for all manner of cases, from securities, employment, intellectual property, and antitrust to sales practices, common disasters, and products liability. Yet, the simplicity of MDL’s technical requirements—that cases are pending in different districts and share a common factual question—belie the complexity of the proceedings themselves. Governed principally by insiders’ unwritten but longstanding norms, both newly-appointed …

Race-Ing Antitrust, Bennett Capers, Greg Day

Scholarly Works

Antitrust law has a race problem. To spot an antitrust violation, courts inquire into whether an act has degraded consumer welfare. Since anticompetitive practices are often assumed to enhance consumer welfare, antitrust offenses are rarely found. Key to this framework is that antitrust treats all consumers monolithically; that consumers are differently situated, especially along lines of race, simply is ignored.

We argue that antitrust law must disaggregate the term “consumer” to include those who disproportionately suffer from anticompetitive practices via a community welfare standard. As a starting point, we demonstrate that anticompetitive conduct has specifically been used as a tool …

Artificially Intelligent Boards And The Future Of Delaware Corporate Law, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

This article argues that the prospects for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to impact corporate law are at once over- and under-stated, focusing on the law of Delaware – the predominant jurisdiction of incorporation for US public companies. Claims that AI systems might displace human directors not only exaggerate AI’s foreseeable technological potential, but ignore doctrinal and institutional impediments intrinsic to Delaware’s competitive model – notably, heavy reliance on nuanced applications of the fiduciary duty of loyalty by a true court of equity. At the same time, however, there are discrete AI applications that might not merely be accommodated by Delaware corporate …

Resisting Indigenous Erasure In Rhode Island: The Need For Compulsory Native American History In Rhode Island Schools, Whitney Saunders

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Issues In Tribal E-Commerce, Adam Crepelle

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Airport Noise As Public Bads: Comparative Remarks On Legal Challenges In Resolving The Neighbor Conflict Between The Airport And Landowners, Magdalena Habdas

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Incompatible uses of land create neighbor conflicts connected with the notions of civil law immissions (non-trespassory invasions) or common law nuisance. These traditional instruments of resolving the neighbor conflict have their limitations when pollution (such as noise pollution produced by aviation) interferes with the use and enjoyment of land that affects numerous landowners. Lawmakers seek to resolve the neighbor conflict with public intervention in such circumstances. Instead of relying on the market, the state allocates entitlements, indicates how parties must behave, and prescribes the conditions under which lawmakers should conclude an agreement.

Interestingly, although the nuisance caused by airport noise …

The Sociology And Psychology Of Innovation: A Synthesis And Research Agenda For Intellectual Property Scholars, Stephanie Plamondon Bair, Laura Pedraza-Fariña

Faculty Scholarship

Intellectual Property (IP) and innovation law scholarship is generally concerned with the question of how to promote socially beneficial innovation. Until recently, the analysis brought to bear on that question in the literature has been dominated by an individual, rational-actor-centered model grounded in the neoclassical economics tradition. Under this model, individual innovators are assumed to respond to innovation incentives in rational ways, unswayed by their social environments or their own psychology.

Of course, as innovation scholars are beginning to recognize, the road to innovation is much more winding and complex than the straight path from incentive to innovation that the …

The Transactional Dynamics Of Market Fragility, Matthew C. Jennejohn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article takes a step toward more clearly diagnosing market fragility for the purpose of developing better policy choices that anticipate and address future crises. It does so by connecting two erstwhile and distinct literatures: the legal scholarship on relational contracting and the social science on the diffusion of shocks in economic networks. This Article attempts to connect the strategies parties pursue in designing their agreements—a familiar topic to contract scholars—to the diffusion patterns observed in disrupted markets—an increasingly important area of study in macroeconomics. By investigating that intersection, this Article introduces a new potential policy domain for remediating market …

The House Always Wins: Doctrine And Animus In California’S Covid-19 Prison Litigation, Hadar Aviram

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.