Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Proptech And The Datafication Of Real Estate On The Human Right To Housing, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

Proptech is undermining the human right to housing. Proptech is a term of art for the digital transformation of the real estate industry. It includes a range of real estate businesses engaged in development, financing, construction, management, and more. Proptech’s boosters promise frictionless and efficient housing markets. However, Proptech appears to be reinforcing existing power imbalances in real estate markets that are masked by the supposed objectivity and opacity of computer-generated processes. Meanwhile, countries across the globe face a profound housing crisis, with a lack of affordable and safe housing, high rates of homelessness, and rampant housing discrimination and segregation. …

The Public Utility Regulation Of Dollar General, Olivia R. Sokos

West Virginia Law Review

As food insecurity persists across the country, few solutions have been proposed to address the lack of access to healthy food in rural regions. This Note explores whether public utilities regulation is a theoretical avenue for addressing rural food deserts. The contribution of this Note is to encourage the recognition of healthy food as a critical public good through a modern public utility lens and build solutions to inadequate food access in rural regions by considering the qualities unique to rural populations. One solution proposed herein is to apply a modern public utility framework to dollar stores, ensuring reliable and …

Five Prairie Reflections On Reviving Rural America, Hannah Haksgaard, Sean Kammer, Travis L. Letellier

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay offers five reflections on Ann E. Eisenberg’s book Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience. Each reflection approaches the book from the positionality of writing from rural America, specifically the prairies of South Dakota. Collectively, the reflections cover the politics of voting in a red rural state, policies of local municipal government, the central economic principles in the book, the presence of energy production in rural America, and environmentalism’s relevancy and impact.

Supreme Court Gives States The Green Light To Go Ham: The Dormant Commerce Clause In Renewable Energy In Light Of National Pork Producers, Ellie Carl

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Two years ago, the Supreme Court slaughtered the Dormant Commerce Clause in its decision in National Pork Producers v. Ross. While the case is not explicitly about environmental law, it significantly affects environmental laws and policies, especially pertaining to state renewable portfolio standards. These state policies are especially prone to Dormant Commerce Clause litigation, given the interstate nature of electric grids. This paper argues that the scope of the Dormant Commerce Clause in light of this decision is appropriate for ensuring that states have adequate wiggle room in renewable energy regulation, but not an excessive amount of leeway so …

Local Environmental Impacts Of Data Center Proliferation, Reid Lifset, Pranava Raparla, Amy L. Stein, Lauren Bridges, Jim Mcelfish, Tim Cywinski

UF Law Faculty Publications

Demand for data centers is increasing worldwide, raising questions about the electric grid, the transition to renewable energy, and distribution infrastructure. Northern Virginia is home to data centers that process nearly 70% of global digital traffic, leading officials to call for construction, at ratepayers’ expense, of new power plants and new transmission lines across four states, as well as the continued operation of coal-powered plants that had been scheduled to go offline. On December 6, 2024, the Environmental Law Institute and the Network for Digital Economy and the Environment co-hosted a panel of experts who examined the environmental impacts and …

Labor And Environment Entwined: A Radical Green New Deal And Just Transition In Appalachia, Anne Marie Lofaso, Nicholas F. Stump

West Virginia Law Review

In this Article, Professor Lofaso and Professor Stump propose a genuinely transformative Green New Deal and Just Transition in Appalachia. The Article opens by tracing the long history of the Appalachian labor and environmental movements. Next, the Article interrogates the common contention that the Appalachian environmental and labor movements are opposed. While this contention has substantial truth, more complex forces have been at work in the region. Fossil fuel industry elites, for instance, have wielded exaggerated “jobs versus environment” rhetoric to maximize profits and quash emergent solidarities among local workers, residents, and activists. This Article contends that a key solution …

Olmstead 25 Years Later: Advocating For Children With Mental Health And Behavioral Health Needs, Laura C. Hoffman

Mercer Law Review

On June 22, 1999, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a monumental decision in the history of the disability rights movement in Olmstead v. L.C. by Zimring. As people with disabilities, especially those with mental health conditions or developmental disabilities, were frequently institutionalized without much of any thought to allowing them to be a part of the community, the Olmstead decision changed all of that, at least in terms of the acknowledgment of the legal right to a placement in the least‑restrictive environment whenever possible and cementing into legal protections the understanding that community integration was firmly …

Reimagining Social Media Through Middleware: A Structural Path To Competition And User Agency, Madhavi Singh

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Tomorrow’S Climate Law, Today, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

The prospects for domestic legislation or international treaties that would require governments, businesses, and individuals to stop emitting the greenhouse gases that cause global climate change are particularly bleak these days. Even as the United States has recently passed its most ambitious climate legislation to date in the Inflation Reduction Act and related “green industrial policy” legislation, these successes were ultimately a compromise with politicians who refused to consider more direct controls on emissions. Assuming they survive the second Trump Administration, the green subsidies and nudges contained in these laws, coupled with a groundswell of private environmental governance, will do …

The Cost Of Capital: Lowering The Cost Of Capital For Climate And Sdg Finance In Emerging Markets And Developing Economies (Emdes), Jeffrey D. Sachs, Lisa E. Sachs, Ana M. Camelo Vega, Bradford M. Willis

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Today, some of the world's fastest-growing economies face some of the highest borrowing costs – even for clean energy and development projects with strong fundamentals. This is not a function of global capital scarcity. Trillions are available. The problem lies in systemic barriers that prevent capital from flowing to where it’s most urgently needed. The high cost of capital in EMDEs not only undermines critical financing for the energy transition and sustainable development; it also limits the ability for US- and EU-based financial institutions to invest in and finance projects in EMDEs, despite institutional and stakeholder appetite and interest for …

The Impact Of The National Teacher Shortage On The Right To An Adequate Education, Anslee Wood

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Heredity -- Whistelo, Whiteness And Whales, Walter J. Walsh

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article reveals the impact of an early New York case upon science and law, raising questions about heredity that spurred evidentiary progress from maternal imagination to visual resemblance, and later from blood groups to DNA paternity testing. In the Jeffersonian republic, a dark-skinned man was charged with reputedly fathering the infant daughter of a mixed-race woman. However, to most witnesses this light-skinned child appeared to be the offspring of a White man. The trial of Commissioners of the Alms-House, vs Alexander Whistelo, a Black man, being a Remarkable Case of Bastardy (1808) became a cause célèbre in both law …

Familial Fairness: Guaranteeing The Right To Counsel For Indigent Parents In Juvenile Dependency Proceedings, Jake Toth

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Fairness principles enumerated in the seminal case Gideon v. Wainwright stand for the proposition that fundamental fairness and due process require appointment of counsel for indigent litigants. However, this principle has been constrained to criminal contexts. Many other types of litigation are just as impactful as a criminal proceeding, including juvenile dependency proceedings. Nevertheless, indigent parents do not enjoy an unqualified representation right.

This Comment traces the history of the representation right and how it has been treated in a juvenile dependency context, beginning with Gideon itself and examining other cases such as Eldridge and Lassiter. It then examines …

Ghosting The Crowd, Andrew A. Schwartz

Washington and Lee Law Review

Crowdfunded companies are legally bound to provide investors with an annual report—but most don’t. This “ghosting of the crowd” violates federal securities laws and raises the risk of opportunism by entrepreneurs, who are more prone to misbehave if no one is watching. Most ominously, it threatens the very viability of the investment crowdfunding market, as investors who are ghosted by one company are less likely to invest in another.

This Article reports on the embarrassing record of noncompliance with the annual report rule imposed by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS”) Act of 2012 and Regulation Crowdfunding, and proposes a …

Drivers Of Effective Laws For Automated Vehicles, William Hubbard

Articles

Hundreds of thousands of automated vehicles (AVs) are currently driving on America’s roads. The defining feature of AVs is that sophisticated technological systems control some or even all aspects of vehicle movement. Like any motor vehicle, AVs provide many benefits but also raise significant safety concerns. Indeed, people are already dying in collisions with AVs. Effective AV regulation is therefore critical.

This Article addresses an important—perhaps the most important— issue of AV regulation today. Recent empirical research has uncovered a shocking legal crisis: more than 40,000 conventional state laws are unclear or ineffective when applied to AVs. Fortunately, the vast …

Prosecuting Police, Guyora Binder, Anthony O'Rourke, Rick Su

Journal Articles

Prosecutors face criticism for prosecuting too many minority members and too few police. Recently, some reformers have won prosecutorial elections by pledging to change these priorities. Yet scholars have identified two impediments to police prosecutions. First, county prosecutors often answer to suburban voters indifferent to the excesses of city police. Second, prosecutors depend on those police to investigate their cases and to endorse them as effective. This Article argues that the influence of residents and police on prosecutorial decisions depends on the political geography of a prosecutor’s office. As a result, whether a prosecutor’s office is “city-based,” “regional,” or “state-appointed” …

Taking Revolution Seriously, Zohra Ahmed

Michigan Law Review

A review of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. By Orisanmi Burton.

Build Public Renewables, Again, Sandeep Vaheesan

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet. By Brett Christophers.

Round Table (Part 1) Book Review: From Discrimination To Death: Genocide Process Through A Human Rights Lens, James A. Tyner

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Round Table (Part 4) Book Review: From Discrimination To Death: Genocide Process Through A Human Rights Lens, Melanie O'Brien

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

“Everybody Else Seems To Be Able To Get Help”: Rural Regulation, Access Loss, And Antigovernment Sentiment, Jennifer Sherman

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay draws upon two decades of the author’s research on rural United States communities to explicate ways in which the regulatory state has intervened in rural areas and economies, often with the claim of protecting land, natural resources, and/or wildlife. The outcomes are frequently disastrous for the human populations of those communities and generally are not planned for or mitigated by policy. The Essay argues that rural distrust of and aversion to government oversight is not caused primarily by ideological or cultural stances, but rather is an outcome of experiences of abandonment by the agencies that are meant to …

How Seeing Rural America As A Commons Can (Re)Build Mutual Respect Across The Rural-Urban Divide, Lisa R. Pruitt

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay, written for a symposium that honors and amplifies Ann Eisenberg’s 2024 book, Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience, contemplates benefits that could flow from taking seriously Eisenberg’s conceptualization of rural America as a commons. In particular, I argue that the mutual respect and collaboration necessary for a successful commons could help heal the rural-urban rift, which has widened dramatically in the last few decades. Recent studies suggest that rural residents have what scholars call a rural consciousnesses, which means that living in a rural place is a key aspect of their identity. One feature of this identity …

Information For Environmental Governance: The Value Of State Of The Environmental Reports In A Polarized Era, Michael Vandenbergh, M. Caballero, Ethan I. Thorpe

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The increasingly dysfunctional federal democratic process poses chal- lenges to effective, consistent responses to the most important environmental risks. Information about the state of the environment and the performance of environmental protection measures can play a surprisingly important role by providing the information necessary for the public and decision-makers to resist disinformation efforts and prioritize the responses to these threats. Until 1997 the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) produced annual State of the Environment (SOE) reports as required by Section 201 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. In response to paperwork reduc- tion legislation adopted in …

Environmental Geography And Law: Toward A Synthesis, Michaela Anang-Hadjicostandi, Sophia Borgias, Karrigan Börk, Ann M. Eisenberg, Guadalupe M. Franco, Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa, Keith H. Hirokawa, Jonathan London, Melinda Morgan, Jessica Owley, Shannon Roesler, Sonya Ziaja

Articles

This Article introduces the new interdisciplinary field of Environmental Geography and Law, which has deep roots in ecology, social science, and law. Environmental and natural resources laws are situated in specific times and places where the climate, ecosystems, history and political economy influence both the land and the law. These places drive and constrain the way law develops. In turn, the law shapes places, from the dispossession and forced migration of indigenous groups, to land development via railroad land grants, to patterns of resource extraction and infrastructure development. Past efforts to integrate law and geography have focused more on critical …

U.S. Territories And The Criminal Law Curriculum, Emmanuel H. Arnaud

Articles

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Litigation Boom, Charlotte S. Alexander

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article rethinks the functions and functioning of litigation booms. Using an original data set that tracks Fair Labor Standards Act cases during the 2000–2016 period, the Article shows that booms are not anomalies but are instead an expected behavior in our distributed system of civil law enforcement. Specifically, plaintiffs and their lawyers “herd” or converge on a particular type of case, fueled by information transmitted via networks, made available to the general public, or both. The data also reveal that booms can end on their own, reaching a natural tipping point without legislative or judicial retrenchment. This analysis has …

U.S. Territories And The Criminal Law Curriculum, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I make a case for why issues concerning the territories should be taught in law school courses and suggest a few ways in which federal criminal adjudication in the territories can and should be incorporated into the criminal law and procedure curriculum.¹⁰ As I advance elsewhere,¹¹ criminal adjudication in the territories functions differently than in the mainland United States.¹² Using the framework of what I call the “territorial criminal legal system,” I have begun mapping the contours of the unique prosecutorial ecosystem produced by the territorial condition.¹³ Chief among the characteristics is the …

Taking Revolution Seriously, Zohra Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Every so often, a prison strike will make national news, as it did in 2014, 2016, and 2018. ¹ The media will focus on the atrocious conditions of confinement; the unchecked violence; the wages numerated in pennies; and the state’s indifference to the strikers’ modest demands for food, medical care, and human contact.

Orisanmi Burton’s² book, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt, urges us to process such reporting with a healthy dose of skepticism. What if prison rebellions were telling us something else, something even more important? What if they were …

The Role Of Affordable Housing In Enhancing Tenants' Economic Stability In Connecticut: A Focus On Income, Employment, And Housing Stability, Osaid Zubi

Dissertations

This study examined the role of affordable housing in promoting economic stability among low- and moderate-income households in Connecticut. Focusing on income security, employment opportunities, and housing retention, this research highlighted the significance of affordable housing as a means to alleviate financial strain, support job retention, and foster community resilience. Utilizing a phenomenological approach, the study gathered insights from tenants, policymakers, and developers through conducting interviews and a focus group. Connecticut was chosen as the study site due to its high cost of living and affordable housing shortage, exacerbated by its proximity to New York City. Findings underscore the economic …

Law And Historical Materialism, Jeremy K. Kessler

Faculty Scholarship

Since the financial crisis of 2008, left-leaning legal thought has experienced a renaissance within the American academy. From law and political economy to critical race theory to feminist legal studies to Marxist legal theory, new perspectives have flourished, and marginalized traditions have been revived and revised. These new perspectives and revisionist projects all share an intellectual debt to the critical legal studies (“CLS”) movement of the late 1970s and 1980s. That movement’s critique was focused on functional accounts of law: accounts that understood legal change as primarily responsive to the demands of extralegal social and economic forces. Some of those …