Digital Commons Network^™

Food Councils And Federal Committees: Community Responses To Inaction On Food Insecurity By Government, Kevin O'Connell, Liam R. Rupprecht

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Food insecurity is a devastating force in the United States, as shown by its destructive impact on vulnerable groups like children, racial minorities, and those in poverty. Non-white urban communities of color especially have significantly higher rates of household food insecurity due to systemic racism in American food systems. Despite the prevalence of these factors, they are consistently overlooked by public and private forces. Federal efforts have failed to resolve the issue, leaving it to local “food council” organizations that attempt to help through advocacy and charity. These groups face a difficult task: how can they work to mitigate food …

Stuck Behind Bars: How Neglect Of The Mental Health Epidemic In U.S. Correctional Facilities Fuels Recidivism, Alayna Bhatti

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

The nation is failing to protect the rights of all citizens. Various studies and sources of academic research show that health services in U.S. prisons fall far below the standards for health services on the ‘outside world’. Legal scholar Joshua Price highlights how mentally ill inmates are victims of the U.S. criminal justice system. “A set of institutions disavowed responsibility, leading to conditions where their own demons got the better of them, with awful consequences. Did these institutions, or the people in them, love justice?” (Price, 501) How is justice really served when these inmates are destined to be trapped …

Incarcerated Youths In Canada And The United States: A Comparative Analysis, Grace A. Mastrangelo

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Are children, who commit adult crimes, deserving of adult punishments? According to the United Nations, not if it harms their well-being. Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted by the United Nations in November 1989, states that 1) the best interests of the child should be the primary consideration of all state actions involving children, 2) governments must allot children the protection and care necessary for their well-being, and 3) governmental institutions, services, and facilities that deal with children must uphold adequate standards for the safety, health, and supervision of children. The CRC is …

Beyond Subsidies And Mandates: Testing A Simple Behavioral Mechanism To Drive Health Insurance Coverage, Wendy Netter Epstein, Hansoo Ko, Christopher Robertson, Kevin Wilson, David Yokum

Faculty Scholarship

Uninsured individuals face reduced access to care, financial risk, and higher mortality. Although public programs and private subsidies have lowered uninsurance, these mechanisms remain incomplete and politically unstable. We evaluate whether a low-cost outreach intervention can increase health insurance enrollment without altering plan prices. Using a randomized field experiment involving 16,477 uninsured Maryland households, we assigned households to a no-contact control or to receive email and postcard outreach featuring affordability messaging alone or combined with responsibility or community framings. Outreach increased qualified health plan enrollment by 0.699 percentage points and total coverage by 0.967 percentage points relative to control. The …

Yurisdiksi Negara Pada Instalasi-Instalasi Dilandas Kontinen, D. Sidik Suraputra

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Abstract

Finding The Major Questions Doctrine, Chad Squitieri

Pepperdine Law Review

The major questions doctrine has been invoked primarily in the rulemaking context, where it requires agencies to identify particularly clear statutory authority before promulgating rules of “major” importance. Some scholars have suggested that the doctrine is a tool that should be limited to agency actions that are purportedly “legislative” in nature (e.g., rulemakings)—meaning the doctrine would not apply in other contexts, such as agency adjudications and enforce-ment actions that may not be similarly “legislative.” This Essay responds by arguing that the major questions doctrine is best understood as a limit on executive authority—meaning the doctrine could apply across a wider …

More Than Mere Semantics: Why Virginia Cannot Force Preferred- Pronoun Mandates On Public School Teachers Under Virginia’S Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Isaac Rizkallah

Liberty University Law Review

Right now, school administrators and jurists across the nation are wondering how to address the legal implications of the transgender movement in public schools. In response, many public schools have adopted policies requiring teachers to identify transgender students by their preferred pronouns. These preferred-pronoun mandates have created face-offs between the personal preferences of transgender students and the religious tenets of teachers. As a result, school officials and courts around the United States find themselves wedged between this clash.

Unfortunately, the tension is often resolved at the teachers’ expense. But what are the consequences? Homogenization of thought and belief among public …

How Much Can A Coffee Table Really Cost You? What To Do With Websites, Testers, And Serial Filers Within The Context Of The Ada, Ava Perez Erickson

Liberty University Law Review

Differences have been used throughout history to separate that which is deemed superior from that which is inferior. Disabilities, both physical and mental, are what history has often deemed a mark of the inferior. With little rationale to explain the occurrence of many disabilities, man turned to divine punishment and quasi-scientific movements to fill the gaps and explain the existence of what was assumed to be a lesser, plighted people. Our modern nation is no different and found itself, for the better half of the 20th century, enamored by the eugenics movement, satisfied with the explanation that disabled individuals were …

Striking The Right Chord: Reframing Music Copyright Through The Lens Of The First Amendment, Arielle C. Knight

Liberty University Law Review

Music, as both artistic expression and a commercial product, occupies a unique space at the intersection of copyright law and the First Amendment. While copyright law aims to promote creativity by protecting original works, its current application to music often undermines the very innovation it seeks to encourage. Courts have recognized that some musical elements are not copyrightable because they are so inherent to music that the idea merges with its expression. However, with advancements in technology such as music streaming services and AI-created music, courts increasingly face difficulties in distinguishing between protectable musical expression and the unprotectable building blocks …

Actual Innocence In Virginia: Why The Requirements For A Successful Writ Must Remain Limited, Cameron D. Barshinger

Liberty University Law Review

Benjamin Franklin once said, “It is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.” To achieve this goal, the Commonwealth of Virginia has implemented a system through which a falsely convicted person is given another opportunity to prove his innocence: writs of actual innocence. A writ of actual innocence provides a second chance to a person wrongfully convicted of a crime. It can allow a “murderer” to prove his innocence and expunge his record after falling short of convincing a judge or jury at trial. Virginia has strict requirements for those seeking writs of actual …

Non-Waivability In Labour Law: An Australian Perspective, Joellen Riley Munton

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Australian industrial relations laws traditionally provided detailed mandatory standards through a system of arbitrated occupation-based awards. In the years since a shift to enterprise bargaining, the system has tolerated a greater level of flexibility, even in the way that legislated minima are framed. The options for waiving otherwise mandatory standards are, however, limited by procedural protections. The Fair Work Commission maintains a supervisory role to ensure that workers are “better off overall” as a consequence of their bargains. This article explains the many ways in which Australian labour standards permit flexible application, within constraints designed to preclude exploitative practices.

Waiver Of Statutory Employment Rights In The United Kingdom, Hugh Collins

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

The common law endorses the principle of freedom of contract, but, with few exceptions, Parliament has explicitly prevented straightforward waivers of statutory employment rights. Nevertheless, for the sake of promoting settlements of claims by employees, it is surprisingly easy for individual employees to enter into agreements to compromise claims for breach of those rights without appropriate safeguards such as independent advice and freedom from pressure. Moreover, employers’ lawyers have demonstrated considerable ingenuity in finding ways to avoid the application of employment rights either by manipulations of employment status or by seeking contractual agreements on the facts of the case that …

Relaxation Of Mandatory Rules Through Collective And Individual Agreements In Japanese Labour Law, Ryuichi Yamakawa

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

This article analyses the legal situation in Japan regarding the relaxation of or deviation from mandatory regulations in labour law through collective and individual agreements. Although many statutory labour laws in Japan have a mandatory effect over individual employment contracts, several statutory provisions provide that such mandatory regulations can be relaxed through collective agreements under certain circumstances, as is the case in other industrialised countries. However, Japan’s situation is unique insofar as the relaxation is permissible through collective agreements concluded by non-union (individual) representatives of a majority of employees in the absence of union representatives who have been elected by …

Derogability By Collective Agreements In Germany And The Presumption, Eva Kocher

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

The promotion of derogability clauses, which allow collective agreements to deviate from statutory protection to the detriment of employees, has been an issue in the political debate on German labour law for some 20 years. While such derogability clauses can effectively allow for flexibility at the company or sectoral level, there are differing views on their suitability for promoting collective bargaining. This article highlights the paradox of such derogability clauses: They are legitimised by the presumption of fairness that underpins collective autonomy; at the same time, they create incentives for employers that challenge the very presumption of fairness. All in …

The International Covenant On Economic, Social And Cultural Rights And The Employment Relation By Klaus Lörcher, Niklas Bruun, Ana Teresa Ribeiro, Hart Publishing, 2025, Manfred Weiss

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

AFTER HAVING PUBLISHED THREE ENLIGHTENING BOOKS on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), on the European Social Charter (ESC), and on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU), the authors of the Transnational Trade Union Rights Expert Network of the European Trade Union Institute have now transcended the European territory and presented a publication on a global scale.

Antibiotics In Animal Agriculture, The Risks To Health, And Differences In The Us And The Eu, Li-Ting Chou

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.

When Earth’S Lungs Collapse: How Wetland Loss Threatens Air Quality After Sackett V. Epa, Julia A. Hicks

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.

Social Media’S Death Toll: Who Should Be Held Liable?, Sara Fradi

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.

The Double-Edged Sword Of Ai In Elections: Navigating Risks And Opportunities In Washington State, Payvand Khastkhodaei

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.

Deepfake Danger: The Urgent Need For Federal Protections Against Ai-Generated Pornography, Benjamin Comfort

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

No abstract provided.

Communicative Legitimacy: The Supreme Court's Hidden Cultural Binaries In The U.S. Civil Sphere, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How does the U.S. Supreme Court establish its legitimacy? Over the last two hundred years in U.S. society, the Court has interpreted the U.S. Constitution on watershed issues such as slavery, segregation, and marriage equality. And yet the Constitution is just 7,591 words. A puzzle thus emerges: how does the Court intelligibly interpret this short text for U.S. society? This article develops a new theoretical and empirical cultural sociological account of such Supreme Court decision-making, which it calls “communicative legitimacy.” According to this theory, which draws on Jeffrey Alexander’s civil sphere theory, the Court consistently and inevitably draws on a …

Transformative Technology And Shortening The Statute Of Limitations Applicable To Taxpayers, Jay A. Soled, Leslie Book

Faculty Publications

When it comes to submitting tax returns and paying taxes, most taxpayers understand the nature of their civic duties and do so dutifully, if not willingly. However, many taxpayers fail to grasp why the IRS has such an elongated time period—namely, three years— to audit their tax returns and propose an assessment. Indeed, when the IRS exercises its oversight authority, records may no longer be available, and memories may be dulled.

Since the original institution of the three-year tax assessment limitations period nearly a century ago, tremendous technological strides have been made. Indeed, over ninety percent of income tax returns …

Stumping The Federal Effort: Southern States’ Contributions To The United States’ Leading Maternal Mortality Rate, Natalie A. Snook

Arkansas Law Review

Maternal care has reached a terrifying deficit in the United States. Masses of women throughout this nation are dying preventable deaths resulting from extremely lacking prenatal, birthing, delivery, and postnatal care. This is a silent epidemic. Why is the United States failing so miserably in comparison to its fellow developed countries? Why does the gap appear to be widening more and more each day? Various factors lend themselves to an explanation: general factors like the overall shortage of maternal care providers, as well as specific ones such as the not-so surprising fact that the United States is the only developed …

Recent Developments, Steven H. Jacobs

Arkansas Law Review

Recent Developments in Arkansas Law

Collaborative Nullification: Bending Or Ignoring The Law To Free The Over-Punished, David A. Singleton

Arkansas Law Review

The United States accounts for about 25% of the world’s prisoners but only about 5% of its population. It has the fifth- highest imprisonment rate—higher than China and Russia—with people of color disproportionately impacted. This racialized mass incarceration, and the lack of political will to meaningfully address it, demands bold remedies. Certainly, sentencing reform for low-level, non-violent offenders is needed, but contrary to popular belief, these offenders are not driving mass incarceration. Instead, the problem largely results from increasingly long sentences for violent offenders.

This article proposes that the option, which I call “collaborative nullification,” can provide the over-punished needed …

Disconnected Connection, Dyane L. O'Leary

Arkansas Law Review

Lawyering is a human experience in a digital world. Lawyers have long derived pride from labels like personal counselor, trusted advisor, and steady confidant. Sure, sometimes a productized legal service or one-off Turbo-Tax-style filing is all a client needs. But it’s still a people profession, the lifeblood of which is connection with others: clients, colleagues, witnesses, and countless more. Calls for attention to lawyers’ so-called “soft” skills have grown louder in recent years, tagged with descriptors like “people” or “business” or “professional” skills. Modern communication tools facilitate connection and relationship building like never before. But that which connects us threatens …

Arkansas Law Review - Volume 78 Issue 4, Journal Editors

Arkansas Law Review

No abstract provided.

How The Rhetoric Of Borders Justifies The Erosion Of Rights, Richard Sherwin

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Two Decades Since Cms V. Argentina: Concession Contracts, Necessity Doctrine, And The Imf’S Impact On Sovereign Economic Governance, Esraa S. Saied Abdallah

Theses and Dissertations

In the evolving landscape of international trade, particularly within the framework of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), the primary aim has been to promote and protect foreign investment. The 1980s witnessed a notable increase in investment treaties, coinciding with a global shift toward privatization that was significantly influenced by the impact of international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. By the 1990s, BITs had evolved to offer specific guarantees aimed at reducing the risks foreign investors faced in host states. However, despite the growth and transformation brought about by foreign investments, disputes arising under investment …

Egyptian Feminist Critiques Of Neoliberalism, Asmaa Elmalky

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Egyptian feminist critiques of neoliberal economic policies through a Third World feminist and feminist political economy framework. It argues that neoliberalism in Egypt has produced controlling power dynamics through restructuring labor markets, social reproduction, and legal systems in ways that disproportionately impoverish women, particularly working-class women. The research maps diverse feminist engagements with neoliberal reforms, including structural adjustment programs, privatization, labor reduction, and legal liberalization. These critiques were influenced by the debates between Third World and transnational feminism, the thesis emphasizes the importance of national specific analysis in understanding how global neoliberal policies are mediated through national …