Digital Commons Network^™

The Contested Contingent Constitution: Plutocrats, Right-Wing Populists, And Labor Rights In The U.S., Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional labor rights have long been negligible in the United States. Now, with the ascendance of Donald Trump’s right-wing authoritarianism, even statutory labor rights are under threat. Yet there is an apparent paradox: While the Trump Administration seeks to declare the NLRB unconstitutional and has decimated federal workers’ rights, Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement rose to power in part by invoking the plight of the American worker. The more populist wing of the American Right does not expressly challenge the constitutionality of labor law. Indeed, some right-wing populists urge an expansion of labor rights, emphasizing such goals as …

Pragmatic Conceptualism, Public Nuisance, And The American Opioid Litigation, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Washington and Lee Law Review

Public nuisance as a part of American tort law has been as high profile in the first decades of this century as products liability law was in the last several decades of the twentieth century. The American opioid litigation over the past decades is a spectacular example, filling headlines and generating billions of dollars of settlements. There is a plausible argument, however, that the doctrinal core of the opioid litigation is meritless because there simply is no “interference with public right” as required by public nuisance law. The first aim of this Article is to articulate and assess that argument. …

Equality Before Tax Law, Charles Delmotte

Washington and Lee Law Review

The income tax code is riddled with exceptions—exclusions, rate preferences, and deductions—that reduce tax burdens for dominant majorities and powerful interest groups. These carveouts now amount to an astonishing $1.9 trillion, equivalent to 75 percent of all federal income tax revenue. By granting policymakers discretion to allocate tax exceptions, the tax system not only invites capture but also the weaponization of taxation against disfavored economic and political groups. Yet despite the central role of these exceptions, tax scholars have not articulated a principle requiring taxation according to general rules.

This Article bridges philosophy with insights from political economy to reveal …

Mapping Minority Investigative Powers In Congress, David Rapallo

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Shut down the Senate . . .” “Roll over and play dead . . .” In the first hundred days of President Donald Trump’s second term, these were the rallying cries of two far ends of a debate among Democrats about how to respond to the administration’s unprecedented actions. This debate, which rages on today, has been marked by a lack of specificity about the various oversight tools available to members of the minority party in Congress, particularly when they investigate whether the Executive Branch is faithfully executing the laws Congress passes. Scholarship too has focused little on the full …

State Policy And Regulatory Approaches To Sustainable Aviation Fuel Across The United States, Somtochukwu Attamah, Mary Johnson, Lara Fowler, Michael D. Helbing

Faculty Scholarship

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) represents a critical lever for achieving near-term decarbonization of the aviation industry. SAF can be manufactured for “drop-in” use in existing aircraft and fueling systems, allowing manufacturers to achieve lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) savings relative to standard jet fuel. However, U.S. policy is still disjointed: federal incentives are accompanied by diffuse state efforts, which means uneven market-based feedback and investment risk. After outlining the federal policy context, this Article conducts a comparative analysis of SAF-related policy frameworks across the fifty states. This includes a variety of government solutions offered in the form of enacted and proposed …

Can The Epa Withdraw The Endangerment Finding?, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

The Trump administration has made repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases the centerpiece of its environmental deregulation agenda. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the US, and more,” proclaimed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin when announcing the agency’s plan to reconsider the finding in March 2025. Since then, the agency has followed through, pushing endangerment finding repeal ahead of other, more traditional, deregulatory efforts. While politically popular with parts of President …

An Abundant Lack Of Introspection, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

In this review Jonathan Adler critiques Abundance authors Klein and Thompson's analysis of how regulation is holding back progress in decarbonization, America's housing supply crisis, and innovation. While agreeing with the authors' assessment that regulation policy is hampering efforts in these areas, Adler objects to the book's proposals for improving regulatory bottlenecks, arguing the authors of Abundance refuse to acknowledge the role of market institutions in creating abundant supply or to admit the fault in their assumption that the failures of centralized government decision making can be repaired while maintaining centralized government decision making.

This abstract has been constructed from …

Bodies In The Beds: How Reits, Private Equity Firms, And County Hospitals Monetize Nursing Home Residents As Real Estate Acquisitions, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Nursing home residents have become monetized targets of real estate acquisitions. Established in 1960, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) were envisioned as allowing individuals to invest in commercial real estate without owning properties. That seemingly innocuous investment idea has led to the growth of a behind-the-scenes empire of little-understood conglomerates of REITs buying up nursing homes and other healthcare facilities across the country. Capitalizing on tax-exempt income incentives, exploiting “triple-net” leasebacks, funneling profits through subsidiaries, and shielding ownership and assets from the liability of operations, the corporatized owners extract cash from facilities and leave harm in their wake. And to …

Operational Agency: A Permeable Legal Fiction For Tracing Culpability In Ai Systems, Anirban Mukherjee, Hannah H. Chang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems act with a high degree of independence yet lack legal personhood—a paradox that fractures doctrines grounded in human-centric notions of mens rea and actus reus. This Article introduces Operational Agency (OA)—a permeable legal fiction structured as an ex post evidentiary framework—and Operational Agency Graph (OAG)—a tool for mapping causal interactions among human actors, organizations, and AI systems. OA evaluates an AI’s observable operational characteristics: its goal-directedness (as a proxy for intent), predictive processing (as a proxy for foresight), and safety architecture (as a proxy for standard of care). OAG operationalizes that analysis by embedding these …

The Risk-Assessment Case For Worldwide Public Health Regulation Of The Concussion Crisis In Sports, Marcus Moore, Charles H. Tator

All Faculty Publications

The support of the medical profession was indispensable in the USA and Canada to enacting legislation addressing public health issues such as drunk driving, smoking, and bicycle helmets. The sports concussion crisis is a major public health concern in Canada and in many other countries.

ความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลในประเทศฝรั่งเศส: วิวัฒนาการและความสำคัญทางหลักกฎหมายของแนวคิด “Personnes Morales” (Corporate Criminal Liability In France: The Evolution And Jurisprudential Significance Of The Personnes Morales Concept), Rose Charmette

Chulalongkorn University Law Journal

บทความนี้ศึกษาวิวัฒนาการของความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลในประเทศฝรั่งเศสผ่านแนวคิด personnes morales ซึ่งบัญญัติไว้ในมาตรา 121-2 แห่งประมวลกฎหมายอาญาฝรั่งเศส โดยศึกษาแนวคิดนี้ภายใต้กรอบของความรับผิดของนิติบุคคลต่ออาชญากรรมร้ายแรง โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งในบริบทของกฎหมายอาญาระหว่างประเทศ ซึ่งโดยหลักแล้วกำหนดความรับผิดแก่บุคคลธรรมดาเท่านั้น คำถามวิจัยหลักของการศึกษานี้คือ แนวคิด personnes morales ของฝรั่งเศสช่วยอุดช่องว่างของความรับผิดทางอาญาในกรณีที่นิติบุคคลได้เข้ามามีส่วนร่วมในการกระทำความผิดอาญาร้ายแรงตามธรรมนูญกรุงโรมได้หรือไม่ และแนวคิดนี้สามารถนำมาใช้กับความรับผิดทางอาญาระหว่างประเทศได้เพียงใด บทความได้วิเคราะห์คดีสำคัญ เช่น คดีอื้อฉาวทางเภสัชกรรม Mediator คดี Lafarge S.A. ในซีเรีย และคำพิพากษา Association Sportive ซึ่งตัดสินโดยศาลอาญาของฝรั่งเศส โดยที่ศาลได้วางหลักเกี่ยวกับเจตนาของนิติบุคคล (corporate mens rea) ผสมผสานกับความรับผิดโดยอาศัยการเป็นตัวแทนและความรับผิดโดยอิสระขององค์กร รวมถึงวิธีที่ศาลฝรั่งเศสบังคับใช้บทลงโทษกับนิติบุคคลได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ นอกจากนี้ ยังมีการอ้างอิงเปรียบเทียบกับสหราชอาณาจักรและสวีเดนเพื่อแสดงให้เห็นแนวทางทางเลือกอื่น ๆ และเน้นย้ำว่าระบบฝรั่งเศสมีส่วนช่วยในการพัฒนาแนวคิดความรับผิดทางอาญาของนิติบุคคลอย่างไร ท้ายที่สุด บทความนี้ชี้ให้เห็นว่าหลักคำสอนของ personnes morales ไม่เพียงแต่เป็นกรอบแนวคิดเชิงปฏิบัติเท่านั้น แต่ยังเป็นแนวทางเชิงทฤษฎีที่สามารถแก้ไขปัญหาช่องว่างของความรับผิดในกฎหมายอาญาระหว่างประเทศได้และเสนอข้อคิดสำคัญสำหรับการปฏิรูปในอนาคตเพื่อเสริมสร้างความรับผิดชอบของภาคธุรกิจในระดับข้ามเขตอำนาจศาล

Penolakan Penghapusan Kolom Agama Pada Kartu Tanda Penduduk: Krítík Terhadap Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi Nomor 146/Puu-Xxii/2024, Krisna Bagas Purwopangestu, Nicholas Gerard Felix Simeone

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article examines the Constítutíonal Court (MK) Decisíon No. 146/PUU–XXII/2024 which rejected the request to delete the religion column on the Identity Card (KTP). The Decision affirms that every Indonesian citizen must declare their religion or belief in God as expected by Pancasila and the constitutional mandate. The Constitutional Court stated that “not having a religion or belief in God cannot be considered as freedom of religion”. The Constitutional Court Decision has revived the dispute on the urgency of including religion identity on the KTP, especially about the relation between administrative requirements, the legal system of Indonesia, and protection of …

Reorientasi Kebijakan Pelindungan Anak Terhadap Adiksi Internet Dalam Perspektif Pemenuhan Hak Konstitusional Di Indonesia, I Kadek Agus Aditya Firmantara, Bagus Hermanto

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

This article examines the paradigm shift in child protection policy in the digital environment through Government Regulation Number 17 of 2025 concerning the Governance of Electronic System Providers for Child Protection (PP TUNAS) from the perspective of fulfilling children's constitutional rights in Indonesia. The study is motivated by the increasing use of the internet by children, which not only exposes them to risks such as harmful content, sexual exploitation, and misuse of personal data, but also creates the risk of internet addiction that may adversely affect children's health, education, and overall development. Despite these concerns, internet addiction has not been …

Expanding The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform Through Artificial Influence Assessment (Aia): Rationale, Development, And Measurement Design, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how individuals access information, make decisions, and interact with digital environments. The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform (C.A.S.) was developed to assess attention related harms, cognitive safety, digital autonomy, and platform influence across digital systems (Clark, 2026). However, the growth of generative AI, conversational agents, and algorithmic decision support technologies has introduced new forms of influence that may not be fully captured by existing assessment domains. This paper proposes the Artificial Influence Assessment (AIA) as an expansion of the C.A.S. framework designed to measure AI mediated influence on cognition, behavior, autonomy, and information processing. Drawing on …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

A Legal Comedy Of Errors: Foia’S Judicial Drama Over Who Controls The Oversight Script, Caroline Savini

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Protecting Dependent Children In Bankruptcy, Michael D. Sousa, L. Alexis Whitley Esq.

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Lessons From Eugenics: Safeguarding Autonomy In Procreation, Claire Bass

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Living In The Past: The Corporate Practice Of Medicine Doctrine’S Misguided Revival In An Era Of Private Equity, John Palmer

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Still Working Nine To Five: How Boyer V. United States Keeps Women Stuck With Prior Pay Inequality, Mckenna Wark

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

A New Prescription: Arkansas Law On Pharmacy Benefit Managers, Emilee Webb

Arkansas Law Review

Seven thousand pharmacies have closed throughout the United States since 2019. This number includes both local pharmacies and larger chains. The effect of both types of closures, though, is the same—pharmacy deserts. A pharmacy desert can occur in all types of areas; it simply means that consumers lack “reasonable access” to a pharmacy. The usual standard is a pharmacy located more than one mile away in urban areas, two miles away in suburban areas, and ten miles away in rural areas. However, an objective mile range is not always dispositive of a pharmacy desert. Even if a pharmacy is located …

Digitalization Of Medicine Through Telemedicine: The Legal Framework And Medical Liability, Samira Krourou

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This study examines telemedicine as a modern medical practice linked to the technological and informational advancements that humanity has witnessed and that have been positively integrated into the medical field. It has become possible to examine and treat patients without requiring their physical presence in a clinic or hospital, unlike the traditional approach, that necessitates the patient's presence and direct contact with their physician. Contemporary medical practice is no longer confined to examination and prescription alone; it has expanded to encompass more complex domains, notably enabling remote surgical interventions. In light of technological progress in medicine, it has become necessary …

Gafam And Competition Law: The Premises Of Regulation, El Mahdi Taimouri

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

GAFAM are among those structural digital platforms whose ultra-dominant position in digital markets and the originality of their practices raise unprecedented competition issues. Their spontaneous tendency toward concentration results from the implementation of innovative business models based on massive data capture and exploitation through high-performance algorithms. The specificities inherent in these web giants raise questions about the ability of classical competition law rules to ensure efficient regulation. Indeed, competitive regulation of these platforms raises essential challenges and proves indispensable, even if the effective realization of such an undertaking appears laborious.

Gender Perspective(S): Lessons From International Human Rights Law To Defend Against Pregnancy Related Prosecutions, Megan Osadzinski

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The criminalization of pregnancy outcomes—such as miscarriages, abortion, obstetric emergencies, and stillbirth—is a violation of fundamental human rights guarantees; including the right to a fair trial when read in conjunction with the right to equality and the right to health. This article outlines state obligations under international human rights law toward women charged in pregnancy prosecutions, translating them into national criminal defense strategies using a gender perspective. Using intersectional theory, this article calls for the use of a gender perspective to challenge such prosecutions as unlawful gender-based discrimination and a gendered violation of due process, using the case study of …

Comparative Analysis Of Freedom Of Thought, Conscience, And Religion In India, Pakistan, And Bangladesh, Abhishek Chakrabarti

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is a fundamental human right enshrined in Article 18 of The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR). However, religious minorities in South Asia are often deprived of this fundamental right. Muslims in India, Ahmadiyyas, Hindus, and Christians in Pakistan, and Hindus in Bangladesh face challenges including educational marginalization, economic and political marginalization, and social stigma in the society. The Note presents a comparative analysis of the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion across the three most populous countries in South Asia–India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh–that also share a long cultural, linguistic, and religious history. …

The Institutional Means Of Environmental Protection In Morocco, Rachida Meziane

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article analyses the institutional apparatus established in Morocco for environmental protection, in a context where the framework law on environmental protection and enhancement exists only in draft form, making the role of existing administrative structures all the more decisive. The author systematically inventories the environmental competences distributed among the various ministries (Interior, Agriculture, Public Health, Urban Planning, Maritime Fisheries) and specialised bodies, highlighting the institutional fragmentation characteristic of the Moroccan administrative landscape in environmental matters and the absence of a coordinating authority with real intersectoral arbitration capacity. The analysis focuses on the concrete environmental attributions of the Ministry of …

Solid And Liquid Waste Disposal And Environmental Law, Abdelmalek Guessous

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article systematically examines the problem of solid and liquid waste disposal in Morocco from an environmental law perspective, combining technical and legal analysis to identify the challenges posed by waste management in a rapidly expanding urban context. The author first classifies waste types precisely and describes modern treatment and elimination techniques deployed in the sanitation sector, including through specialised bodies such as SAEM. The legal analysis then focuses on the applicable normative framework, revealing gaps in Moroccan waste collection, treatment, and disposal regulation, the absence of a framework law on waste, and the inadequacy of civil and criminal liability …

The Legal Protection Of The Urban Environment, Khadija Kaouakib-Kadiri

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article offers an in-depth legal analysis of the concept of the urban environment and the instruments for its protection in Morocco, within the theoretical framework of environmental law as an emerging discipline. The author starts from a rigorous definition of the concept of environment, distinguishing its natural and artificial components and highlighting the difficulties inherent in delimiting the urban environment, whose geographical, functional, and normative boundaries remain fluid and subject to doctrinal debate. The study critically inventories the Moroccan legislative and regulatory texts applicable to urban environmental protection, covering urban law, public health law, classified establishments regulation, and general …

Urban Planning Documents And The Environment, Abdelilah El Mekinsi

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article offers an in-depth legal analysis of the relationship between urban planning documents and environmental protection in Morocco. Starting from a rigorous definition of the environment and its natural and artificial components, the author critically inventories the Moroccan legislative and regulatory texts applicable to urban environmental protection, covering urban law, public health law, classified establishments regulations, and general administrative policing. The study identifies the sectoral and fragmented character of existing legislation and concludes with a call for a comprehensive and coherent legal policy integrating environmental requirements into all sectoral planning and development policies, supported by effective institutions endowed with …

Teachers’ Awareness Of Family Engagement In Multilingual Education, Sedighe Zamani Roodsari

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

This study investigated public school teachers’ awareness of family engagement as a linguistic and cultural resource for multilingual students. Multilinguals are typically described as individuals who can communicate in more than one language, with English not being their native language, and their linguistic choices are influenced by societal norms and systems (Šifrar Kalan et al., 2024; Wei, 2008). Preparing pre-service teachers to enhance opportunities for multilingual students remains a critical need in teacher education programs, as they strive to move beyond monolingual ideologies in their teaching practices (Cárdenas Curiel et al., 2024; Kim & Choi, 2020; Williams & Ewing, 2019). …