Digital Commons Network^™

Annotated Legal Bibliography

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Us Vs. Wales: Comparing And Improving Refugee Health Policy, Payton Ramsey

Senior Theses

Inadequate strides have been made to bolster the short and long-term health of growing numbers of refugees awaiting resettlement. The United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as many countries of resettlement, guarantee the right to health as signatories of the UN 1951 Refugee Convention, but in many situations refugee accessibility to healthcare and health resources is limited by time restrictions on benefits, immigration status, and/or financial circumstances.

This thesis provides a synopsis of the historical roots of current policies and legislative frameworks relating to refugee health for Wales and the US. Through the analysis of governmental policy …

Inoculating Title Vii: The “Undue Hardship” Standard And Employer-Mandated Vaccination Policies, Mary-Lauren Miller

Fordham Law Review

The widespread administration of a vaccine is essential to bringing an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. Employers can contribute to this goal by requiring employees to be vaccinated. The ability of employers to impose vaccine mandates is theoretically limited in part by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to accommodate religious employees unless doing so would impose an “undue hardship” on the employer. Under the current interpretation of undue hardship, employers typically cannot face legal liability for denying accommodations to employees refusing to receive an employer-mandated vaccine on religious grounds, though some employers may …

A Tale Of Two Crises: Assessing The Impact Of Exclusionary School Policies On Students During A State Of Emergency Student Note, Megan Helton

The Journal of Law and Education

No abstract provided.

Weathering The Pandemic: Dying Old At A Young Age From Pre-Existing Racist Conditions, Arline T. Geronimus

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Mainstream social epidemiology now acknowledges the contributions of interpersonal racism, racialized stress, and implicit bias to population health inequity. It also increasingly recognizes that current and historical racist policies place barriers in the way of healthy lifestyles by institutionalizing food deserts, housing decay, and austerity urbanism. Essential as these developments are, they only skim the surface of how insidiously structural racism establishes and reproduces population health inequity. I coined the term “weathering” to describe the effects of sustained cultural oppression upon the body. Weathering expands on the more conventional “social determinants of health” approach to understand the contextually fluctuating and …

Empathy’S Promise And Limits For Those Disproportionately Harmed By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Theresa Glennon

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Structural race, ethnicity, and class disparities in the United States concentrated and intensified the health, economic, and psychological impact of COVID-19 for certain populations. Those same structural disparities and the belief system that maintains them may also account for the weak policy response that left the United States with high rates of infection and death, economic devastation of individuals, families, and small businesses, and psychological distress. A more equal society with a stronger pre-pandemic safety net may have prevented or eased the disproportionate hardship and avoided the drama and cliffhanging. Or the shock of a pandemic and likelihood of extreme …

Past The Tipping Point, But With Hope Of Return: How Creating A Geoengineering Compulsory Licensing Scheme Can Incentivize Innovation, Brooke Wilson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the patenting of geoengineering technologies and issues arising from the early stages of this high-risk, high-reward technology. This Note focuses on one possible solution to solving the issues surrounding the patenting of geoengineering technology: Creating a specialized compulsory licensing scheme.

The Demographics Of Death: An Early Look At Covid-19, Cultural And Racial Bias In America, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Lawrence J. Trautman

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

During late 2019, reports emerged that a mysterious coronavirus was resulting in high contagion and many deaths in Wuhan, China. In just a few weeks, cases rose quickly in Seattle, spread to California, and the first in- stance of the virus appeared in New York (from Iran) on March 1, 2020. As the months pass, it is abundantly clear that less wealthy Americans have far fewer options amid the new normal of shelter-in-place orders, school closings, and shuttered businesses. For example, the poor and other populations may be genetically pre-disposed to heart disease and diabetic issues, but poverty also dictates …

Quarantine, Isolation, And Metaphorical Takings: Balancing Individual Rights And Public Health Responses To Disease Outbreaks, Thomas Williams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Quarantine and isolation are methods employed by public health officials to control the spread of dangerous disease pathogens through physical isolation of those exposed or symptomatic. While use of these methods has declined in the last century through advances in medical knowledge and treatment, emerging disease threats will likely require increased reliance on them. Despite this, quarantine statutes and related regulations fail to provide compensation to those subject to them, and little recourse exists to make those individuals whole for losses incurred, though the pandemic has highlighted a need for work in this area. One means of shifting the burden …

Public Health And History: Vaccination Regulation In The Northeastern States, Kate Campbell

Student Research

In 1905 Henning Jacobson went before the United States Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Massachusetts and argued that his constitutional right to liberty was infringed upon when compulsory vaccination laws were introduced. When mandatory vaccination laws were introduced in Cambridge, Massachusetts there was another deadly smallpox epidemic racing through the northeastern states. Government officials believed that the best way to control the disease and ultimately stop the spread was through government intervention. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that as a citizen of the United States it is often times necessary to give up some forms of liberty in order to …

“Love Is Distance”: Is That So? Lockdown Strategies, Medically Vulnerable People, And Relational Ethics, Nili Karako-Eyal

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Lockdowns, Quarantines, And Travel Restrictions, During Covid And Beyond: What’S The Law, And How Should We Decide?, Lawrence O. Gostin, Meryl Chertoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in vast deprivations of liberty previously unthinkable: lockdowns, business closures, travel restrictions, and quarantines. Even witnessing China’s January 2020 lockdown of 11 million people in Wuhan, it seemed wholly implausible that London, Rome, or New York would shut down. But they did, and much more. At the initial height of the pandemic in April 2020, more than 3.9 billion people, about half the world's population, were under stay-at-home orders. That same month, 43 US states were under stay-at-home orders.

What are the scientific, public health, and ethical justifications for various forms of liberty deprivations? Are they …

The Coronavirus Pandemic 1 Year On—What Went Wrong?, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

January 30, 2021, marked the first anniversary of the declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Thus far, the world has been no match for SARS-CoV-2, with more than 100 million cases and 2.5 million deaths. The US has been among the world’s poorest performers in addressing the pandemic, with more than 500 000 deaths.

Vaccines offer the best chance of returning to normal, but circulating variants pose a major obstacle, particularly the emergence of variants that are more transmissible and are developing partial resistance to vaccines against …

Taylor V. Riojas: Anatomy Of A Supreme Court Intervention That Should Not Have Been Necessary, Zamir Ben-Dan

Nevada Law Journal Forum

In September 2013, an inmate in a Texas prison allegedly spent six days in two uninhabitable cells. One cell was covered in “massive amounts of feces;” the other cell was freezing cold and lacked a sink, a bunk and a toilet, containing only a clogged floor drain for him to relieve himself. Confinement under these abominable conditions were plainly illegal under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Yet, two lower federal courts found, for slightly different reasons, that the inmate had no actionable constitutional claim and that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Both decisions displayed a …

Pornography: Social, Emotional And Mental Implications Among Adolescents, William Kelly Canady

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will explain the historical development of pornography. It will highlight four segments: 1- Porn’s impact on brain development of reward pathways, ultimately increasing the appetite for more porn. 2- Porn can be a false substitute for real intimacy, resulting in decreased sexual satisfaction with a real person and increased verbal and physical aggression. 3- Porn promotes sex trafficking, promotes multiple sex partners and reduced STD prevention. 4- A review of interventions available to assist clients in navigating a lifestyle away from pornography.

Charting A Different Course, Nadia Schadlow

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Brick-And-Mortar Bank Is Dead—Covid-19 Killed It: Analyzing The “New Normal” For Data Security In The Increasingly Digital Financial Services Industry, Anna-Nicole Cooke

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Who Calls The Shots?: Parents Versus The Parens Patriae Power Of The States To Mandate Vaccines For Children In New York, Emily R. Jones

Georgia State University Law Review

Vaccines are one of the top ten public health interventions of the twentieth century, lengthening lifespans and drastically reducing the burden of infectious disease in many nations. Childhood immunizations in particular have significantly impacted rates of infant and child mortality and morbidity, and nearly eliminated the presence of diseases like measles in the United States. Unfortunately, parents are increasingly seeking “religious” exemptions for mandatory childhood immunizations, which threatens to lead to a resurgence in these diseases, impacting children and schools.

This Note discusses New York’s repeal of the religious exemption from its public health code in 2019. Passed in response …

Litigating An Invisible Enemy: Will The United States Insurance Industry Survive The Covid-19 Pandemic?, Alisa Baird

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Cautionary Tale: Theranos, The Ldt Loophole, And Implications On The Covid-19, William Chanes Martinez

Health Law Outlook

No abstract provided.

Anti-Gmo And Vaccine-Autism Public Policy Campaigns In The Court Of Public Opinion, Robert C. Bird

UC Law Journal

Science skepticism is on the rise worldwide, and it has a pernicious influence on science and science-based public policy. This Article explores two of the most controversial science-based public policy issues: whether genetically modified foods are inherently unsafe and whether vaccines cause autism spectrum disorder. After evaluating the scientific credibility and discursive power of these claims, this Article analyzes how changes in public opinion can shift public policy away from anti-scientific practices. Legal scholarship can play a substantial role because, if accessibly written, it has the potential to be timely, persuasive, and comprehensible by a broad audience. Other stakeholders also …

My Body, My Temple: The Constitutional Requirement For Religious Exemptions To A Covid-19 Vaccination Mandate, Ben Davisson

SLU Law Journal Online

While the COVID-19 crisis has caused many to fear the threat that the virus poses to the health and safety of themselves and their loved ones, for others, and particularly for those with certain religious beliefs, the cure is worse than the disease. The possibility of a government mandated vaccine has caused extreme anxiety for many Americans. In this article, Ben Davisson discusses the constitutionality of mandatory vaccination programs and how such programs may come into conflict with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Virus As Foreign Invader: U.S. Voters & The Immigration Debate, Rebecca Sharpless

University of Miami Law Review

Nativist sentiments against classes of immigrants have existed since colonial times. But views about immigration and immigrants drive U.S. electoral politics now more than ever, accounting for a significant number of voters who crossed party lines in the 2016 presidential election. The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to harden deeply-held beliefs about outsider threats and further entrench the polarization of public views on immigration. During his campaigns and term in office, President Trump popularized nativism, breaking from the received wisdom of the Republican party. Casting the virus as a foreign invader, he built on fears of the contagion to alter …

Utilitarian Triage In Disasters, Alyssa Nielsen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Increased Exposure To Coronavirus (Covid-19) For Prisoners Justifies Early Release: And The Wider Implications Of This For Sentencing—Reducing Most Prison Terms Due To The Harsh Incidental Consequences Of Prison, Mirko Bagaric, Peter Isham, Jennifer Svilar

Pepperdine Law Review

The risk of coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading in prisons is especially acute. This has resulted in an unprecedented number of prisoners being released across the world – including many prisoners in the United States. From the health, social, and political perspectives, this is a sound approach. This is especially the situation in relation to older prisoners and those who have not been imprisoned for serious sexual and violent offenses. Despite the large number of prisoners that are being released, the United States will still have the largest prison population on earth—and by a large margin. However, the coronavirus pandemic and the …

New Innovation Models In Medical Ai, Nicholson Price Ii, Rachel Sachs, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Law & Economics Working Papers

In recent years, scientists and researchers have devoted considerable resources to developing medical artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Many of these technologies—particularly those which resemble traditional medical devices in their functions—have received substantial attention in the legal and policy literature. But other types of novel AI technologies, such as those that relate to quality improvement and optimizing use of scarce facilities, have been largely absent from the discussion thus far. These AI innovations have the potential to shed light on important aspects of health innovation policy. First, these AI innovations interact less with the legal regimes that scholars traditionally conceive of …

Modalities, Challenges, And Possibilities: An Introduction To The Pharmaceutical Innovation Symposium, Peter K. Yu

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

On October 25, 2019, the Texas A&M Journal of Property Lawand the Center for Law and Intellectual Property at Texas A&M University School of Law jointly organized the “Pharmaceutical Innovation, Patent Protection, and Regulatory Exclusivities” Symposium. Although none of the organizers and participants could predict what was to come in the next few months, there was a wide consensus that the rapid changes in the pharmaceutical landscape and our continuous struggle to strike a proper balance between proprietary protection and public access in the public health arena deserves scholarly, policy, and regulatory attention.

To help contextualize the articles included in …

Covid-19 And Its Implications For Women In Gaming: Move Towards Regulation, Policies, And Culture Changes In The United States, Shekinah Hoffman, Itzel Alanis

UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal

COVID-19 exposes structural inequalities within American society which can no longer be ignored. Here, we highlight the structural inequalities women and women of color face that are glaringly apparent or exacerbated in the pandemic. Inequalities that play a role in the unemployment, insufficient workplace protection, and increased work-life demands of women and women of color in the gaming industry. Instead of returning to “normal” business post-pandemic, we urge gaming leaders to reflect on these inequities within their workplaces. We offer that guaranteed paid leave and permanent flexible work arrangements could improve the life of gaming women employees and their families.

Property And Intellectual Property In Vaccine Markets, Ana Santos Rutschman

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

As biopharmaceutical forms of technology, vaccines constitute one of the most important tools for the promotion and maintenance of public health. Tolstoy famously wrote that “[h]appy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Vaccine markets offer perhaps one of the most extreme embodiments of Tolstoy’s principle in the field of biopharmaceutical innovation.

Vaccines are often described as one of the most unprofitable types of biopharmaceutical goods, under-incentivized from a research and development (“R&D”) perspective, and routinely failing to attract sufficient investment from traditional funders in biopharma. In this sense, and despite the scientifically well-established …

The Open Covid Pledge: Design, Implementation And Preliminary Assessment Of An Intellectual Property Commons, Jorge L. Contreras

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Early during the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of widely-publicized incidents gave rise to concerns that holders of patents and other intellectual property (IP) rights could hinder the development, manufacture and distribution of essential medical devices, protective equipment and biomedical products. The global response to these concerns was swift and included the issuance of compulsory licensing orders by several national governments, as well as the proposal of a technology pool by the World Health Organization (WHO). Alongside these efforts, a group of scientific, engineering and legal experts created a lightweight, open framework under which IP holders could voluntarily pledge not to …