Digital Commons Network^™

Narrative Of Nationalism In Mise-En-Scene Of Biopic Soekarno: Indonesia Merdeka, Eric Gunawan, Bambang Wibawarta

International Review of Humanities Studies

This paper examines the national narrative presented in the biographical film Soekarno: Indonesia Merdeka (2014). The analysis employs a film studies approach to explore the interplay between visual and narrative strategies within the framework of Eisenstein's theoretical perspectives. Christian Metz's semiotic theory is utilized to decode the signs embedded throughout the film. The study focuses on the visual and narrative strategies employed in the biopic to elucidate the national narrative, particularly through the portrayal of the character Soekarno and his interactions with other key figures. Visual strategies, encompassing cinematography and mise-en-scene techniques, bring to light signs that are intricately linked …

Loper Bright And The Future Of Chevron Deference, Jack M. Beermann

William & Mary Law Review Online

This essay proposes that the Court overrule the Chevron two-step standard of review of agency statutory construction and replace it by reviving deference under the factors announced in the Skidmore case with a twist that preserves Chevron’s greatest virtue: agency freedom to alter its statutory interpretations so long as the agency remains within the zone of reasonable construction. This essay also proposes that the Court clarify the boundary between cases involving statutory construction and cases involving agency policy decisions that are reviewed under the arbitrary and capricious standard articulated in cases such as Motor Vehicles and Overton Park. …

Who’S Afraid Of Being Woke? – Critical Theory As Awakening To Erascism And Other Injustices, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

Translating A Cbdc Dollar Into A Constitutional Dollar, Christopher P. Guzelian

St. Mary's Law Journal

The constitutional Dollar was a silver coin. Federal and state paper moneys were

unconstitutional, and gold and copper coins were not Dollars. Consequently, notable

constitutional originalists claim any Dollar not constructed from silver—including the

current widely circulating paper Federal Reserve note—is unconstitutional. But the Dollar

soon may undergo an unprecedented technological metamorphosis: in 2022, the White

House and the Federal Reserve Bank Board of Governors advocated the possible adoption

of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (“CBDC” Dollars). Private commercial

electronic bank credits have been issued for some time, but a CBDC Dollar would be

America’s first electronic government currency. …

How To Destroy The Liberal International Order, Bryan H. Druzin

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

This Article argues that a policy of containment directed at China could have disastrous consequences on the stability of the global system. The liberal international order, created to promote international coordination and structure global trade, comprises key institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. It is possible that much of the strength of these institutions stems from the fact that nations are "locked" into them simply because they are the only game in town. Put another way, the liberal order is, for lack of a better word, a "monopoly." …

Getting The Green Light: Renewable Energy As An Internal Tribal Matter, J. Shinay

Maine Law Review

For over forty years the Wabanaki people of Maine have had their sovereignty diminished as a result of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act (MICSA), an arrangement with the state and federal government unlike any other tribal sovereignty arrangement in the Unites States. The MICSA was born from a decades-long debate over land rights and resource rights in Maine, culminating in a “compromise” that avoided political conflict at the expense of Wabanaki sovereignty. Under the MICSA, the Wabanaki do not have sovereign status, instead only holding sovereign control over those matters the state deems “internal tribal matters.” Among the many …

Meanings, Speech Acts, And Legal Contents Produced By Plural Lawmaking Bodies, Scott Soames

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Language is both our most powerful cognitive tool and our most basic social institution, without which neither law, government, nor science would be possible. Because it is so central to nearly everything we do, its familiarity tempts us to overestimate how much we understand about the way it functions in different domains. My task is to illuminate (i) how to extract legal content from linguistic acts of lawmakers in the United States, and (ii) how this linguistically expressed content is sometimes modified by legal interpretation, when law is applied to particular cases. Although (i-ii) are grounded in facts about ordinary …

Traditionalism Rising, Marc O. Degirolami

The Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues

Constitutional traditionalism is rising. From due process to free speech, religious liberty, the right to keep and bear arms, and more, the Court made clear in its 2021 term that it will follow a method that is guided by “tradition.”

This paper is in part an exercise in naming: the Court’s 2021 body of work is, in fact, thoroughly traditionalist. It is therefore a propitious moment to explain just what traditionalism entails. After summarizing the basic features of traditionalism in some of my prior work and identifying them in the Court’s 2021 term decisions, this paper situates these recent examples …

Teaching Law In The Age Of Generative Ai, John Bliss

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

With the rise of large language models capable of passing law school exams and the Uniform Bar Exam, how should legal educators prepare their students for an age of transformative technological change? As text-generating AI is being integrated in legal research platforms and word processing software, which automate the drafting of legal documents based on human prompts, lawyers are increasingly adopting this technology as a standard tool of legal research and writing. This Article explores the implications of these developments for legal education, focusing on pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment.

The Article draws from four key perspectives relevant to the use …

Agent Of Russian Interests Abroad: Assessing The Moscow Patriarchate’S Activity In The Balkans And Beyond, Robert C. Blitt

Scholarly Works

This Article addresses the role played by the Russian Orthodox Church—Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) in supporting the Kremlin’s policy objectives in the Balkans, a region with significant historical ties to Russia and a common religious heritage steeped in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concern for the region’s stability has grown. This is particularly so due to Kremlin efforts to deflect attention away from Ukraine by fueling ethnic, religious, and political tensions left over from the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords that ended the years of war following Yugoslavia’s collapse.

The analysis presented herein demonstrates that the ROC’s operation …

When Originalism Failed: Lessons From Tort Law, Donald G. Gifford, Richard C. Boldt, Christopher J. Robinette

Faculty Scholarship

Two recent Supreme Court decisions upended American life. Opinions released on consecutive days in June 2022 overturned the right of reproductive choice nationwide and invalidated a statute regulating the carrying of concealed weapons in New York. The opinions were united by a common methodology. Pursuant to what one scholar terms “thick” originalism, history, as told by the majority, dictated the resolution of constitutional disputes.

This Article explores the use of thick originalism in several celebrated torts cases that raised constitutional issues. These cases illustrate two significant kinds of problems associated with a rigid historical approach to constitutional interpretation. The first …

How The Supreme Court Ghosted The Phosita: Amgen And Legal Constructs In Patent Law, Timothy R. Holbrook

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This essay is an invited response to The Ghost in the Patent System: An Empirical Study of Patent Law’s Elusive “Skilled Artisan,” by Professors Laura Pedraza-Fariña and Ryan Whalen. In their piece, Pedraza-Fariña and Ryan Whalen offer an empirical study and use it to argue for a new conception of the Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA), patent law’s nod to the “reasonable person” construct.

As Professors Pedraza-Fariña and Whalen suggest, the PHOSITA should be understood as a crucial concept in patent law, warranting more scholarly attention. Pedraza-Fariña and Whalen provide that attention. They assert, based on an …

What's The Use? The Structural Flaw Undermining Warhol V. Goldsmith, Peter J. Karol

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that the Supreme Court’s recent and significant ruling in Warhol v. Goldsmith suffers from a foundational error that jeopardizes its value as precedent. Namely, the Court conceptualized the fair use defense at issue as arising from the alleged infringer’s “commercial licensing” of an Andy Warhol silkscreen to a non-party magazine publisher. But commercial licensing is neither a copyright use nor an act of infringement. It is the passive grant of permission to another to use the licensed work and a promise not to sue. It is incoherent to raise or evaluate fair use as a defense to …

Timmsen: A Criminal Procedure U-Turn Or Just A Detour?, Nancy Jack, Karl T. Muth

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Article reviews a recent traffic stop case in Illinois that looks unremarkable from a distance but, upon closer examination, contains a variety of criminal procedure questions about traffic stops, mistake of law, formation of suspicion, and—ultimately—the durability and flexibility of the reasonable, articulable suspicion standard itself when a bizarre fact pattern puts it to the test. In People v. Timmsen, the Illinois Supreme Court wrestles with the question of whether wholly legal behavior, when misinterpreted as illegal conduct, can create the basis for a roadside interaction and the evidentiary question of whether, given the facts particular to this …

The Death Of The Evolving Standards Of Decency, Meghan J. Ryan

Florida State University Law Review

The Eighth Amendment Punishments Clause is in jeopardy. The con-stitutionality of punishments is usually judged according to the “evolv-ing standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing socie-ty.” And in evaluating these standards, the Court has traditionally looked to changing societal views on punishment. This is a living con-stitution approach to interpretation, and the Eighth Amendment is the only area of law in which the Court has consistently and explicitly ap-plied such an approach. But a living constitution approach is diamet-rically opposed to the current Court’s focus on originalism. This is the first originalist Court in history, and …

The Best Interests Of The Child In Judicial Perspective: Morocco And Chile As Case-Studies (1990-2020), Susana Sanz-Caballero

Children's Legal Rights Journal

Is there a common understanding in the judiciary process about what “the child’s best interests” are, regardless of geographic location or legal order? In every nation, when disputes impacting minors arise, judges emerge as the final adjudicators. Judges, as final adjudicators, appear to be in the best possible position to determine a child’s best interests and apply the notion fairly and appropriately. However, the concept of a child’s “best interests” is far from uniform, varying across cultures and individual family dynamics. It is an invaluable exercise to review the national case law of different countries to test whether the concept …

International Law As A Tool For Reviving, Preserving, And Protecting The Tajik Language In Uzbekistan, Lindsay Saligman

International Program Papers

No abstract provided.

An Information Theory Of Intentional Trademark Infringement, Jake Linford

Scholarly Publications

Critiques of the intent inquiry in trademark likelihood of confusion cases are somewhat misguided in light of theories about how information is transmitted in communication systems. Properly calibrated legal systems can incentivize better information flow and appropriate behavior by commercial actors using information forcing default rules. This Article considers trademark law's information transmission function in light of legal theories about the efficiencies captured through information forcing rules, as well as Claude Shannon's information theory, which provides a model for information transmission and important insights for how to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio in the commercial market. Defendants who run afoul of …

The Ersatz Of The Plain-Meaning Rule Of Statutory Construction In Sackett V. Epa (Ii), Dana Neacsu

Duquesne Law Review

This essay uses the United States Supreme Court second decision in Sackett v. EPA,¹ or Sackett (II), to stress the obvious: judges are tasked with decoding the nation's laws for everyone's understanding. Or, in the words of John Marshall: "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."² Later that century, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. further clarified that judicial duty: "Thereupon we ask, not what this man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker of English, using them in circumstances …

Gender Dysphoria And The Americans With Disabilities Act: The Shameful Wall Of Exclusion, Victoria Lynn Smith

Duquesne Law Review

On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA') and celebrated the moment that the "shameful wall of exclusion finally [came] tumbling down."¹ At that moment, the President promised that this legislation was a proverbial sledgehammer marking the end of discrimination in America.² Nevertheless, over thirty years later, individuals at the intersection of disability rights and transgender rights are still struggling against exclusion as they attempt to receive the promised protections of the ADA.³

The Constitutional Meaning Of Financial Terms, Tomer S. Stein, Shelby Ponton

Scholarly Works

The Constitution has sixty-three financial terms. These financial terms include, for instance, “compensation,” “expenditures,” “debt,” “coin,” “revenue,” “securities,” and “bankruptcies”—all of which determine the elementary building blocks of our governmental makeup. When the Supreme Court interprets the meaning of these financial terms, it does so in isolation and without a consistent framework. This Article proposes a unified framework for the interpretation of financial terms in the Constitution, comprising of two fundamental canons of construction.

First, this Article proposes that all financial terms in the Constitution should be interpreted with fiscal and monetary neutrality—interpreting financial terms in a way that does …

She Speaks For Millions: The Emergence Of Female Diplomatic Voices In The Russo-Ukrainian War, Amber Brittain-Hale, Amber Brittain-Hale

Education Division Scholarship

This research critically investigates the public diplomacy strategies deployed by a cohort of influential female European leaders on Twitter during the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2023. The study comprises eight leaders - Kallas (Estonia), Marin (Finland), von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), Metsola (President of the European Parliament), Sandu (Moldova), Simonyte (Lithuania), Zourabichvili (Georgia), and Meloni (Italy) - representing millions of constituents. By mirroring the analytical attention given to Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this study scrutinizes the distinct approaches and dif erences in emotional, cognitive, and structural language use between these influential female figures and President Zelenskyy in their …

Greening Monetary Policy: To Expand Or Restrain? The Legal And Normative Implications Of The Federal Reserve Combating Climate Change, Jason D. D'Andrea

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

The U.S. Federal Reserve is increasingly at the center of political and scholarly debates concerning how to address climate change. This new pressure comes as other central banks have recently considered an array of regulatory, supervisory, and monetary policy tools to mitigate climate change. Yet, in contrast to some of its global counterparts, the Federal Reserve has been more tailored in its response.

The desire to proactively combat climate change with central bank tools has generated a spectrum of policy designs and legal wrangling. Focusing on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy mandate, this Article undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the …

The Cost Of Compensation: A Novel Licensing Platform For Digital Content Poses Unique Compromise For Artists And Generative Ai Developers, Liberty R. Smith

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Measuring Clarity In Legal Text, Jonathan H. Choi

University of Chicago Law Review

Legal cases often turn on judgments of textual clarity: when the text is unclear, judges allow extrinsic evidence in contract disputes, consult legislative history in statutory interpretation, and more. Despite this, almost no empirical work considers the nature or prevalence of legal clarity. Scholars and judges who study real-world documents to inform the interpretation of legal text primarily treat unclear text as a research problem to be solved with more data rather than a fundamental feature of language.

This Article makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the legal concept of textual clarity. It first advances a theory of clarity …

From Alienation To Rootedness: Discrimination Against Indigenous Peoples In The Philippines Through Education, Katrina Isabela F. Blanco

American University International Law Review

This article tackles the existing discrimination against indigenous peoples in the Philippines in law, policy, and practices. This article discusses indigenous peoples in context, the international and domestic legal framework on IP rights, and the legal (and moral) right to education and the right to indigenous education.

Finding Rights In The Fine Print: How Terms Of Services Agreements Can Turn Consumer Search History Into Digital Property, Dalia Wrocherinsky

American University Business Law Review

On October 16, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court handed down the country’s first court opinion on the constitutionality of reverse keyword warrants. It found that Google’s Terms of Service created a Fourth Amendment property interest in a user’s search history such that police copying this data constituted a seizure. This was a completely novel contention that implicates basic, yet increasingly relevant and unsettled principles of property, contracts, and Fourth Amendment law.

This Comment will argue that fundamental principles of property, contracts, and Fourth Amendment law support the Colorado Supreme Court’s theory. It will explore how property rights are created and …

Between The Entrepreneurial Impetus For Higher Profits And Consumer Rights Or Types Of Unfair And Misleading Commercial Practices: Insights From Bulgaria, Silviya Atanasova Topleva

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

The application of unfair misleading commercial practices affects the economic interests of consumers, threatening legal security and the achievement of market equilibrium. In response to these imbalances, the law builds a solid regulatory network for consumer protection. In the codification of the protection of consumer interests from unfair commercial practices, an important place is occupied by secondary legislation of the EU, and in particular Directive 2005/29/EC concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market. The article presents a classification of the types of unfair misleading commercial practices based on the regulatory framework at the European and national level. The …

Toward Equal Access: A Model For Lay Advocacy Programs Serving People Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Melissa Bell

JADARA

Advocacy programs are prevalent among state government agencies that specialize in serving persons who are deaf or hard of hearing around the United States. The work is crucial to ensuring equal access and equal opportunity, yet the lay advocacy profession is not yet formalized with certification, ethical standards, or training programs for advocates serving this population. Research was conducted to advance efforts to maximize these programs’ effectiveness by compiling components of an ideal model for lay advocacy programs. Directors from state agencies that specialize in serving this population around the country refined the model and described the structure of their …

A Great American Gun Myth: Race And The Naming Of The “Saturday Night Special”, Jennifer L. Behrens, Joseph Blocher

Minnesota Law Review Headnotes, Vols. 107 onward (2022-present)

No abstract provided.