Digital Commons Network^™

Civil Liability And Intra-Fraternal, Sexually Predatory Behavior, Gregory S. Parks, Ryan W. Mckee

SMU Law Review Forum

Sexually predatory behavior has long been an issue within many institutions and organizations. The Catholic Church has been scrutinized for the involvement of Popes, priests, nuns, and others as perpetrators and enablers of child sexual abuse. Reports of child sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s have plagued the Catholic Church in both the US and Europe, with estimates in the US across all dioceses suggesting over four thousand priest/deacon perpetrators and over ten thousand victims affected between the 1950s and 2002. Similarly, sexual abuse has been an issue in the Boy Scouts of America, dating back to …

A One-Egg Wonder: Working To Cure Judicial Gender Bias And Increase Access To Pre-Embryos For Infertile Parties, Nicole Marks Kaufman

Cardozo Law Review

The first live birth of a child conceived from in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) happened in 1978. Today, over eight million children have been born through IVF procedures. The first dispute over the resulting pre-embryos was in 1990 when the Tennessee Supreme Court outlined a balancing approach with a presumption favoring non-use of the pre-embryos for courts to follow when resolving these matters. Numerous states have taken differing approaches—some have taken a contractual approach, others an approach requiring contemporaneous mutual consent before there can be a departure from the status quo, and very few state legislatures have directly addressed how to …

Carceral Apartheid: Centering State Responsibility For The Racial Order, Ion Meyn

Cardozo Law Review

Racial harms are often attributed to private ordering. But the power of White communities to subordinate communities of color is not a constellation of private acts independent of state violence. When scrutinized, acts of racial exclusion, segregation, and violence persist to the extent they are aligned with the political order and backed by the state’s violent guarantee. The knowledge that any resistance to these acts will be met with state retribution bristles in the background.

There are different ways in which state violence produces and reproduces the racial order: (1) direct violence; (2) a violent guarantee backing communal acts of …

Make America Healthy: Reducing High Pharmaceutical Prices Without Reducing Innovation, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

Cost of medication in the United States has historically remained one of the highest in the world. The conundrum that the United States has faced in balancing innovation with affordability of life-saving medications is palpable, especially when faced with the reality of patent monopolies conflicting with healthcare obligations. The result is an overflow of issues, which emphasize the need to delineate limits on innovation to balance pharmaceutical novelty with robust public health within the United States. This has increasingly shifted the focus of patent law into the realm of healthcare issues. Naturally, it leads to an inquiry about how best …

China, The Trips Waiver, And The Global Pandemic Response, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter identifies three distinct reasons why China took a middle-of-the-road position in the debate on the COVID-19 TRIPS waiver at the WTO. It also recounts the country’s more assertive position in the run-up to the adoption of the Ministerial Decision on the waiver. Drawing eight lessons from the international debate on the waiver and the subsequent Ministerial Decision, the chapter offers insights into the future role China can or will play in future international policy debates at the intersection of intellectual property and public health, including during the next pandemic.

Ai Regulation Has Its Own Alignment Problem: The Technical And Institutional Feasibility Of Disclosure, Registration, Licensing, And Auditing, Neel Guha, Christie M. Lawrence, Lindsey A. Gailmard, Kit T. Rodolfa, Faiz Surani, Rishi Bommasani, Inioluwa Deborah Raji, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Colleen Honigsberg, Percy Liang, Daniel E. Ho

Faculty Scholarship

Calls for regulating artificial intelligence (“AI”) are widespread, but there remains little consensus on both the specific harms that regulation can and should address and the appropriate regulatory actions to take. Computer scientists propose technical solutions that may be infeasible or illegal; lawyers propose regulation that may be technically impossible; and commentators propose policies that may backfire. AI regulation, in that sense, has its own alignment problem, in which proposed interventions are often misaligned with societal values.This Article assesses the alignment and technical and institutional feasibility of four dominant proposals for AI regulation in the United States: disclosure, registration, licensing, …

Intellectual Property, Global Inequality, And Subnational Policy Variations, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter criticizes the oversimplification of the binary North–South debate on intellectual property, innovation, and global inequality and highlights the wide geographic, sectoral, and income inequalities within middle-income countries. It begins by explaining why the arrival of these countries has called into question the North–South debate. The chapter then moves from the widely studied subject of global inequality to the underexplored topic of national inequality. Focusing on the intellectual property context, the discussion highlights the considerable subnational variations in the economic and technological conditions of middle-income countries. To combat national inequality, this chapter concludes by recommending interventions in three areas: …

Reframing A Data Sharing Mechanism For The Riparian Nations Of Helmand River Basin: Theory Of Planned Behavior Is Revisited, Najibullah Loodin, Gabriel Eckstein, Vijay P. Singh, Rosario Sanchez

Faculty Scholarship

Data and information exchange plays a crucial role in fostering water cooperation between the riparian nations of a shared watercourse. Taking an integrated approach combining Discourse Analysis and Document Analysis, this research aims at elucidating the challenges and the potential opportunities of data and information exchange on the Helmand River, a drought-stricken river basin shared between upstream Afghanistan and downstream Iran. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we offer nuanced perspectives on the data exchange model developed by Wehn. We argue that there are other underlying and essential elements that hinder the meaningful engagement of the riparian nations …

Introduction To Intellectual Property, Innovation And Economic Inequality, Daniel Benoliel, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter provides an introduction to Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Inequality. It begins by discussing the problem of economic inequality, including the scale of that problem, types of economic inequality, and extant research on such inequality. The chapter then outlines the structure of this volume, which is divided into three parts: (1) theoretical, empirical, and policy issues; (2) intellectual property and national inequality; and (3) intellectual property and global inequality.

Intellectual Property, Innovation And Economic Inequality, Daniel Benoliel, Peter K. Yu, Francis Gurry, Keun Lee

Faculty Scholarship

While growing disparities in wealth and income are well-documented across the globe, the role of intellectual property rights is often overlooked. This volume brings together leading commentators from around the world to interrogate the interrelationship between intellectual property and economic inequality. Interdisciplinary and globally oriented by design, the book features economists, legal scholars, policy analysts, and other experts. Chapters address the impact of intellectual property rights on economic inequality, the effect of economic inequality on the protection and enforcement of these rights, and the potential use of innovation law and policy to help reduce economic inequality. The volume also tackles …

Ai: A New Lone-Wolf Terrorism In The Digital Era (Preliminary Analysis), Marthsian Yeksi Anakotta Mya

Journal of Terrorism Studies

This article addresses two fundamental inquiries: can AI engage in acts of terrorism? If so, how might such a phenomenon occur? My hypothesis posits that AI is capable of independently committing acts of terrorism, a classification derived from the study of terrorism known as lone-wolf terrorism. To address these dual issues, this article adopts a criminological approach, which is further elaborated through an examination of lone-wolf terrorism and the advancement of artificial intelligence. As is widely recognized, contemporary terrorist organizations have harnessed technological advancements in the realm of information and communication to perpetrate acts of terrorism within the digital sphere. …

Friends With Social Benefits: Queerplatonic Relationships And The Future Of Marriage

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

More Choosers, Fewer Choices? Supported And Medical Decision-Making Law Post-Dobbs, Megan S. Wright

Pace Law Review

This Article focuses on two conflicting trends in the law of medical decision making. More states are adopting supported decision-making legislation, wherein an individual with a disability receives decision-making assistance from someone they elect to serve as a “supporter.” In the absence of supported decision making, adults with significant decisional impairments may be disqualified from making contemporaneous medical decisions. But with the advent of supported decision making, more patients with impaired cognition may have the legal authority to make contemporaneous medical decisions. While the number of people eligible to make decisions is potentially increasing due to widespread adoption of supported …

Introduction—Bioethics After Dobbs, James Toomey

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Alabama Embryo Decision In Ethics, Law, And Politics, I. Glenn Cohen

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Disputes Over Frozen Embryos After Dobbs: A Retrospective Study Of Claims, Contracts, And Liability In Cases Of Divorce Or Separation, Gerard Letterie, Dov Fox

Pace Law Review

This study reviewed legal claims and clinic liability over disputed frozen embryos in cases of divorce or separation. Our data shows that one-third of cases had no prior arrangement regarding disposition about what to do in the event of separation or divorce. When agreements were in place they were rarely clear enough to determine the court’s resolution in these cases. In a post-Dobbs era, absence of adequate guidance could have significant implications regarding liability for all parties.

Are Embryos Or Fetuses Brain Dead? Implications For The Abortion Debate, Greer Donley

Pace Law Review

Most state abortion definitions exclude the removal of a dead fetus, attempting to distinguish miscarriage and abortion care. But what does “dead” mean at the earliest stages of potential life? There is a consensus at the end of life that death not only encompasses the cessation of cardiac activity, but also brain death. This symposium essay considers whether life can only begin with the emergence of brain life and if so, how that might impact the abortion debate. The most rudimentary brain waves cannot be detected in an embryo before roughly the eighth week of pregnancy; the capacity for feeling …

Personhood, Politics, Assisted Reproduction, And The Law Post-Dobbs, Myrisha S. Lewis

Pace Law Review

With the end of the federal constitutional right to abortion, state legislatures and state courts have become far more important in the sphere of reproductive rights. Before Dobbs, anti-abortion advocates had significant (albeit increasingly porous) ceilings on what they could prohibit in relation to reproductive health care. A significant check on those actions is now gone.

In the wake of Dobbs, societal debates about personhood have increased and expanded in terms of their practical implications. Before Dobbs, anti-abortion advocates admitted that Roe and subsequent cases limited the scope of their arguments, especially in relation to the legality …

We Have Lost Our Minds, Teneille Ruth Brown

Pace Law Review

This Article examines the paradoxical treatment of autonomy in American healthcare law. While autonomy has become the dominant principle in medical ethics and neoliberal market philosophies, pregnant people have been systematically denied this same autonomy through increasingly restrictive abortion statutes. Using the rhetoric of “informed consent,” abortion-restrictive statutes ironically pervert the animating principles behind the doctrine—rendering it almost meaning- less. I argue that this contradiction stems from the dehumanization of pregnant people who seek abortions, particularly through the denial of their capacity to have individual, complex mental states and feelings. Drawing on moral psychology, the Article demonstrates how pregnant people …

Book Reviews, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Dobbs And Sterilization Decision-Making: Understanding The Coercive Spillover Effects In Reproductive Choice, Thomas Wilson Williams

Pace Law Review

The Supreme Court majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization argued their decision would have limited impact beyond abortion rights. This Article examines how Dobbs and subsequent state abortion restrictions are likely to increase women’s reliance on permanent sterilization procedures, particularly among already marginalized populations. Drawing on emerging data and historical context, I argue that some post-Dobbs sterilizations should be understood as effectively coerced by state policies, implicating reproductive justice concerns and potentially undermining fundamental rights established in Skinner v. Oklahoma. Then, I demonstrate how interdisciplinary bioethics frameworks and methodologies can help courts better understand the full …

Kei Briefing Note 2024:8 The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty (Dlt) And Its Inappropriate Restrictions On Transparency, James Love

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is holding a diplomatic conference from November 11 to 22, 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to conclude and adopt a Design Law Treaty (DLT). The negotiators will be working from the documents dated May 10, 2024: a thirty-one page “Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/3), and a sixteen page “Basic Proposal For The Regulations Under The Design Law Treaty” (DLT/DC/4), both documents submitted by the Director General of WIPO, as well as a nineteen page, “Notes On The Basic Proposal For The Design Law Treaty” (DTL/DC/5), prepared by the WIPO Secretariat.

While …

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Later Desistance Among Serious Juvenile Offenders From A Broken Family Composition, Olivia Franklin

Master's Theses

The current study aimed to contribute to the overall knowledge of desistance patterns among juveniles by exploring them among serious juvenile offenders who come from a broken home. Utilizing the Pathways to Desistance (PTD) dataset, this study used logistic regression to examine the impact of family composition on later desistance while controlling for various adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) one might experience. Two research questions guide this study: (1) Does family composition (i.e., “broken homes”) impact later desistance among serious adolescent offenders, while controlling for important criminological predictors (i.e., self-control and antisocial peer influence)? (2) Is the quality of one’s home …

Feasibility Of Technical Solutions For The Detection Of Falsified Images In Research, Phill Jones, Hylke Koers

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

In this report, we discuss the findings of an investigation into the feasibility of developing a research image integrity system. The focus was primarily on immunohistochemistry blots and microscopy images, although the findings are relevant to other types of research images such as gel blots and spectroscopy, geophysical, or astronomical images, as well as to any digital data type. The investigation comprised a mix of desk research and semi-structured (anonymized) interviews with nine stakeholders representing publishers, researchers, technologists, and microscopy companies.

We found that it would be possible to implement a system to assert image integrity and that the technology …

Gatekeeper Competition Policy, Herbert Hovenkamp

Michigan Technology Law Review

Antitrust policy in the United States has always had special rules for dominant firms. As Justice Scalia once observed:

Where a defendant maintains substantial market power, his activities are examined through a special lens: Behavior that might otherwise not be of concern to the antitrust laws—or that might even be viewed as procompetitive—can take on exclusionary connotations when practiced by a monopolist.

The Unfairness Of Fair Machine Learning: Leveling Down And Strict Egalitarianism By Default, Brent Mittelstadt, Sandra Wachter, Chris Russell

Michigan Technology Law Review

In recent years, fairness in machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and algorithmic decision-making systems has emerged as a highly active area of research and development. To date, most measures and methods to mitigate bias and improve fairness in algorithmic systems have been built in isolation from policymaking and civil societal contexts and lack serious engagement with philosophical, political, legal, and economic theories of equality and distributive justice. Many current measures define “fairness” in simple terms to mean narrowing gaps in performance or outcomes between demographic groups while preserving as much of the original system’s accuracy as possible. This oversimplified …

On The Nature Of Regulating Medication Abortion: A Post-Dobbs Analysis On The Legality Of Emerging Efforts To Ban Federally Approved Mifepristone, Yann Kaufman

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Fundamental Failing: The Mississippi Judiciary's Abrogation Of Its Constitutional Duty, Brad Robertson

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proper Parents, Proper Relief, Katie Grace Graziano

Notre Dame Law Review

Indian children belong with Indian parents—or so says the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). ICWA requires certain procedures for carrying out the adoption of an Indian child. Among those procedures is an explicit preference for Indian families over non-Indian families. The hierarchy is so strict that a court must prioritize placing a child with an Indian family even if she is already thriving in the home of a non-Indian family, and even if her biological parents chose a non-Indian family to adopt her. This regime presents a clear constitutional issue. Can the government deny a family the adoption of a …

Statutory Religious Accommodation In Employment And The Problems Of Judicial Intent And Outcome, George Wright

Texas A&M Law Review

The Groff v. DeJoy case unhappily, but inevitably, generates a variety of realistically unresolvable fundamental problems in typical statutory religious accommodation cases. Perhaps even more important, though, are the unintended and perverse results of Groff’s placing a generally heavier burden of religious accommodation on employers. The Groff standard indeed incentivizes the bringing of more religious discrimination cases, and both the winning and losing of such cases by religious claimants. But our adversarial cultural circumstances, including the typical inseparability of religion, politics, and culture, crucially affect the actual, but unintended, results of judicial reforms. The Groff rule is likely to …