Digital Commons Network^™

Prevalence Of Hesperevax Sparsiflora Var. Brevifolia (Short-Leaved Evax) At Ocean Ranch, Humboldt County, California: Exploring The Effects Of Disturbance, Shelby Diquirco, Matthew Estrada, Alana T. Fraley, Alexander D. Smith

Environmental Science & Management Senior Capstones

The prevalence of special-status plants within a landscape can be an indicator of the ecological health of that site, and therefore inform restoration efforts and post-restoration monitoring. Hesperevax sparsiflora var. brevifolia (short-leaved evax) is a special status species found within the Ocean Ranch unit of Humboldt, California. A primary threat to native plant communities are invasive plant species. Coastal dune ecosystems are largely dominated by invasive species, including Ammophila arenaria (European beachgrass). To work towards the eradication of A. arenaria, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife utilized treatment combinations of herbicide and prescribed fire at Ocean Ranch in …

Gender Mainstreaming In Trade Agreements: "A Potemkin Façade"?, Katrin Kuhlmann, Amrita Bahri

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The distributional outcomes of trade agreements have historically been uneven, creating both “losers” as well as “winners” and benefitting certain stakeholders while leaving others without benefits or even with negative repercussions. In particular, distributional outcomes can vary between women and men, since they play different roles in society, markets, and economies, and they enjoy different opportunities as well. At times, and sometimes by their very nature, trade agreements can restrict opportunities for women and further increase the gender divide. But in recent years, there has been a drastic upsurge in the number of countries that are incorporating commitments on gender …

In Search Of The First-Round Knockout A Rule 12(B) Primer, Kate Rogers, Leonard Niehoff

Articles

Boxing enthusiasts define success not just by wins and losses but also by knockouts. Many of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing—Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, and Sugar Ray Robinson—were known for their knockout punching power. Within the category of knockouts, the gold standard is the first-round knockout, the moment when stunned fans watch a fighter take the opponent out of the contest before either of them has broken a sweat.

A New Framework For Taxing Cryptocurrencies, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Mohanad Salaimi

Articles

This Article explores the tax law challenges associated with the taxation of cryptocurrencies and offers proposals to address such challenges. The Article addresses the proper tax treatment of different cryptocurrency transactions and activities. It examines various aspects associated with the taxation of cryptocurrency through its life cycle, starting from earning cryptocurrency, through its disposal or exchange. The Article also examines the tax treatment of two special crypto events, hard forks and airdrops. Specifically, this Article describes a proposal to tax cryptocurrencies based on their unique features. It argues that various ways of earning or receiving crypto tokens (for example, mining …

How Not To Lie: A Don't-Do-It-Yourself Guide For Litigators, Leonard Niehoff

Articles

Over the past few years, a number of high-profile attorneys have been sanctioned or suspended from the practice of law because they lied. The instance that probably received the greatest media attention came in June of 2021, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York ordered the immediate suspension of Rudy Giuliani’s license because he had made demonstrably false statements to the courts, lawmakers, and the public at large concerning the 2020 presidential election. In a 33- page opinion, the court considered the arguments Giuliani raised in his defense but concluded that his pants …

Assessing Visions Of Democracy In Regulatory Policymaking, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Christopher J. Walker

Articles

Motivated in part by Congress’s failure to legislate, presidents in recent years seem to have turned even more to the regulatory process to make major policy. It is perhaps no coincidence that the feld of administrative law has similarly seen a resurgence of scholarship extolling the virtues of democratic accountability in the modern administrative state. Some scholars have even argued that bureaucracy is as much as if not more democratically legitimate than Congress, either in the aggregative or deliberative sense, or both.

The Failed Federalism Of Affordable Housing: Why States Don't Use Housing Vouchers, Noah Kazis

Articles

This Article uncovers a critical disjuncture in our system of providing affordable rental housing. At the federal level, the oldest, fiercest debate in low-income housing policy is between project-based and tenant-based subsidies: should the government help build new affordable housing projects or help renters afford homes on the private market? But at the state and local levels, it is as if this debate never took place. The federal government (following most experts) employs both strategies, embracing tenant-based assistance as more cost-effective and offering tenants greater choice and mobility. But this Article shows that state and local housing voucher programs are …

Informationalism Beyond Managerialism, Salome Viljoen

Articles

It is now commonplace to observe that digital platforms are both affecting and reshaping markets. The focus of this Article is not the anticompetitive effects of digital platforms upon the markets they enter. It instead focuses on digital platforms themselves as market mechanisms. Information—especially datafied information about people and their behavior—and information technologies have transformed how many markets function in the digital economy. Markets have become market machines: highly engineered and computationally intensive market-like mechanisms that make up a key layer of technological infrastructure within digital platforms.

Cryptic Patent Reform Through The Inflation Reduction Act., Arti K. Rai, Rachel E. Sachs, Price W. Nicholson

Articles

If a statute substantially changes the way patents work in an industry where patents are central, but says almost nothing about patents, is it patent reform? We argue the answer is yes — and it’s not a hypothetical question. The Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) does not address patents, but its drug pricing provisions are likely to prompt major changes in how patents work in the pharmaceutical industry. For many years scholars have decried industry’s ever-evolving strategies that use combinations of patents to block competition for as long as possible, widely known as “evergreening,” but legislators have not been receptive to …

The Great Regulatory Dodge, Helen Nissenbaum, Katherine Strandburg, Salome Viljoen

Articles

U.S. privacy law is in a renewed moment of regulatory possibility, with both Congress and the states considering sweeping consumer privacy laws. These new proposals to enact “omnibus” privacy protections could be couched as an antidote to the current U.S. privacy regime: a patchwork of sectoral privacy laws stitched atop the background of FTC consumer contract enforcement. However, this Essay maintains that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot successfully capture both privacy’s value and its variability. Yet, it is clearly the case that the present- day sectoral regime in the United States suffers from significant shortcomings. These shortcomings allow behaviors that seem …

Public Engagement, Equity, And Executive Order 14,094., Nina A. Mendelson

Articles

Executive Order 14,094 ("the Order"), signed by President Biden in April, 2023, breaks ground to make regulatory decisionmaking more equitable and inclusive, continuing a theme the Biden Presidency began with Executive Order 13,985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. Agencies must, of course, hear from those who are regulated, but genuinely equitable decisionmaking also requires agencies to hear and engage the concerns of affected individuals and communities, including underserved communities. This recognizes that many Americans have a distinct and substantial interest in the benefits promised by legislatively created regulatory programs, whether those include safe …

The Value Of Understandable Consumer Insurance Contracts, Kyle Logue, Daniel Schwarcz, Brenda Cude

Articles

Insurance consumers, the intermediaries who serve them, and the regulators who protect them all would benefit from understandable consumer insurance contracts. This article outlines the benefits of understandable insurance contracts, identifies the regulatory tools that are or can be used to ensure such comprehensibility, and reviews the existing literature about how well consumers comprehend their insurance policies within the context of personal lines insurance in the U.S. The article concludes by proposing an empirical research strategy to study consumers’ understanding of the terms of homeowners insurance policies and, even when they have not read their policies, their expectations about coverage.

All Stick And No Carrot? Reforming Public Offerings, Stephen J. Choi, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

The SEC heavily regulates the traditional initial public offering (IPO). Those regulatory burdens fuel interest in alternative paths for private companies to go public, “regulatory arbitrage.” The SEC’s response to the emergence of alternatives, most recently SPACs and direct listings, has been to re-assert the regulatory protections in a traditional IPO, including heightened liability under Section 11 of the Securities Act. The SEC’s treatment of the traditional IPO regulatory process as a one-size fits-all regime ignores the weaknesses of this process, in particular the informational inefficiency of the book-building process. In this essay we argue that the agency’s focus in …

Unreasonable Risk: The Failure To Ban Asbestos And The Future Of Toxic Substances Regulation, Rachel Rothschild

Articles

Every day, Americans are exposed to hundreds of chemicals in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the products we use. The vast majority of these chemicals have never been tested far safety. Many have been shown to cause serious health harms, ranging.from cancer to autoimmune illness to IQ loss. They also have disproportionate effects on some of the most vulnerable populations in our society, such as children, minorities, and industrial workers.

The law that is supposed to protect Americans from dangerous chemical exposures-the Toxic Substances Control Act ("TSCA")-was long considered a dead letter after the Environmental Protection …

Reforming The Exit Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Code Sec. 877A was enacted in 2008 to impose a significant price on U.S. cit-izens who expatriate. But the price is not right. The quarterly data on expatri-ations (published in the Federal Register since 1998) show an increasing trendsince 2008. For example, 3,422 Americans expatriated in 2022, and the averagesince 2013 was 3,239. By comparison, between 1998 and 2012, fewer than1,000 Americans expatriated each year. This paper will discuss why the increasehappened and what Congress can do about it.

When To Be Objectionable… And How Not To Be An Artless Clay-Brained Pignut, Leonard Niehoff

Articles

Having taught evidence for more than 30 years. I've become fairly good at predicting the questions students will ask, especially the questions that are hardest to answer. One of those typically comes after we've discussed how to object to evidence. We've worked through the basics: Stand up, speak up, say that you object, and briefly explain why. At this point a student almost always raises his or her and says something like this: "OK. I understand the how part. But when do I object?"

Mistakes With The Mistake Defense In Texas Criminal Law, Charles Bubany

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The American Tradition Of Self-Made Arms, Joseph G.S. Greenlee

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dollars That Devalue Are Unconstitutional, Christopher Guzelian

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article demonstrates the United States dollar has been unconstitutional since at least the Civil War. Congresses and central bankers often weaken its value. In a previous article, the Author demonstrated that the largely valueless dollar causes human poverty and environmental damage. If Congress restores the dollar’s constitutionality by returning to a silver dollar coin standard of adequate value (at least 371.25 grains of fine silver per dollar), human economies and the environment will become more sustainable.

Without Limit: Why Texas's Criminal Statutes Of Limitations Violate The State Constitution's Separation Of Powers Clause, Andrew Warthen

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

How Scotus's Recent Decision On The Cheerleader Case Impacts Public School Students' Due Process Rights For Their Off-Campus Conduct, Abby Efron

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Lady Justice: Women, The Law, And The Battle To Save America, Nancy J. Moore

Faculty Scholarship

While Dahlia Lithwick was working on this book, a “prominent constitutional law professor” asked why Lithwick “would waste time and credibility writing a ‘pink book about the law.’” Clearly this unnamed professor assumed that the growing and highly visible presence of women in the profession hadn’t changed anything.

Mobilizable Labor Law, Scott L. Cummings, Andrew Elmore

Faculty Scholarship

In the history of new labor localism, city-level living wage ordinances—emerging in the 1990s with Los Angeles leading the way—have generally been understood as a second-best, limited antipoverty device designed to raise wage floors, with only indirect effects on organized labor. Drawing upon original archival materials, this Article offers an alternative reading of the history of the living wage in Los Angeles, showing how it was designed and operationalized as a proactive tool to rebuild union density and reshape city politics. Doing so makes four key contributions. First, the Article theorizes and empirically examines the living wage as a pioneering …

Accessibility For The Visually Impaired Legal Writing Student: More To It Than I Thought!, Sue Altmeyer

Akron Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Foreword: International Law And The New Cold War, Michael P. Scharf, Emma H. Peters

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The War In Ukraine: A Case Study In Modern Atrocity Crimes Documentation, Dr. Paul R. Williams, Nicole Carle

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The Role Of International Law In The Russia-Ukraine War, Michael Kelly

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Legitimate Supra-National Adjudication In The New Era: The Requirement Of Comparative Benefit, Margaret M. Deguzman

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

International Law And The "New Cold War": An Opportunity For Reflection On International Law And The "Old" Cold War, Todd F. Buchwald

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Power Shift: The Return Of The Uniting For Peace Resolution, Michael P. Scharf

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.