Digital Commons Network^™

Vietnam And The United States: Mining Pollution And The Tragedy Of The Commons, Heather Whitney

Heather Whitney

This paper will discuss Vietnam’s mining pollution problem, and its efforts to foster clean water create and an environmental protection framework within its Constitution, environmental laws and regulations. This paper will also juxtapose these issues with the United States’ regulatory mechanisms for mining and water quality protection, which in comparison are complex and well-rounded, but nonetheless still have regulatory and enforcement loopholes that prevent proper water quality protection. In Vietnam, like most developing countries, regulations and policy statements place socioeconomic growth above water quality protection that frustrates these efforts. Environmental and water quality laws and regulations in Vietnam have not …

Pirate Accessory Liability – Developing A Modern Legal Regime Governing Incitement And Intentional Facilitation Of Maritime Piracy, Roger L. Phillips

Roger L Phillips

Despite the exponential growth of piracy off the coast of Somalia since 2008, there have been no prosecutions of those who have profited most from ransom proceeds; that is crime bosses and pirate financiers. As U.S. courts begin to charge higher-level pirates, they must ascertain the status of customary international law as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. UNCLOS includes two forms of accessory liability suited to such prosecutions, but a number of ambiguities remain in the interpretation of these forms of liability. These lacunae cannot be explained by reference to the plain terms of …

The Cuban Embargo: Should It Go The Way Of Prohibition?, John W. Van Doren

John W Van Doren

No abstract provided.

We Want Our Lives Back Too: Expanding Absolute Liability To Include A Recovery For The Victims Of Ecological Catastrophies, Prentice L. White

Prentice L White

WE WANT OUR LIVES BACK TOO: EXPANDING THE COVERAGE OF ABSOLUTE LIABILITY TO INCLUDE A RECOVERY FOR THE VICTIMS OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHES BY PRENTICE L. WHITE No one could have anticipated that the worst ecological disaster in history would take place near Louisiana’s coastline. The morning of April 20, 2010, started like any other spring day, but less than ten hours after the sun rose that morning there would be an explosion that would kill 11 oil workers. The first from the explosion would be seen from outer space and millions of gallons of crude oil would spew into the …

Losers' Law: A Metatheory For Legal Disappointments, John Martinez

John Martinez

"Losers"

We are all losers at one time or another. If you're seated in economy class on an airplane, you can't use the business class toilet, even if it's just two steps in front of your seat. Instead, you have to run back to the back of the plane and use the economy class toilets. The operative rule prohibits a mere economy class passenger from exercising the much more convenient choice of using the business class toilet. You are understandably disappointed (and discomforted) that you can't use the more convenient business class toilet: you are a "loser" because your obtained …

Litigation-Fostered Bureaucratic Autonomy: Administrative Law Against Political Control, Daniel E. Walters

Daniel E Walters

No abstract provided.

Paul Clement And The State Of Conservative Legal Thought, Sam Singer

Sam Singer

If 2011 is remembered as the year the states stood up to the Obama Administration and its bold vision of federal power, Paul Clement will be remembered as the lawyer they chose to make their case to the Supreme Court. In addition to the healthcare challenge, Clement appeared on behalf of Arizona in defense of the State’s sweeping new immigration law and helped Texas defend its new electoral map against interference from the federal courts. Along the way, he became the go-to lawyer for the states’ rights cause--a “shadow Solicitor General” leading the states in their push to reclaim power …

Using Building Codes To Rewrite The Tailoring Rule And Mitigate Climate Change, Albert Monroe

Albert Monroe

In 2007, Mass. v. EPA effectively forced the EPA to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The plain language of the Clean Air Act gave the EPA an impossible mandate of regulating millions of buildings on a case-by-case basis. The EPA, through the Tailoring Rule, decided to regulate fewer sources. This paper shows that the EPA’s approach is legally suspect. Instead, the EPA should regulate more sources using general permits that avoid the impossibility of case-by-case regulation of millions of sources. The EPA can regulate buildings under the Clean Air Act by mandating stricter building codes for …

It's About Time: Privacy, Information Life Cycles, And The Right To Be Forgotten, Meg Leta Ambrose

Meg Leta Ambrose

The current consensus is that information, once online, is there forever. Content permanence has led many European countries, the European Union, and even the United States to establish a right to be forgotten to protect citizens from the shackles of the past presented by the Internet. But, the Internet has not defeated time, and information, like everything, gets old, decays, and dies, even online. Quite the opposite of permanent, the Web cannot be self-preserving. One study from the field of content persistence, a body of research that has been almost wholly overlooked by legal scholars, found that 85% of content …

Anachronistic Pollution Policy: The Case Of Wildfire Smoke Regulation, Kirsten H. Engel

Kirsten H. Engel

Wildfire is on the rise. The United States is witnessing a spectacular increase in acres lost to catastrophic wildfires, a phenomenon fed by the generally hotter and dryer conditions associated with climate change. In addition to losses in lives, property and natural resources, wildfires contribute thousands of tons of air pollution each year. Ironically, perhaps the most effective tool to reduce the incidence and severity of unplanned wildfires is fire. In the form of prescribed, or controlled, burning and wildfires that are allowed to burn for their resource benefits, “planned wildfire” reduces the buildup of vegetation resulting from years of …

State Constitutional Prohibitions On Special Laws, Justin R. Long

Justin R Long

Since the nineteenth century, most states have had constitutional clauses prohibiting “special laws.” These clauses were ratified to protect the people of each state from domination by narrow economic elites, who would use their economic power to win grants of privilege from the state legislatures. To fight the corrupt favors garnered by private interests in this way, state constitutional drafters wrote clauses requiring their legislatures to pass only “general” laws that would apply equally to all members of the regulated class. For a brief period, these clauses were enforced in the courts—but more to protect economic elites than the democratic …

Litigation-Fostered Bureaucratic Autonomy: Administrative Law Against Political Control, Daniel E. Walters

Daniel E Walters

The idea of political control dominates our understanding of both what administrative law does and what it should do. This emphasis on political control, however, downplays the important ways that administrative law facilitates resistance to political control in administrative agencies. In this article, I offer studies of two instances where agencies harnessed the power of seemingly standard administrative law litigation to resist the imposition of policies by political leadership. I classify these kinds of modes of resistance as instances of “litigation-fostered bureaucratic autonomy” and flesh out the mechanisms that drive the process. Acknowledging the role of such modes of resistance …

Stewardship And Dominium: How Disparate Conceptions Of Ownership Influence Possession Doctrines, Martin Hirschprung

martin hirschprung

The law is ambiguous regarding the level and extent of possession necessary to effect ownership. It can be argued that one’s conception of the nature of ownership influences this standard of possession. I further argue that the application of the concept of stewardship to questions of possession will aid in resolving the disputes between museums and indigenous groups regarding cultural artifacts. In order to demonstrate the relationship between one’s conception of ownership and its attendant standard of possession, it is useful to contrast different legal definitions of ownership, particularly the Roman concept of dominium, with a religious model of stewardship …

A Review Of Installation, Operation And Maintenance Of Internal Combustion Engine (Ice) Powered Lighting Sets In A Developing Country, Oladele Peter Kolawole Dr.

Oladele Peter Kolawole Ph.D

This review presents the important of constant power supply as a great measure of developed economy. Nation with epileptic power supply was considered as developing or under develop nation trying to prolong her development. The risk of losing potential investors is a possibility. Nigeria was used as a case study of a developing country facing an extreme electricity shortage for many years. This deficiency was discovered to be multi-faceted, with causes that are financial, structural, and socio-political, none of which are mutually exclusive. The purpose of this paper is to inform the concern authority of developing nations understand the risks …

Losers' Law: A Metatheory For Legal Disappointments, John Martinez

John Martinez

Losers' Law: A Metatheory for Legal Disappointments

By John Martinez, Professor of Law

S.J. Quinney College of Law

at the University of Utah

ABSTRACT

"Losers"

We are all losers at one time or another. If you're in "economy class," you can't use the "business class" toilet, even if it's located just two steps in front of your seat. You must instead go to the back of the plane and use the toilets designated for economy class passengers. The operative rule prohibits you, as a mere economy class passenger, from exercising the much more convenient choice of using the business class …

On The Legal Issues (Including Human Rights) Regarding The Prosecution Of Sea Pirates; A Case Of History Repeating Itself?, Barry Dubner, Sara Fredrickson

Barry Dubner

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre recorded 439 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in 2011 (“armed robbery” is an unfortunate definition of “sea piracy” ) compared to 445 in 2010. Worldwide, in 2011, 45 vessels were hijacked, 176 vessels were boarded, 113 vessels were fired upon, and 155 vessels reported attempted attacks. There were a total of 802 crew members taken hostage, ten were kidnapped and eight were killed as a direct result of the incidents. Those are world-wide statistics. Somali pirates accounted for more than half of all attacks in 2011. While the overall number of …

The Ministerial Exception And The Limits Of Religious Sovereignty, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This paper explores the scope of independent religious sovereignty in the context of the ministerial exception.

Constitutional Discourse In The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill Debate, Alexander F. A. Rabanal

Alexander F. A. Rabanal

No abstract provided.

Where The Federalist Approach Makes No Sense, Recent Developments Call For Reform Of Federal Gaming Laws, Yannick Adler

Yannick Adler

Recent developments in mobile technology (marketing and simple broadcasting) call for a change in the patch work approach of American gaming laws. Federal action is becoming inevitable. Recent court cases and out of court settlements show that substantial questions of interstate sweepstakes’ law remain unsettled. Where mobile technology neither cares about state borders nor about specific state laws it will be impossible to keep mobile sweepstakes from traveling through the country, just as a participant carries his cell phone across the border. The problem is intensified by the variance in defining common terms as lottery, sweepstakes, and contests, where a …

Losers' Law: A Metatheory For Legal Disappointments, John Martinez

John Martinez

The American legal system generates losers every day. Our adversarial system of litigation practically guarantees that every lawsuit will produce a winner and a loser. When the legislature or the people directly through initiatives enact legislation that further restricts land use, landowners hoping for greater land development options are transformed into losers as well.

Losers can choose to voice their grievances, to exit the system, or to resort to illegal behavior. But once voice is exercised, and exit and illegality are rejected as viable choices, we want losers to select "acceptance" of their losses, because this helps to maintain the …

Combatting Fraud And White Collar Crimes: Lessons From Nigeria., Professor Ben C Osisioma

Prof Ben Chuka Osisioma

Nigeria has paid dearly for ethical lapses and competency deficiencies in public and private life. Fraud is systemic in Nigeria with the ordinary citizen being compelled to be either a liar, a cheat or an outright thief. Fraud has stultified growth and national development, subverted the nation’s values and norms, generated a culture of illegality and impunity in public service, and frittered away the promise of the nation’s future. Today, the nation faces the trauma of a State whose date with destiny has been put on hold, for reasons that are completely self made, and completely avoidable. Any remedial measure …

Job Creation In The Tuna Industry Of The Solomon Islands- A Tentative Strategic Analysis, Deogratias Harorimana Sr

Dr Deogratias Harorimana

The principal objective of this paper is to review the current Tuna Fisheries Policies in the Solomon Islands with a view to proposing strategies that will maximize Job creation while at the same time address the issues that currently exist in this sector. Although the Tuna Industry’s contribution to GDP is quite significant, the Solomon Island Government (SIG) gets little or close to nothing out of it in the form of revenue and Job creation with the majority of vessels being foreign owned and fishing license fees amongst the lowest in the Pacific. SOLTAI which is partly owned by the …

Holy Mackerel! How A Small Country Of Fishermen Pushed The Boundaries Of Free Press, Ryan M. Mott

Ryan M Mott

This paper is about the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (“IMMI”), a legislative proposal enacted by the Icelandic parliament on June 16th, 2010.

The IMMI was designed to promote transparency in reaction to an economic crisis and failed gag order that shook Icelanders’ faith in their government.

The parliament set out to create the most journalist-friendly nation in the world, a “media haven,” and did so by grabbing some of the most protective media statutes in the world.

The reformations include, inter alia, protection for the reporter’s privilege and source anonymity, protection for third-party communicators between reporters and sources, whistleblower protection, …

Letter To Madid, David D. Butler

David D. Butler

No abstract provided.

The Right To Remain Silent: Addressing A Government Attorney Client Privilege In The Context Of A Grand Jury Subpoena, Matan Shmuel

Matan Shmuel

This article deals with the circuit split over whether a government agency can use government attorneys to conceal what would otherwise become public information. Often, a government agency representative might discuss with nearby agency counsel personal legal information outside the scope of their employment. Courts are split over whether this is privileged or not. My article proposes a solution to the split by implementing a factor test which takes into account the government interest in confidentiality, the public need for disclosure, and the ability of the grand jury to find the information elsewhere.

Does International Law Matter?, Shima Baradaran

Shima Baradaran

The importance of international law has grown in an increasingly global world. States and their citizens are interconnected and depend on each other to enforce and comply with international law to meet common goals. Despite the expanding presence of international law, the question that remains is whether international law matters. Do individuals comply with international law? And when they comply, do they comply because they fear penalties or because they desire to behave appropriately? This Article presents results from a randomized field experiment designed to investigate these questions. Major findings include that roughly one in seven international actors is willing …

Speech, Authorship, And Inventorship: A New Approach To Corporate Personhood, Sean M. O'Connor

Sean M. O'Connor

Recent developments relating to corporate speech, authorship, and inventorship suggest a collision of three policy principles: the right of associations to speak with a collective voice; the right of individuals to own or receive credit for the products of their intellect; and the need of innovation firms to control the intellectual output of individuals hired to create. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court upheld a right to corporate political speech as a form of collective voice. But in Stanford v. Roche, the Court affirmed the rule that patentable inventions vest ab initio with their natural person inventors. Meanwhile, in copyright …

Who Will Defend Chinese Dining Tables - A Review Of Chinese Food Safety Law After The Sanlu Milk Scandal, Moran Zhang

Moran Zhang

The food safety crisis in China is increasingly becoming a social problem that no one can ignore. It may be compared with the situations of meatpacking industry in the 1900s in the United States as depicted in the Jungle. This article will explore the causation of the problem from the perspectives of environment pollution, market defect, corruption and local protection, and evaluate the effects and obstacles of implementing the new food safety law of 2009 in China in response to the milk powder scandal in 2008. Based on case studies, this article reaches the conclusion that the new law is …

Unjustifiable Expectations: Laying To Rest The Ghosts Of Allotment-Era Settlers, Ann E. Tweedy

Ann E. Tweedy

When the Supreme Court decides whether a tribe has jurisdiction over non-members on its reservation or addresses the related issue of reservation diminishment, it often refers implicitly or explicitly to the non-Indians’ justifiable expectations. The non-Indians’ assumed expectations arise from the fact that, when Congress opened up reservations to non-Indians during the allotment era, its assumption, and presumably that of non-Indians who purchased lands on reservations during that period, was that the reservations would disappear due to the federal government’s assimilationist policies, along with the tribes who governed them. To refute the idea that such non-Indian expectations were justifiable, I …

Does International Law Matter?, Shima Baradaran

Shima Baradaran

The importance of international law has grown in an increasingly global world. States and their citizens are interconnected and depend on each other to enforce and comply with international law to meet common goals. Despite the expanding presence of international law, the question that remains is whether international law matters. Do individuals comply with international law? And when they comply, do they comply because they fear penalties or because they desire to behave appropriately? This Article presents results from a randomized field experiment designed to investigate these questions. Major findings include that roughly one in seven international actors is willing …