Law Commons^™

Mugged Twice?: Payment Of Ransom On The High Seas, Lawrence Rutkowski, Bruce G. Paulsen, Jonathan D. Stoian

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fair Use Challenges In Academic And Research Libraries, Peter Jaszi

Copyright, Fair Use & Open Access

Academic and research libraries are key players in the generation and propagation of knowledge in the U.S., and their interpretation of the balancing features of copyright is critical to the quality of research, teaching, and learning they support. Approaches and methods for research, teaching, and learning are changing rapidly with opportunities presented by digitization and Internet communication. Academic and research librarians need and use the balancing features of copyright—including exemptions listed in Sections 108 and 110 of the Copyright Act, as well as fair use (codified in Section 107)—in order to accomplish the routine tasks of their profession. This report …

Grand Jury Innovation: Toward A Functional Makeover Of The Ancient Bulwark Of Liberty, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The grand jury is a "much maligned" organ of the criminal justice system.' Regularly employed in only about half of the states and grudgingly tolerated in the federal system,2 the American grand jury for two centuries has been criticized as costly, ineffective, overly-compliant, and redundant. Prescriptions have ranged from reforms designed to improve the grand jury's performance of its traditional filtering and charging functions to the outright abolition of the grand jury. Consequently, much of the scholarly defense of the grand jury seemingly has done little more than attempt to justify its very existence.

This Article seeks to take the …

Transparency Soup: The Acta Negotiating Process And "Black Box" Lawmaking, David S. Levine

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

The negotiations of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have been marred by a level of attempted secrecy heretofore unseen in international intellectual property lawmaking. Simultaneously, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has been used in several significant national contexts to prevent the disclosure of data and information in ways that call into question its efficacy as an effective regulation of governmental knowledge. This paper seeks to tie together these two recent developments in order to (a) prevent future international intellectual property law negotiations from being unduly secret and (b) encourage Congress to consider reforming FOIA in light of current public …

No Student Left Behind: Ensuring The Accessibility Of Reading Technologies At Universities, Gary C. Norman

The Modern American

The author discusses the perspective of blind and vision impaired persons in relation to the introduction of emerging technologies. If they are not accessible to all students, such technology will impede an equal education of students with disabilities.

A Modern Twist On The Prison Industrial Complex, Isis Goldberg

The Modern American

The author discusses a new NPR article, “Prison Economics Help Drive Arizona Immigration Law,” that sheds light into the role that the private prison industry played in pushing forward Arizona´s controversial legislation, SB 1070. She relates this to the theory of prison-industrial complex postulated by Angela Davis, professor and former Black Panther member, and concludes that private corporations should not have influence or participate in drafting legislation because they do not have the public welfare at interest.

Prison Labor, Human Experimentation, & The Bp Oil Disaster, Zannie Carlson

The Modern American

The author argues that when BP hired prison labor to clean up the spill, corrections agencies failed to consider the impact of handling toxic chemicals on prisoner health.

For Every Scholar, There Must Also Be The Occasional Frivolity: Heard Any Good Films?, Gary C. Norman

The Modern American

The author discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the recently enacted Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (Public Law 111-260).

Election Report: A "Heartland" Vote For Islamic Bigotry, Richael Faithful

The Modern American

The author discusses the legal community’s reaction to the Oklahoma referendum on November 1, 2010, in which voters approved a state constitutional amendment that bans the use of Islamic Law and international law in state court decisions.

Salvage Awards On The Somali Coast: Who Pays For Public And Private Rescue Efforts In Piracy Crises?, Geoffrey Christopher Rapp

American University Law Review

This paper, a contribution to the "Troubled Waters: Combating Modern Piracy with the Rule of Law" symposium, explores the question of who pays for rescue efforts associated with maritime piracy. The paper explores the availability of admiralty law's salvage awards to governmental and non-governmental actors who intervene to rescue vessels and crew from pirates. Such awards provide an unusual incentive to rescue, traditionally unavailable for land-based rescue, but may raise complicated questions of policy and international law. The paper concludes by comparing salvage awards to a recent trend in American states to adopt "Search and Rescue" expense statutes allowing governments …

America´S Access To Guns And The Effect It Has On American Gangs And Political Instability Abroad, Isis Goldberg

The Modern American

The author discusses the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and how easy access to guns has triggered an epidemic of violence and murder in urban communities, increased insecurity in schools, and made gangs more dangerous.

Dadt, Doma And Fidelity To The Constitution, David Wexelblat

The Modern American

The author defends the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to appeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) ruling on constitutional grounds: The Executive Branch has a constitutional obligation to defend the laws duly enacted by Congress

A Reflection On Employment Challenges And Opportunities, Gary C. Norman

The Modern American

The author discusses President Obama’s reinstatement of Executive Order 13163 of the Clinton administration that required the federal government to be a model employer and to increase the numbers of targeted disabilities in the federal workforce.

It’S Still A Secret, But Not For Long: A Dadt Play-By-Play, Alexandra Manrique

The Modern American

The author discusses the zig-zag by Congress, the White House, and the Departments of Defense and Justice to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the policy prohibiting gay citizens to serve openly in the military.

High Heels In 2010?, Shailee Diwanji

The Modern American

The author discusses modern dress codes that require female employees to wear skirts and high heels, and which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has generally held, and courts have ratified, that employers may establish varying dress codes for men and women without violating discrimination laws.

The Peregrinations Of A Post Graduate Law Student And Legal Professional With A Guide Dog, Gary C. Norman

The Modern American

The author offers two personal anecdotes involving a cafeteria worker and taxicab coordinator to illustrate that respect for persons with disabilities has a ways to go.

Education Everywhere: The Popular Awareness Surrounding Education Reform, Alexandra Manrique

The Modern American

The author applauds the extensive media and political coverage of education reform.

Amidst Ongoing Slavery In The South, One Group’S Efforts To Enforce The 13th Amendment, Zannie Carlson

The Modern American

The author lauds the advocacy of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to prosecute Florida landowners engaged in forced labor and indentured servitude of workers.

Dissecting The Pieces From A New Study, Picked Apart: The Hidden Struggles Of Migrant Women In The Maryland Crab Industry, Richael Faithful

The Modern American

The author discusses the findings of the recent report produced by the American University Washington College of Law Immigrant Justice Clinic, “Picked Apart: The Hidden Struggles of Migrant Working Women In The Maryland Crab Industry.”

The Year In Economics At The Fcc: A National Plan For Broadband, Jonathan Baker, Paul De Sa

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The past year in economics at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has focused on encouraging the adoption and deployment of high capacity Internet access and the associated networks, commonly termed “broadband.” Our article sketches important economic themes in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan to show how the application of basic principles of regulatory economics takes account of rapid technological change. We discuss natural monopoly regulation, externalities and cross-subsidies, network effects and interconnection, the allocation of scarce inputs, protecting and fostering competitive markets, and consumer protection and transparency as they apply to the development of broadband.

Help The Homeless -- Is It Enough?, Shailee Diwanji

The Modern American

The author discusses the increase in violence against homeless people and state and federal initiatives to pass legislation designating violence against the homeless as a hate crime.

Fighting Piracy With Private Security Measures: When Contract Law Should Tell Parties To Walk The Plank, Jennifer S. Martin

American University Law Review

This Article addresses the following question: when should contract law permit parties to discontinue performance under a private security contract aimed to combat piracy? Piracy has been 'on the rise' off Somalia and in East Asia, with serious attacks escalating. Some shipping companies have responded by drafting 'best management practices', hiring security companies to advise on countering the threat and hiring armed or unarmed security protection. After presenting representative factual situations involving pirate attacks, the Article describes the traditional approach to defining the obligations of parties and the performance issues that arise during contractual performance. This approach takes into account …

Religious Exemption Or Exceptionalism? Exploring The Tension Of First Amendment Religion Protections & Civil Rights Progress Within The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Richael Faithful

Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The District of Columbia (D.C.) marked a landmark civil rights achievement in December 2009 when the city passed the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act. The law’s enactment allowed D.C. to become the sixth jurisdiction to sanction same-sex marriage in the United States. Supporters hailed the law as a victory for lesbian and gay equality, while detractors vowed that their efforts to traditionally define marriage would continue.

Among the most public opponents of the law was the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, which operates Catholic Charities, a leading service provider to low-income residents in the metropolitan area. The Catholic …

Will Individuals Aboard The Cultural Pirate Ship Be Struck By The Acta's Cannon Ball?, Shalom Andrews

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Combating internet piracy is a global challenge. Fundamentally, piracy lingers because it has become a culturally acceptable behaviour that is under-enforced. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the latest enforcement measure aimed at sinking the pirate ship.

The first part of this paper will explore piracy as a cultural phenomenon and how it interacts with Australian civil and criminal law. Pirates, who have awareness that their plundering is wrong, convince themselves that: there are moral grounds for their escapades; there is a government conspiracy to reduce internet freedom; they are fighting globalisation by attacking the corporations who reap disproportionate booty, …

Acta: Risks Of Third Party Enforcement For Access To Medicines, Brook K. Baker

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In its current near-final draft form, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement [ACTA] being negotiated plurilaterally—and largely secretly—by a self-selected group of countries proposes to allow preliminary and final injunctive relief against third parties (third-party enforcement) to prevent infringement of intellectual property rights and/or to prevent infringing goods from entering into the channels of commerce. There is lingering uncertainty whether the relevant civil enforcement section will apply to the entire range of intellectual property rights or whether patents will be excluded. If patents are excluded, the dangers in ACTA would be reduced but not eliminated—new globalized forms of third-party enforcement would still …

The Global Ip Upward Ratchet, Anti-Counterfeiting And Piracy Enforcement Efforts: The State Of Play, Susan Sell

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Proponents of an IP maximalist agenda increasingly have been rebuffed in recent years. Developing country governments, NGOs, and Access to Knowledge (A2K) advocates have thwarted their efforts to ratchet up standards of intellectual property protection in multilateral intergovernmental forums such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the World Health Organization. A2K advocates challenge the premises behind ever higher and broader intellectual property protection and seek, if not a rolling back of IP rights, at the very least a standstill. They argue that in the balance between rights and obligations, IP maximalists assert their rights without …

Where Copyright Enforcement And Net Neutrality Collide - How The Eu Telecoms Package Supports Two Corporate Political Agendas For The Internet, Monica Horten

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This paper discusses a change to European Union (EU) telecoms law which de facto permits operators to impose restrictions on network traffic, and which enables such restrictions to be imposed for the purposes of copyright enforcement—thus it simultaneously facilitates two different policy agendas from the copyright and telecoms industries—‘three-strikes’ as well as ‘traffic management.’ The mechanism is a provision concerning users’ contracts, supported by generic provisions addressed to EU governments and regulators. The change went into law in late 2009, within the so-called ‘Telecoms Package,’ which, together with the E-commerce directive, establishes the EU legal framework for telecoms networks. In …

Barack Obama And Congress: How The Rules Of The Caucus Hinder The President’S Legislative Agenda, Jordan Acker

Legislation and Policy Brief

In order to fix the Democratic caucus, strong leadership, combined with effective rules, are needed. First, the overall leadership needs to be restructured according to the ideology of the caucus. While strong leadership may come from the center or the left, it is important that leadership tend toward the center of the caucus, not the national political center. A moderate member of the caucus who is under no threat of removal, such as Senator Schumer, Senator Stabenow, or Senator Durbin, would make effective leaders. Part of the problem with the current leadership is, at times, it has failed to “pull …

Government Transparency And The Obama Era, Ross Schulman

Legislation and Policy Brief

Government transparency has been a focus of President Barack Obama’s campaign and administration, but effort has been expended on programs that have emphasized policy and legislative transparency over ethical and data transparency. This emphasis is misplaced. During the 2008 Presidential Election, the Obama campaign tapped into a large reserve of predominantly younger people who demanded a connection with the candidates before them. A large part of that connection was focused on the transparency that came from this highly networked campaign. President Obama’s campaign in particular embodied that approach, both through its promises and its actions. Now that the Obama administration …

The Scarlet "L": Lobbying Reform And The First Amendment, Mona Sheth

Legislation and Policy Brief

While the enactment of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA) in Congress shifted the lobbying industry towards heightened transparency and stronger ethics, future reforms of the executive branch threatened the constitutional rights of lobbyists. As the following pages summarize, the collective forces of the 2008 presidential campaign, executive ethics order, and stimulus restrictions also endangered the success of the congressional response. An examination of the Obama Administration’s executive directives and an exploration of the constitutional issues implicated in the ARRA guidance on stimulus funds reveal that disclosure and enforcement are more effective (and constitutional) methods to …