Law Commons^™

Applying The Indian Commerce Clause To Indian Commerce, Adam Crepelle

Northwestern University Law Review

Indian country commerce generates tens of billions of dollars annually and is a constant source of litigation. These disputes typically revolve around jurisdictional conflicts: whether states, tribes, or both possess regulatory authority over the business operating in Indian country, particularly those involving non-Indians. Despite numerous court cases, no clear legal framework has emerged, creating pervasive uncertainty regarding fundamental issues, such as state taxation of tribal transactions and the proper forum for resolving Indian country contract disputes. Interestingly, these commercial cases overlook the Indian Commerce Clause—the constitutional provision designed to address such matters.

This Article argues the Indian Commerce Clause prohibits …

The Establishment That Time Forgot: The Historical Understanding Of Religious Offenses And Their Unconstitutionality In Modern Law, Benjamin J. Citow

Northwestern University Law Review

This Note argues that religious offenses, meaning laws which penalize conduct for religious purposes, should be barred by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, as the Clause was interpreted in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. This is because Kennedy interpreted the Establishment Clause to prohibit each of the several types of laws which early Americans associated with religious establishment—the historical practice wherein early states would adopt a religion as the state religion and pass various types of laws for its support. And religious offenses, this Note argues, were amongst the types of laws which early Americans so associated with …

The Role Of The U.S. State Department As An Amicus In Foreign Policy Abstention Analysis, Sarah Kurpius

Northwestern University Law Review

Foreign policy abstention is a novel and unsettled doctrine in international litigation. Unlike other established international litigation abstention doctrines, foreign policy abstention permits courts to decline jurisdiction when adjudication implicates significant foreign policy concerns. First invoked in 2004, the doctrine has since appeared sporadically in case law, most recently in the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Reid v. Doe Run Resources. Yet, its analytical framework remains muddy and amorphous, leading to inconsistent judicial application.

This Note examines one critical factor courts consider when determining whether to apply the foreign policy abstention: the strength of U.S. foreign policy interests in the …

Women In Law And The Draft, Thomas Helgerman, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

Between 1964 and 1973, women’s representation in full-time law school programs rose fivefold, from 3.7% to 20.1%. This paper examines whether Vietnam War draft policy contributed to this increase. In 1968, men enrolled in law school lost eligibility for 2-S student deferments, threatening law schools’ tuition revenues and incentivizing schools to admit more women to stabilize enrollment. To test this mechanism, we construct a school-by-year dataset of enrollment counts split by women/men and full-time/part-time status. Using a uniform adoption difference-in-differences design, we find that women’s representation rises by 2 percentage points in full-time programs relative to part-time programs (which were …

Perlmutter Center's Derrick Hamilton, Reform Advocates Secure Passage Of New York State's Prison Justice Omnibus Package, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Archive

Cardozo School of Law recognized Derrick Hamilton, Deputy Director of the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice, and fellow criminal justice reform advocates for their role in advancing New York State's Prison Justice Omnibus Package. The legislation expands transparency, oversight, and accountability in state correctional facilities and reflects the advocacy of the End Prison Violence campaign.

Queer Of Color Critique And The Politics Of Epistemic Agency: Rural Educators Desettling Curricular Expectations, C.A. Langerud, Madelaine Adelman, Daniel D. Liou

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

The purpose of this research is to use queer of color critique (QOCC) as an analytical framework to explore rural K-12 educators’ epistemic agency. The research focuses on educators’ engagement with a national initiative by an advocacy organization to distribute LGBTQ+ and racially diverse books to K-12 schools. The analysis centers on the educators’ praxis of epistemic agency against settled expectations associated with including queer and trans People of Color’s (QTPOC’s) stories in their schools. Our findings on educators’ epistemic agency center on three areas of knowledge and activity. First, educators demonstrate their ability to be aware of their local …

Adversarial Comparativism: The Role Of Emotion In United States–China Comparative Law Projects, Matthew S. Erie

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Contemporary comparative law operates across a landscape riven by protectionism, nationalism, and securitization, all of which complicate comparative law projects. Nowhere is this more evident than in the U.S-China relationship, the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Despite economic “delinking,” the U.S. and Chinese legal systems are interacting more than ever; however, how this interaction works is poorly understood. This Article proposes “adversarial comparativism” to explain this dynamic. It is an approach to comparative law and politics that includes different modalities: competition, aggressiveness, transactionalism, misunderstanding, opportunism, and gaslighting. Many of these are underpinned by emotion. As such, while this …

Vol. 70, No. 2 (January 19, 2026)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Indian Copyright Law In The Age Of Genai: Knowledge/Power, Patchwork, And Peril, Lokesh Vyas, Luca Schirru

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

Isn’t copyright law an analog relic, striving to stay relevant in a digital world and hoping to survive an AI-driven and quantum-coded future? We argue it is. It is a law, born in a world of paper and print, now finding itself (again) patching its foundations to keep pace with generative AI (‘GenAI’). This unruly, still-developing technology not only redefines creative processes but also challenges the very assumptions of authorship, creativity, and copying. While discussions on this technology and copyright law abound, amid all the noise, one question simmers beneath the surface: ‘Is the very way we approach GenAI and …

A Human Enablement Theory Of Copyright, Akshat Agrawal

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

Copyright policy, designed to protect creators and disseminators from market imperatives, has ironically deepened their market dependency. This transformation stems from two critical theoretical errors: first, the “incentives”/“reward for labour” story that mistakes protection from market pressures for market encouragement; second, market fundamentalism that treats exclusionary rights as natural and as the source of “liberty”. These misconceptions, reinforced by fallacies about pre-social creativity and physicalism, have transformed copyright from an enabler in a market society into one that commodifies creative expression itself, intensifying rather than ameliorating the economic vulnerability of cultural producers.

This theoretical misunderstanding has produced three interlocking harmful …

Social Equity And Cannabis Explained: History, Regulatory Implementation And The Drug War Reform Efforts 01-13-2026, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Vol. 70, No. 1 (January 12, 2026)

Indiana Law Annotated

No abstract provided.

Law School News: A Quiet Success Story: Rwu Law's Enduring Partnership With The Center For Justice 01-09-2026, Helga Melgar

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Artificial Investments: Consumer Protection For Ai-Generated Quantitative Trading Algorithms, Eric Heyland

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Black Box: The Ftc’S New Ability And Incentive Test For Vertical Mergers, Ann P. Kreuscher

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

In-Space Servicing And The Coming Legal Issues For Inciting Innovation, Grayson Russell

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Beware The Lion’S Den: A School Lawyer’S Guide To Avoiding Pitfalls In The Texas Open Meetings Act, Kyle Stone

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Texas Business Court: Year One, Jack B. Disorbo

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication In Law School: Lessons From Medicine, Social Work, And Business, Mireille Butler, Jaclyn Celebrezze

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Legal clients in the United States are increasingly multilingual and multicultural. More than 71 million people living in the United States communicate in a language other than English. Consequently, the lawyer’s duty of shared understanding is taking on new meaning. With the advent of ABA Ethics Opinion 500, cross-cultural communication skills are a lawyer’s ethical duty and a law school’s mandate. Additionally, ABA Standard 303(c) and the potential of increased experiential learning credit requirements make clear that immediate curricular changes are needed. To prepare for the modern practice of law, tomorrow’s lawyers need to develop cross-cultural skills while in law …

Legal Representation And Public Criticism, Michael Ariens

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

No abstract provided.

Bigger Isn’T Always Better: The Texas-Size Problem Of Overbreadth In Criminal Discovery, Allison Siegwald

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

No abstract provided.

Pro Bono, Supplied And Demanded, Anita Bernstein

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

. Of the fifty-six blackletter provisions in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the rule about pro bono is the only one that tells lawyers they “should”—rather than must, must not, or may—take a particular action. This verb, which in effect says: “You deserve praise if you do it but hey, no pressure,” embodies the partial perspective that dominates pro bono—partial in the sense of both incomplete and biased. Valorizing pro bono while imposing no consequences on people who fail to perform it indulges and flatters what this Article calls pro bono’s supply side. Bar leaders, rule writers led by …

Turning The Tables: Using Texas’S Stowers Doctrine To Rein In Delay, Deny, Defend Tactics, Ethan Evans

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Stripes Of Glory We Wear: Reflections Of The Legal Role And Intricacies Of Citizenship In The History And Foundation Of The Malaysian State

Washington International Law Journal

Abstract: The meaning of citizenship in Malaysia is a tale as old as the country itself—a thorny triangular relationship between the state; the Bumiputera majority of Malay and indigenous natives; and the non-Bumiputeras minority of Chinese and Indians who primarily migrated when the region was under British colonial rule and influence. In the present, Bumiputeras enjoy a constitutionally stipulated special status—a distinction that bestows many privileges and preferential treatment in all facets of life, from commerce to education, homeownership to government employment, that is off-limits to non-Bumiputeras. Supporters of the system argue it remains necessary—a form of affirmative action …

Time As A Constitutional Constraint: Resolving The Circuit Split On Prolonged Fourth Amendment, Ian Seabrooks

Washington Law Review Online

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . .” Some circuits, like the Ninth and D.C. Circuits, have interpreted the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard to apply beyond just the initial seizure of property but also to include the continued retention of the seized property. Other circuits, such as the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, have read the reasonableness standard more narrowly and interpreted this requirement to pertain only to the original seizure. …

Health Truth To Power: Professional Collaboration To Bolster Trust Against Misinformation, William M. Sage, Keegan D. Warren

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about health, leaving aside more general challenges to shared civic information today. The Article begins by surveying the principal challenges for health information in post-pandemic, arguably post-truth America, and then describes briefly the sources and limits of medical professional authority. Noting the double-edged sword of free speech guarantees under the U.S. Constitution, the Article continues by commenting on speaking truth to government, to industry, and to the crowd. Next, the Article considers the physicians’ role in speaking truth to power from the perspective of standard medical professional ethics and identity, comparing it to that of lawyers. Finally, …

Law’S Limits: Abortion And The Social Determinants Of Health, Maya Manian

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion (“After Dobbs”) is a prescient and timely response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and upended nearly five decades of constitutional protection for abortion. In this meticulously structured oral history, law professor David S. Cohen and sociologist Carole Joffe center the voices of abortion providers, clinic administrators, funders, and advocates from across the country. After Dobbs, not only documents the extraordinary persistence of abortion supporters in the face of legal devastation but also bears witness to …

Death Without Discretion: The Legality Of Mandatory Capital Punishment In Tanzania, Kimberly Austin

Human Rights Brief

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) recently found that Tanzania’s mandatory death penalty by hanging violates the rights to life and dignity, guaranteed under Articles 4 and 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Charter). The Court’s judgment on June 26, 2025, in Tembo Hussein v. United Republic of Tanzania demanded rapid reform of Tanzania’s criminal laws in the name of preserving human rights.

Visible At Last: Legal Recognition Of Children Born Of War (Cbow) And The Case Of Bosnia And Herzegovina, Ajna Jusić, Gordana Subotić Ph.D.

Human Rights Brief

Children born of war (CBOW) — those conceived through conflict-related sexual violence— have long remained stigmatized, marginalized, and largely invisible in law and policy. Drawing on international scholarship and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s post-conflict experience, this Article examines the social, political, and legal mechanisms that sustain CBOW exclusion and traces the emergence of CBOW as a recognized category within contemporary international legal frameworks. Using Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study, the Article argues that patriarchal norms, fragmented governance and legal structures, and decades of institutional silence have profoundly shaped CBOW lived experiences and access to rights. Furthermore, the Article assesses …

B.T. And B.K.Cs. V. Hungary: Separating Roma Children From Their Mothers Before Births, Sara Apostol

Human Rights Brief

In June of 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in favor of a Roma mother, B.T., and her son after bringing a lawsuit against the Hungarian government for wrongfully violating their right to family life. The Hungarian government ordered the placement of B.T.’s unborn child into State care based on insufficient and dubious evidence used to justify such state action. This case focused on the prejudiced system that places Roma children into the State’s guardianship immediately after birth without evidence of imminent harm or other valid justification. Rather, it is based on the child’s ethnic and socio-economic …