Law Commons^™

Lies That Matter: Retheorizing Rape And The Limits Of Consent, Seran Gee

Nevada Law Journal

This Article proposes a novel assent-based framework for understanding rape law, challenging the traditional focus on consent as the sole determinant of rape. It argues that rape occurs when there is an absence of assent, rather than simply a lack of consent. The Article distinguishes between assent, which reflects a feeling of willingness, and consent, which is an exercise of autonomy that waives one’s right to bodily integrity. By incorporating this distinction, the assent model provides a more nuanced approach to rape law, explaining why certain deceptions—such as misrepresenting the nature of a sexual act—constitute rape, while others do not. …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …

Resilient Dispute Resolution Systems For International Energy Conflicts, Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez

Seattle University Law Review

Energy-related conflicts are on the rise, spanning diverse issues such as the impacts of rare mineral mining on local communities, the impacts of sanctions on energy investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the impacts of expanded subsidies on the electric vehicle and solar panel industries. Increasingly, companies, communities, and governments are clashing over the challenges of pursuing disparate and sometimes competing energy policies. This Article argues that dispute resolution mechanisms in the energy investment sector must be fundamentally rethought. Traditional semi-adjudicatory models, which focus on winners and losers, fail to accommodate the complex and multifaceted nature of contemporary energy …

Restricting Data Flows Is A Sign Of Weakness, Nikolas Guggenberger

Seattle University Law Review

There has been a seismic shift in American attitudes toward the free flow of data across borders.  In less than a decade, the United States has transitioned from condemning barriers to digital trade to constructing a digital fortress of its own. It passed legislation requiring TikTok’s parent company to divest its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban affecting 170 million U.S. users, citing national security concerns about its ties to China and the potential for data surveillance and content manipulation. Upon legal challenge by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court affirmed the ban’s constitutionality. Recent federal legislation …

Product Nationality And Corporate Identity, Trang (Mae) Nguyen

Seattle University Law Review

Global supply chains have long depended on a deceptively technical device: the attribution of a “nationality” to goods. A trade law principle, rules of origin assign products an “economic passport” that governs how they are treated at the border, including what markets they may enter and which tariff rates apply. In recent years, however, product nationality has taken on a new and far more ambitious role. As U.S. trade policy increasingly intersects with national security and human rights policy, policymakers rely on nationality-based measures to police supply chain linkages, curb geopolitical issues, and discipline firms for their links to forced …

Global Supply Chain Resilience In Emerging Technologies: A Case Study Of Bitcoin Mining, Kishanthi Parella, Carla L. Reyes

Seattle University Law Review

The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security.  For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals.  However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Approaches To Shaping International Outer Space Law And Norms, Ariel G. Silverman

Seattle University Law Review

This article explores convergences and divergencies in the United States and PRC’s responses to the stalemate in the United Nations over the future of outer space resource governance. I do so by systematically analyzing these leading space-faring nations’ policy-positions and tactics deployed to shape norms around three substantive areas of outer space resource governance: rights of ownership and scope of utilization of space resources, mechanization of the “benefits sharing” principle, and the rights and responsibilities of the private sector. I theorize that these leading space-faring nations have adopted divergent approaches due to their differing historical relationships with international law and …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Third-Party Funding: Balancing Transparency, National Security, And Access To Justice, Victoria Shannon Sahani

Seattle University Law Review

Many lawmakers who have recently become aware of the multi-billion-dollar global third-party funding industry are raising new national security concerns that further complicate preexisting, longstanding debates about transparency, disclosure, access to justice, and the best way to regulate third-party funding. In response, this Article briefly asserts three main points relating to the question of how best to regulate third-party funding. First, this Article explains the third-party funding industry, including its global regulatory landscape and how it serves three distinct populations: consumers, businesses, and law firms. Second, this Article explains that third-party funding is one tool that can help expand access …

The Field Of International Business Transactions Law, Kathleen Claussen

Seattle University Law Review

This Article studies the evolution of the scholarly subfield referred to as the law of “international business transactions” (IBT). It reviews data on academic articles, courses, textbooks and other signifiers of the growth of this research area. Beginning around 1960, scholars began to use the term “international business transactions” and by the 1980s, several law schools were offering a course by that title. A handful of dedicated textbooks soon followed. These data reflect a gradual increase in research on the topic of IBT, particularly in the United States, but also considerable diversity of subject matters covered by those works. The …

Kim Gyeong-Seok And The Origins Of Northeast Asia’S Corporate Accountability Movement For War And Colonialism, Timothy Webster

Seattle University Law Review

For the past three decades, a transnational reparations movement has unfolded across Northeast Asia. Hundreds of victims—assisted by attorneys, academics, and activists—seek remedies from Japan for various atrocities committed during World War II, colonialism, and other historical injustices.  They press their claims in street protests, legislative hearings, dramatic performances, and other fora.  The “comfort women” are the best known of these claimants; their global redress campaign ex-tends from noisy protests outside of Japan’s embassy in Seoul, to mute statues in raucous boroughs of Berlin.  More obscure, though larger in number, were the roughly one million Koreans who performed forced labor …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …

The Mind Has A Firewall: An Attempt To Preserve Human Mind Integrity., Sayed G. Batran

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues for the recognition of mind integrity as a distinct human right. It contends that existing protections, such as bodily integrity, privacy, and freedom of thought, are no longer sufficient to shield an individual’s mental domain from new forms of external interference enabled by neurotechnology, artificial intelligence, and pervasive data-driven systems. Mind integrity is defined as the right to govern one’s own mental life—to form, revise, and hold thoughts, beliefs, and desires based on reasons one endorses—free from significant, non-consensual interference or manipulation, regardless of the method used. The thesis first identifies concrete risks and regulatory vacuums by …

Winnowing The Wheat From The Chaff: The Continuing Controversy Over Article Iii Standing And The Certification Of Rule 23(B)(3) Damages Classes Containing "Uninjured" Members, William G. Beatty

William & Mary Business Law Review

The controversy surrounding the inclusion of uninjured class members in Rule 23(b)(3) damages classes has deeply divided the federal circuit courts of appeals and continues to do so. This Article explores the constitutional roots of the issue, beginning with the foundational element of Article III standing, and discusses the question of how many uninjured members, if any, Rule 23 permits in a class seeking certification before problems with commonality and predominance arise.

The Article discusses the details of the Laboratory Corp. of America v. Davis case (LabCorp), which, in the spring of 2025, presented the Supreme Court with …

Abuse Of Contract: A Proposal For A New Cause Of Action, Miriam A. Cherry

William & Mary Law Review

With the growth of online commerce and the platform economy, many companies are including provisions in their online terms and conditions that extend far beyond what reasonable consumers would expect. Some terms and conditions purport to bind customers to separate contracts in future transactions that have little to do with the first contract. Other boilerplate purports to cover family members of the customer who created an account. Some retailers have argued that people shopping in their brick-and-mortar stores are subject to terms and conditions because those shoppers had at some point previously created an online account. For example, Disney argued …

Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account Of Law & Society, Jason M. Leggett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This essay explores the contradictions in legal theory and human experience through creative nonfiction. Its main purpose is to argue that a truly just society requires acknowledging the profound influence of individual narratives on the law. This is supported by blending personal narratives, critical analysis, and philosophical inquiry to reveal the gap between codified law and lived realities for marginalized individuals. This unique Legal Poetics methodology employs a series of six vignettes, such as the author's and Luis's shared experiences with traumatic brain injury and the denial of justice, as data. By integrating autoethnography, law as narrative, and performativity theories, …

Moore Vs. Primadonna Co., Llc, 142 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 6. (Jan. 29, 2026), Collin Faught

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

THE COURT HELD THAT A PLAINTIFF INJURED AT A SELF-SERVICE BUSINESS NEED NOT SHOW THE TASK WAS TRADITIONALLY PERFORMED BY EMPLOYEES TO INVOKE MODE-OF-OPERATION LIABILITY.

“The Monster That Ate Jurisprudence”: The Misfire Of Civil Rico In Third-Party Payor Recovery, Jillian Rae Bloom

University of Miami Business Law Review

A law created to dismantle organized crime is now being misused to target pharmaceutical companies. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), originally intended to combat criminal enterprises, has since expanded far beyond its intended purpose. Third-party payors (TTPs), such as health insurers, have increasingly relied on RICO to sue pharmaceutical companies for deceptive marketing practices that allegedly cause significant financial harm. While it is important to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for their fraudulent conduct, applying RICO in these cases represents a troublesome overreach. The link between the alleged fraud and TPPs alleged harm is too attenuated to meet …

Adaptable Ai Apprentices: Law Practice Sidekicks, Henry H. Perritt, Jr.

University of Miami Law Review

Two case studies involving motorcycle-accident negligence and administrative law in the context of drone regulation violations explore the transformative potential of generative AI in legal practice. Four AI engines—DeepSeek, Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok—were asked to analyze transcripts of client interviews by identifying legal claims and assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

The results demonstrate that current AI technology effectively processes natural-language client interviews, identifies viable legal theories, and assesses claim strengths and weaknesses in both tort and administrative law contexts. The AI systems demonstrated proficiency in parsing legal theories and citing relevant statutes and administrative regulations, though case citations were frequently …

Roman–Dutch Law, Scottish Civil Procedure And Fusing Of The Common And Civil Jurisprudence, Zia Akhtar

Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law

The range and breadth of Roman law have extended and been assimilated into the distant corners of Europe based on the concept of Jus Commune. Law of Scotland is one of the countries which has adopted Roman legal principles in its substantive law. The Scots law is a non-codified Civil law in which legal principles have been drawn from both the civilian (i.e. Roman law) and common law traditions. It also owes its evolution to the jurists who developed the causes of action in the civil courts of the country. These Roman law foundations still persist in Scottish law and …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Gregory Klass In Support Of Respondents In Veolia Water Technologies, Inc. V. Antero Treatment Llc, No. 2025sc21 (Colo. Jan. 20, 2026)., Gregory Klass

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In September, 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari in Veolia Water Tech. v. Antero Treatment to resolve the following question: “Whether the economic loss rule bars a fraud claim when the parties were in a contractual relationship, the fraud claim seeks the same relief as the plaintiff’s contract claim, and the fraud concerns the defendant’s performance under the contract.”

This scholar’s amicus brief addresses four questions under Colorado law: (1) Does an exploratory contract to determine whether a transaction is desirable prevent liability in tort for fraud in the inducement of the principal contract? (2) What is the significance …

What Is Hate Speech? A Proposal For An Ordinary And Legal Definition, Hannah Van Dijcke

SJD Dissertations

The term “hate speech” has been stretched in legal and public debates to cover speech ranging from insults to Holocaust denial. This definitional stretching has consequences beyond mere conceptual confusion: it risks obscuring the profound harm that hate speech does, and it facilitates the term’s misuse.

In this dissertation, I aim to precisely define hate speech and its harm, both in an ordinary (colloquial or non-legal) sense and in a legal sense. To do so, I examine real-world examples of speech widely understood to express hate, including texts from the context of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, and conduct …

Boggs V. Johnston Asphalt, Llc, 334 A.3d 965 (R.I. 2025)., Gracie May Mccall

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Toys As Evidence, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

This Essay asks and answers a single question, which was posed during a recent symposium at the National Museum of Toys & Miniatures. Could the study of revealed preferences, which is the idea that observed behaviors are the best indicator of one’s beliefs, improve our collective understanding about what constitutes unlawful discrimination in certain U.S. markets? A possible answer, which is informed by the Brown v. Board of Education decision, is the study of revealed preferences may improve our collective understanding for three reasons.

One reason is the study of revealed preferences provides a window into how some producers and …

Recovering From The Ego Death Of The Internet: How The Communications Decency Act Has Shattered Cyber-Libertarianism And The Non-Exceptionalist Move Toward A Brighter Digital World, Peyton Friedlander

Michigan Technology Law Review

For nearly thirty years, the legal framework for analyzing liability for claims of tortious wrongdoing on the Internet has been governed by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”). However, much has changed since the Act’s inception. Since Congress enacted the CDA, courts have interpreted its provisions far beyond their original meaning, creating a regime that ultimately destroys a prospective plaintiff’s ability to recover the equitable remedies once available to those seeking redress for online invasions of privacy and reputational harms.

As the Internet continues to grow and changes in technology rapidly develop, it is time to re-center equitable …

A New Middle Ground: The Continuous Treatment Doctrine As A Solution To Rhode Island’S Incomplete Tort Reform, Justin Edward Keyes

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rules Of The Road: Toward National Regulation Of Autonomous Vehicles, Adam Raviv

Journal of Law and Mobility

After decades of promise, self-driving cars are now becoming a meaningful reality on our roads. Yet not a single federal law or regulation governs autonomous vehicle operation in the United States—despite widespread agreement among policymakers, advocates, and industry stakeholders that a national safety framework is necessary. This article provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of what a federal safety regulation for autonomous vehicles can and should look like. It describes the current landscape of autonomous technology. It analyzes both the existing federal legal regime for vehicle safety regulation as well as state, local, and international standards that apply to autonomous …

Moral Progress In Legal Doctrine, Philip Petrov

Faculty Scholarship

This article integrates the concept of moral progress – here, moral improvement in the thinking and behavior of individuals over time – into the study of legal doctrine. The article first presents a naturalistic account of what moral progress is and describes three of its most historically and analytically important forms: (1) moral circle expansion, (2) moral domain expansion, and (3) increasing sensitivity to proportionality. The article then analyzes three historical developments in U.S. tort law that qualify as instances of moral progress: (1) the partial demise of the “suicide rule” beginning around the 1980s (according to …

From Chainsaws To Courtrooms: Corporate Climate Litigation And Deforestation In Brazil, Maria Antonia Tigre, Mariana Barbosa Cirne

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Corporate climate litigation has emerged as one of the most dynamic and high-profile tools for addressing the private sector’s role in the climate crisis. While much of the scholarship and public debate has centered on cases in the United States and Europe, litigation targeting corporations in the Global South—particularly Brazil—has grown rapidly, both in volume and significance. Brazil now ranks among the world’s top jurisdictions for corporate climate damage claims. These suits have pioneered methods for quantifying climate damages, often from illegal deforestation, and have tested the reach of the civil liability regime in novel ways. This Article offers the …