Law Commons^™

The Future Is Today: Preparing The Legal Ground For The United States Space Force, Clayton J. Schmitt

University of Miami Law Review

The Space Race officially launched on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union placed Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite, into Earth’s orbit. The United States fired back four months later, on January 31, 1958, by launching its own satellite, Explorer I. While both superpowers’ programs facially focused on scientific research, each was funded and directed by their respective militaries. Military functions in space followed shortly, with the United States beginning to place its first reconnaissance satellites in space in 1959 as part of the Corona program. American and Soviet discussions following these initial military developments eventually led to the …

How Hard Can This Be? The Dearth Of U.S. Tax Treaties With Latin America, Patricia A. Brown

University of Miami Law Review

The United States has fewer tax treaties with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and even China have with such countries. After first describing ways in which tax treaties reduce barriers to cross-border trade and investment, this Article considers in turn various possible explanations for this situation. It examines, and rejects, the hypothesis that Latin American countries are reluctant to enter into tax treaties in general. It then considers, and rejects, the possibility that Latin American countries are opposed to in-creased trade and investment from the United States in particular. It then …

Cowboys And Indians: Settler Colonialism And The Dog Whistle In U.S. Immigration Policy, Hannah Gordon

University of Miami Law Review

The nineteenth-century Indian problem has become the twenty-first century border crisis. While the United States fancies itself a nation of immigrants, this rhetoric is impossible to square with the reality of the systematic exclusion of migrants of color. In particular, the Trump administration has taken the exclusion of migrants descended from the Indigenous inhabitants of Mexico and Central America to a reductio ad absurdum. This Note joins a body of scholarship that centers the history of genocide in the United States to examine what our settler colonial history means for today’s immigration law and policy. It concludes that the contemporary …

Privacy Protection(Ism): The Latest Wave Of Trade Constraints On Regulatory Autonomy, Svetlana Yakovleva

University of Miami Law Review

Countries spend billions of dollars each year to strengthen their discursive power to shape international policy debates. They do so because in public policy conversations labels and narratives matter enormously. The “digital protectionism” label has been used in the last decade as a tool to gain the policy upper hand in digital trade policy debates about cross-border flows of personal and other data. Using the Foucauldian framework of discourse analysis, this Article brings a unique perspective on this topic. The Article makes two central arguments. First, the Article argues that the term “protectionism” is not endowed with an inherent meaning …

Editor's Foreword, Lance Maynard

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pluralism, Democracy, And The Conflict Within: Challenging The State’S Narrative By Artistic Forms Of Protest, Alexandra V. Orlova

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This article follows the Pussy Riot case from the 2012 trial decision to the 2018 challenge before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The case revolved around the “punk prayer” performed by three women in Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. While the case, which centered on violation of freedom of expression, may be framed as a matter of political speech vs. religious speech, it has broader implications. Pussy Riot’s performance and subsequent legal cases were about the ability of pluralism and dissent to counter the carefully constructed government narrative of “traditional values” and moral sovereignty. For democracy to …

Their Cheese Has Holes But Their Gun Policy Doesn’T: A Review Of The Swiss Gun Policy Compared To The United States, Nikolaos Manuel Hernandez

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

“With the right to bear arms come a great responsibility to use caution and common sense on handgun purchases.” – Ronald Reagan

The left will say we need more gun control, the right will say it is our constitutional right to bear arms. Is one truly better than the other? Does the answer lie simply in gun education? This note will scrutinize the history of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution as it relates to gun rights, gun laws, and gun violence. Next, this note will compare those rights, laws, and statistics to that of Switzerland. Switzerland’s gun …

The Shortcomings Of The “Public Charge” Doctrine: Why The Dhs Final Rule Should Be Abandoned And Why The United States Should Look To The Progressive Immigration Policies Of Sweden, Emily Demetree

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

The United States has a longstanding history of denying aliens admission based on a wide range of grounds that we have deemed to demonstrate the alien would be either dangerous to society or a financial burden on the state. “Self-sufficiency” has been a basic principle of US immigration law since the country’s earliest immigration statutes. It is the contention of the Department of Homeland Security that the availability of public benefits can create an incentive for immigration to the United States at a rate that cannot be financially supported by the government. Certain European countries, such as Sweden, see a …

Popular Consultation And Referendum In The Making Of Contemporary Cuban Socialist Democracy Practice And Constitutional Theory, Larry Catá Backer, Flora Sapio

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

The language of democracy and democratic organization is usually spoken only in the vernacular of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy, mostly of western origin centers legitimacy of a political order on open, full, and free election for representatives, as well as a substantially unregulated civic space in which individuals and others can engage in political discourse. This essentially exogenous form of democratic organization has been increasingly challenged in the 21st century by an alternative model of endogenous democracy more compatible with states organized along Marxist Leninist principles. These emerging forms of endogenous democratic practices have been developed along two distinct lines, …

Reforming Expansive Crime Control & Sentencing Legislation In An Era Of Mass Incarceration: A National And Cross-National Study, Rebecca Wasif

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Racism: How Governments Are Systematically Poisoning Indigenous Communities & The U.N.’S Role, Maia Dombey

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

This note examines the practice of toxic waste dumping on indigenous lands and how it fits within the broader concept of environmental racism. It further evaluates the international human rights framework and how the United Nations and other international bodies interact with this concept and provide means for protection against this illicit practice. Further, it examines the role of the Special Rapporteur on the Implications for Human Rights of the Environmentally Sound Management and Disposal of Hazardous Substances and Wastes and how he, in his role as Special Rapporteur, can provide relief to indigenous communities suffering the effects of this …