Law Commons^™

Jurisprudential Hypocrisy Under Israel's Normative Umbrella: Punitive Demolitions As Pre-Conviction, Collective Punishment In The West Bank, Rebecca Mooney

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

Since the termination of the British Mandate in 1948 and Israel's subsequent occupation of Palestine, the Israeli government has punitively demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. After a slight downturn during COVID-19, numbers are once again on the rise. Israel's punitive demolition strategy targets the innocent families of Palestinians allegedly involved in security offenses against Israel. When a suspected offender is detained, Israel orders the demolition of their family home—usually, before the suspect is tried or convicted, and regardless of whether they own or permanently reside in the house. In support of its punitive demolition campaign, Israel …

The Permanent Court Of International Justice In Global History, James D. Fry

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

The Permanent Court of International Justice's contributions often are overshadowed by the fact that it was the predecessor of the overwhelmingly important International Court of Justice. This article is the first to look at the Permanent Court's possible contribution to global history in its own right. While the case-study method adopted in this article does not allow for the determination of causal linkages between acts of the Permanent Court and consequences in global history, it nevertheless provides compelling support for liberal institutionalism and the notion that global history has been influenced by actors other than states, even though states remain …

Discretion And The Rule Of Law: The Significance And Endurance Of Vagrancy And Vagrancy-Type Laws In England, The British Empire, And The British Colonial World, Christopher Roberts

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

This article explores the history of vagrancy laws in England, the British Empire, and the British colonial world, the significance of those laws, the various challenges that were made to vagrancy laws in the twentieth century, and the limits of those challenges to date. While vagrancy laws preceded the nineteenth century, the 1824 Vagrancy Act in England set a new model, which proved extremely influential around the world over the following centuries. Between the early nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, vagrancy laws were adopted or reformulated almost everywhere the British left a footprint. The laws that were adopted covered …

Reversing Cfius: Analyzing The International And Constitutional Implications Of The Revised National Critical Capabilities Defense Act, Madison Cash

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

In 2022, congressional consideration of the Revised National Critical Capabilities Defense Act (Revised NCCDA), colloquially known as "Reverse CFIUS", caused a flurry of conversation amongst congressional committees, legal practitioners, and private companies. The bill proposed a broad outbound foreign investment review regime for industries implicating national critical capabilities. While Congress ultimately declined to pass the Revised NCCDA, a similar outbound review mechanism is soon likely to be promulgated by the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch. This note discusses the legislative history resulting in the proposal of an outbound investment review mechanism. It criticizes the breadth and ambiguity of the …

Journal Staff

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

No abstract provided.

Gonzalez V. Google: The Case For Protecting "Targeted Recommendations", Tomer Kenneth, Ira Rubinstein

Duke Law Journal Online

Does Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protect online platforms (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter) when they use recommendation algorithms? Lower courts upheld platforms’ immunity, notwithstanding notable dissenting opinions. The Supreme Court considers this question in Gonzalez v Google, LLC. Plaintiffs invite the Court to analyze “targeted recommendations” generically and to revoke Section 230 immunity for all recommended content. We think this would be a mistake.

This Article contributes to existing scholarship about Section 230 and online speech governance by adding much needed clarity to the desirable—and undesirable—regulation of recommendation algorithms. Specifically, this Article explains the technology behind algorithmic …

Journal Staff

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Welfare Now, Cass R. Sunstein

Duke Law Journal

In evaluating interventions, policymakers should consider both their welfare effects, including their effects on people’s emotional states, and their effects on distributive justice, including their effects on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. The arguments for investigating welfare effects, and effects on distributive justice, are meant as objections to efforts to evaluate behaviorally informed interventions solely in terms of (for example) revealed preferences and effects on participation rates. The arguments are also meant as a plea for investigation and specification of the effects of such interventions on experienced well-being. If interventions give people a sense of security and …

Nudges, Defaults, And The Problem Of Constructed Preferences, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Duke Law Journal

Regulatory bodies have increasingly become interested in “nudges,” or low-cost adjustments to the environment in which people make choices. These interventions promise to give more people what they truly want while preserving freedom of choice. In theory, default rules—a type of nudge—that can survive a thorough cost-benefit analysis should both preserve liberty and enhance welfare. In reality, altering default rules can also change people’s preferences. Neutral cost-benefit analysis is thus impossible, and choosing a default rule therefore influences personal freedom. This Article explains how nudges influence preferences and why this makes neutral cost-benefit analysis impossible for regulators.

The Private Cost Of Behavioral Interventions, Avishalom Tor

Duke Law Journal

The increasing popularity of behavioral interventions—also known as nudges—is largely due to their perceived potential to promote public and private welfare at dramatically lower costs than those of traditional regulatory instruments, such as mandates or taxes. Yet, though nudges typically involve low implementation costs, scholars and policymakers alike tend to underestimate their often-substantial private costs. Once these costs are accounted for, most nudges turn out to generate significantly lower net benefits than assumed, and some prove less efficient or less cost-effective than traditional instruments. At other times, the private costs of behavioral interventions are sufficiently large to render them socially …

The Enforcement Value Of Disclosure, Stephanie Bornstein

Duke Law Journal

Information disclosures often “nudge” consumers to make better choices—for example, when manufacturers include nutrition labels on food packaging or fuel economy standards on cars. Yet having to disclose can have a nudge effect on the disclosing entity, too—for example, by incentivizing a manufacturer to make healthier food or more fuel-efficient cars. Recently, regulators around the world have begun to use information disclosures to improve racial and gender equality—for example, by requiring certain businesses to disclose information on things like harassment complaints, board diversity, and employee pay. But are such disclosure efforts worth their costs? And what would indicate that policymakers …

Tax Intelligence, Kathleen Claussen

Duke Law Journal Online

At the start of 2023, tax policymakers are increasingly contemplating how tax law and policy could bolster U.S. foreign policy goals. The most recent proposals seek to leverage information gathered from tax reporting—what this Essay calls “tax intelligence.” However, front and center in considering how tax intelligence can be used to make foreign policy is a challenge: how that information can make its way through the grinder of our foreign commerce bureaucracy in furtherance of productive outcomes. To address this challenge and amplify the promise of these proposals, this Essay offers four contributions. First, it demonstrates that these proposals make …

Unique Civic Education Program Aims To Teach Young People About Courts And Civility, Robin L. Rosenberg, Beth Bloom

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Proposed Legal Reforms In Israel: Are Israel’S “Constitutional Conventions” In Jeopardy?, Peter Kahn, Dov Weissglas

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Diversion And/As Decarceration, Katherine Beckett

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

North Carolina Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (Lead): Considerations For Optimizing Eligibility And Referral, Allison R. Gilbert, Reah Siegel, Michele M. Easter, Meret S. Hofer, Josie Caves Sivaraman, Deniz Ariturk, Jeffrey W. Swanson, Marvin S. Swartz, Ruth Wygle, Grace Feng

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Policing And Behavioral Health Conditions, Jeffrey W. Swanson, Marvin S. Swartz, Brandon Garrett

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Expansion Of The Police Role In Responding To Mental Health Crises Over The Past Fifty Years: Driving Factors, Race Inequities And The Need To Rebalance Roles, Amy C. Watson, Taleed El-Sabawi

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Triaging Mental Health Emergencies: Lessons From Philadelphia, Jennifer D. Wood, Evan Anderson

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

In Consideration Of The Behavioral Health Of Police, Meret S. Hofer, Jennifer Rineer

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Journal Staff

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

No Harm, No Problem (In State Court): Why States Should Reject Injury In Fact, Rebekah G. Strotman

Duke Law Journal

New judicial federalism urges states to extend their constitutional protections beyond the federal Constitution’s. Yet the scholarship has largely ignored justiciability doctrines—including standing—that dictate the requirements for suing in court. Meanwhile, the federal injury in fact requirement has been debated for years, with critics claiming it is ahistorical and overly restrictive. States, though, are not bound by Article III and can reject the federal standing doctrine. Some states have. In fact, the same year the Supreme Court doubled down on injury in fact by stating “no concrete harm, no standing,” the North Carolina Supreme Court rejected injury in fact and …

The Accidental Innovation Policymakers, Rachel E. Sachs

Duke Law Journal

Health care policymakers in the United States, particularly at the federal level, have recently considered a range of proposals that would lower prices for prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical industry and many politicians have argued that these proposals would harm innovation incentives, resulting in fewer new drugs coming to market in the future. This Article identifies and explores a key problem with this argument: that it is typically deployed both accidentally and asymmetrically in nature. Specifically, this Article considers previous changes to health laws that had the impact of increasing innovation incentives by providing large new subsidies to pharmaceutical companies—chiefly the …

Effecting Free Exercise And Equal Protection, Laura Portuondo

Duke Law Journal

There is an emerging discrepancy in free exercise and equal protection law. For decades, the Supreme Court has maintained that a law’s effects on a protected group are usually insufficient to trigger heightened scrutiny under either the Free Exercise or Equal Protection Clause. This longstanding rule has rendered it virtually impossible to challenge facially neutral laws on constitutional race, sex, and religious discrimination grounds, even where such laws inflict substantial harms on protected groups. Recent free exercise decisions, however, have abandoned this traditional barrier to enforcing constitutional equality rights. In doing so, they have subverted the usual rule that a …

Journal Staff

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Not Up For Deliberation: Expanding The Peña-Rodriguez Protection To Cover Jury Bias Against Lgbtq+ Individuals, Brett V. Ries

Duke Law Journal

Discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals persists within the United States criminal justice system, which is no surprise given the history of LGBTQ+ discrimination in the United States. Evidence of jurors convicting LGBTQ+ defendants—or, in some extreme cases, sentencing them to death—because of the defendant’s queer identity is especially concerning.

Standing in the way of protecting LGBTQ+ defendants from LGBTQ+ bias in jury deliberations is Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), which prohibits defendants from using juror testimony regarding jury deliberations to impeach the jury’s verdict. However, in 2017, the Supreme Court in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado provided an exception to this “no-impeachment rule” …

Purpose Or Profit?: The Rise Of Public Benefit Corporations In The Technology Industry, Alanna Potter

Duke Law & Technology Review

Over the last several years, the demand for socially responsible companies has exploded. Many states have responded to this demand by offering a new corporate form, the public benefit corporation (“PBC”), which arguably allows companies to prioritize social benefit in a way that traditional corporations cannot. The technology industry has adopted the PBC structure at higher rates than corporations in other industries. This Note offers reasons for the appeal of PBCs to corporations generally and to the technology sector in particular. This Note also explores why technology companies may be able to achieve the goals discussed without the need for …

Causation And Conception In American Inventorship, Dan L. Burk

Duke Law & Technology Review

Increasing use of machine learning or “artificial intelligence” (AI) software systems in technical innovation has led some to speculate that perhaps machines might be considered inventors under patent law. While U.S. patent doctrine decisively precludes such a bizarre and counterproductive result, the speculation leads to a more fruitful inquiry about the role of causation in the law of inventorship. U.S. law has almost entirely disregarded causation in determining inventorship, with very few exceptions, some of which are surprising. In this essay, I examine those exceptions to inventive causality, the role they play in determining inventorship, and their effect in excluding …

Dignity And Respect At All Times: How Federal Agencies Can Measure Up In Complying With Nagpra And Related Statutes, Catherine E. Kanatas, Maxwell Smith

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Journal Staff

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.