Law Commons^™

The Egyptian Coup, The United States, And A Call To Strengthen The Rule Of Law And Diplomacy Rather Than Military Counter-Terrorism, Thomas Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines from a legal and historical perspective (a) the United States’ implicit ratification of the Egyptian military’s overthrow of the first fairly and freely elected Egyptian president and (b) how the perceived U.S. support for the coup contributes to Islamic terrorism.

To guarantee that oil has been readily available (and during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism), the U.S. has supported secular, authoritarian regimes in the Islamic world, including the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, the Shah of Iran, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and, initially, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, not to mention autocratic leaders …

Don't Be Cruel (Anymore): A Look At The Animal Cruelty Regimes Of The United States And Brazil With A Call For A New Animal Welfare Agency, David N. Cassuto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the United States and around the world, animals exploited for human use suffer cruel and needless harm. The group bearing the brunt of this exploitation--agricultural animals--is routinely exempted from the largely ineffective and rarely enforced animal welfare and anti-cruelty regulations that exist today. This Article offers a comparative analysis of the agricultural animal welfare regimes of two countries with globally significant presence in the agriculture industry: the United States and Brazil. Even though the two countries approach agricultural animal welfare differently, they arrive at the same outcome: institutionalized indifference to animal suffering. To remedy the current regulatory structure, this …

Riio To Rev: What U.S. Power Reform Should Learn From The U.K., Heather Payne

Pace Law Review

After discussing the recent history of and need for regulatory reform in the U.K., this article will summarize the RIIO framework and analyze the three parts best suited for import into the regulatory frameworks of American states. Specifically, the article will evaluate how a performance-based framework with (1) longer rate cases, (2) proportionate assessment, and (3) a focus on total expenditures limiting regulatory asset value, should positively influence the U.S. regulatory landscape. While RIIO is only used for transmission and distribution in the U.K., there is a potential for its performance-based approach to be used in generation as well as …

Dodd-Frank’S Extension Of Criminal Corporate Liability Through The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Enabling Whistleblowers And Monitoring Conflict Minerals, Tim Bakken

Pace Law Review

In a sense, through its whistleblower provision, the Dodd-Frank Act has enabled the government to use corporate employee whistleblowers to support criminal prosecutions. That position finds agreement in this article, but the conclusion reached is that the results to be obtained from the whistleblower provision will be positive. Through an analysis of the Dodd-Frank Act, this article discusses further the new reach of the FCPA, particularly in light of the whistleblower and conflict-minerals provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act. Finally, this article concludes that although the new provisions can be costly, the provisions are beneficial. The traditional corporate model is now …

Improving The Legal Implementation Mechanisms For A Carbon Tax In China, Haifeng Deng

Pace Environmental Law Review

Within the framework of existing Chinese environmental laws, carbon taxation faces four main challenges: the contradiction of existing taxes, conflict with the carbon emissions trading system, necessary adjustments to the organizational structure of tax collection and management, and coordination with international trade rules. Implementing a carbon tax is a complete and systematic process containing three stages: introduction, collection, and impacts assessment. In order to address these problems, it is necessary to construct legal implementation mechanisms for carbon taxation in China. The legal mechanisms of implementing a carbon tax include a series of coordination and safeguard measures aimed at optimizing the …

Regulation Of Chemical Risks: Lessons For Reform Of The Toxic Substances Control Act From Canada And The European Union, Adam D.K. Abelkop, John D. Graham

Pace Environmental Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to compare the regulatory systems in Canada and the EU, and use comparative insights to draw some lessons that may be of interest to U.S. policy makers engaged in TSCA reform. CEPA and REACH are seen by stakeholders as state of the art in chemicals assessment and management, and thus the U.S. may draw useful insights from them. Indeed, the European Union and Canada have each been urging other countries to join in a globalization of the REACH or Canadian programs, respectively. Regardless of what TSCA reformers choose to learn from the Canadian and …

An International Sos (Save Our Sharks): How The International Legal Framework Should Be Used To Save Our Sharks, Crystal Green

Pace International Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to shed light on the plight on sharks in international and domestic waters. An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year. The cruel and wasteful practice of shark finning is responsible for a large portion of those killings. Shark fins are the most valuable part of the shark, because they are used as the key ingredient – and namesake – in an Asian delicacy known as “shark fin soup.” This Article opens with background information on the dire situation sharks are facing in our oceans, and how the depletion of these top predators …

The Case Of Beatriz: An Outcry To Amend El Salvador’S Abortion Ban, Jonathan Alvarez

Pace International Law Review

This Note examines the evolution of El Salvador’s existing penal code, specifically focusing on the abortion legislation. Further, it examines the significance of The Case of Beatriz and it suggests reform for El Salvador’s government to include exceptions in their penal code, similar to exceptions available in the United States, to provide women with access to safe abortions in extreme circumstances. Part II will illustrate the struggle that women face in El Salvador. Part III will briefly explore the historical background of the current Penal Code, exclusively the abortion ban. Part IV will also discuss women’s rights violated by the …

Fleeing Cuba: A Comparative Piece Focused On Toro And The Options Victims Of Domestic Violence Have In Seeking Citizenship In The United States And Canada, Kiersten M. Schramek

Pace International Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided a case on February 4, 2013 that has undoubted international implications. Toro v. Sec’y dealt with the language of the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act of 1966 (CAA) and the provisions of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

This article focuses on how and why the court reached its decision. It analyzes the conflict between the “plain language” of the CAA and its statutory construction to rebut the court’s assertion that the VAWA self-petition was irrelevant in this case, and ultimately, offer an alternative analysis to this case.

This article …

The Damage From Mega-Sporting Events In Brazil, J. Justin Woods

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Student Publications

Over the past several years, Brazil’s federal government and the city and state governments of Rio de Janeiro have invested tens of billions of dollars to develop the transportation, stadium, tourist, communications and security infrastructure required to host the 2007 Pan American Games, 2014 World Cup, and 2016 Summer Olympics. As Brazil seeks to use these mega- sporting events to assert itself as a major economic player on the word stage, its strategy demonstrates how hosting mega-events serves to attract regional and global capital, and to reinforce unequal power structures at the expense of the public treasury, environmental quality and …

Promoting Sustainable Development Through Environmental Law: Prospects For Saudi Arabia, Faisal K. Alturki

Dissertations & Theses

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys a rich cultural and natural heritage and has an advanced state of socio- economic development. It also suffers from a wide range of growing environmental problems such as securing its potable water supply, coping with solid and liquid waste, ensuring clean air or protecting the marine environment. It is the objective of sustainable development to ensure that further development in the Kingdom does not damage the public health of the people or the natural environment. The policies underlying sustainable development have developed internationally over the past four decades and are well explained in Agenda …

Preclusion Of Remedies Under Article 16(3) Of The Uncitral Model Law, Nata Ghibradze

Pace International Law Review

In search of actual consequences of (mis)use of the available remedies, Chapter II of the foregoing article starts by exploring whether the Model Law implies “choice of remedies” policy by examining its travaux préparatoires (hereinafter “travaux”). It also seeks to determine existence of “alternative system of defences” at cross-border level between remedies at the seat of arbitration and in the enforcement country. Chapter III engages in a determination of general framework of preclusions under the Model Law by analyzing specific provisions such as Article 4, 13 and 16(2).

Chapter IV, by analyzing the travaux, determines the primary purpose of the …

Reflections Of The World Bank’S Report On The Treatment Of The Insolvency Of Natural Persons In The Newest Consumer Bankruptcy Laws: Colombia, Italy, Ireland, Jason J. Kilborn

Pace International Law Review

In 2011, the World Bank initiated its first-ever examination of the policies and characteristics of effective insolvency systems for individuals (natural persons). This paper describes the two-year process that led to the publication of the World Bank’s landmark Report on the Treatment of the Insolvency of Natural Persons. After examining the key content and three major themes of the Report, three of the most recent new personal insolvency regimes are introduced with an eye to identifying the ways in which the themes of the Report are reflected in these new laws. The personal insolvency provisions in Colombian law most directly …

Contractual Excuse Under The Cisg: Impediment, Hardship, And The Excuse Doctrines, Larry A. Dimatteo

Pace International Law Review

This article will examine the law of excuse as espoused in the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). It will examine the relevant case law applying the doctrine of impediment found in CISG Article 79. The question posed in this analysis is whether the word “impediment” relates only to the occurrences of force majeure, impossibility and frustration of purpose events or if it also includes changed circumstances, impracticability and hardship events. For purposes of simplicity, the first set of excuse or exemption doctrines will be analyzed under the heading of “impossibility” and the second set will …

The Conformity Of The Goods To The Contract In International Sales, Villy De Luca

Pace International Law Review

The present article aims to provide a general overview on the issue of conformity of the goods to the contract as regulated by Article 35 of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods (“CISG”).

The analysis will focus on Article 35 CISG and, after having retraced the history that led to the current formulation of the provision, will concentrate on the implications following the adoption of a “unitary” notion of conformity. The evaluation will proceed focusing on the single express and implied conformity obligations covered, respectively, in the first and second paragraphs of Article 35 CISG.

The …

Is The Albert H Kritzer Database Telling Us More Than We Know?, Thomas Neumann

Pace International Law Review

This article is the first in a series of articles attempting to provide a geographical and temporal overview of the application practice of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). In this first article, the success of CISG is explored. The article develops the idea of using the Albert H. Kritzer Database to achieve an overview of the success of the Convention in practice. It is argued that the success of the Convention is useful to measure by its uniformity in practice, and therefore a set of criteria relating to the Convention’s application by …

Transportation, Cooperation And Harmonization: Gats As A Gateway To Integrating The Un Seaborne Cargo Regimes Into The Wto, Lijun Zhao

Pace International Law Review

This paper seeks to analyze how the World Trade Organization (WTO) may cooperate with the United Nations (UN) to unify sea-borne cargo regimes. Beginning with the current dilemma of uni-form maritime transport regime, the paper explores the relation-ship between the UN and the WTO. In light of the successful precedent of the incorporation of the UN intellectual property re-gime into the WTO, this paper probes into the feasibility that the UN and the WTO may interactively unify a maritime transport regime by reference to selected previous treaties, which include UN-administrated treaties. This paper argues the WTO-based sea transport negotiations do …

Criminal Responsibility For Arbitrators In Chinese Law: Perversion Of Law In Commercial Arbitration, Duan Xiaosong

Pace International Law Review

This article is prompted by a recent Chinese criminal provision governing the impartiality of arbitration. The goals of the article fare to critically examine the new criminal statute created by the provision and to put forward some proposals for reform, which could be employed to resolve the tension that exists between arbitrator impartiality and deference to arbitration. Although the new provision appears to eliminate the abuse of arbitral power, it may raise more questions than it resolves. This article explores the problems and undertakes a comparative analysis of the corresponding U.S. provision, as well as an analysis of some cultural …

Forensic Evidence And The Court Of Appeal For England And Wales, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal has extensively analyzed the role of forensic evidence. In doing so, the court has grappled with the admissibility and reliability of a broad range of forensic evidence, from DNA and computer forensics to medical and psychological proof, to more outlying subjects like facial mapping, fiber analysis, or voice identification. The court has analyzed these subjects from two perspectives: the admissibility of such evidence in the lower courts and the admissibility of such evidence as fresh evidence on appeal. In both contexts, the court has taken a practical approach to admitting forensic proof …

More Than A Woman: Insights Into Corporate Governance After The French Sex Quota, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In 2011, France enacted a Corporate Board Quota to establish a forty percent floor for either sex on corporate boards. Existing literature presumes that women will change the way firms function and that their presence in upper management will improve both governance and financial returns. To assess the potential impact of the quota, we interviewed twenty-four current and former corporate board members. Our analysis of these interviews generates two findings. First, our results indicate that, at least in the view of board members, the sex quota has had an impact on the process of board decision-making, but adding women has …

Indefinite Detention And Antiterrorism Laws: Balancing Security And Human Rights, Joanne M. Sweeny

Pace Law Review

This article does more than describe British and American anti-terrorism laws; it shows how those laws go through conflicted government branches and the bargains struck to create the anti-terrorism laws that exist today. Instead of taking these laws as given, this Article explains why they exist. More specifically, this article focuses on the path anti-terrorism legislation followed in the United States and the United Kingdom, with particular focus on each country’s ability (or lack thereof) to indefinitely detain suspected non-citizen terrorists. Both countries’ executives sought to have that power and both were limited by the legislatures and courts but in …

Justice Or Peace? A Proposal For Resolving The Dilemma, Kenneth Williams

Pace International Law Review

This article will address the question of how the international community should respond when the pursuit of justice and the attainment of peace are incompatible. It begins with an overview of the international human rights movement prior to World War II, a period when there was almost no effort to hold human rights violators accountable. The article then discusses how Nuremberg transformed international human rights law and created the framework for holding individuals accountable for committing egregious human rights violations. In the next section there is a discussion of how, despite Nuremberg, there was an era of impunity as a …

Raped By The System: A Comparison Of Prison Rape In The United States And South Africa, Alexandra Ashmont

Pace International Law Review

The main objective of this article is to create overall awareness and to give people a real sense of the events that go on every day inside prison walls. The article is meant to show people that the way they think about prison and prison rape specifically is severely jaded. What happens behind prison bars should certainly not stay behind prison bars. The stories within this article are unlike any prison rape stories people have heard before. They are harsh, inhumane, and deeply disturbing. The only way to incite change is to open people’s eyes to the true conditions within …

Recognizing Education Rights In India And The United States: All Roads Lead To The Courts?, Ashley Feasley

Pace International Law Review

The approaches of United States and India take disparate form: India has recognized the right to education and is attempting to implement the right, whereas the United States has not formally recognized the right to education itself but has acknowledged a limited right to educational opportunity, but has implemented some sort of right to education unequally by relying on the states to guarantee and implement some kind of remedy. This paper aims to evaluate the American and Indian approaches towards the right to education. Section II discusses the interrelatedness of social and economic and civil and political rights and the …

The Exceptional Absence Of Human Rights As A Principle In American Law, Mugambi Jouet

Pace Law Review

Compared to other Western democracies, references to “human rights” are rare in domestic American law. A survey of landmark Supreme Court cases reveals that both conservative and liberal Justices made no mention of “human rights” when addressing fundamental questions: racial segregation, the death penalty, prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, gay rights, and indefinite detention at Guantanamo. This absence illustrates a broader societal trait. In the United States, “human rights” commonly evoke foreign problems like abuses in Third World dictatorships—not domestic problems. By contrast, human rights play a relatively important role as a domestic principle in Europe, Canada, Australia, and …

Global Cyber Intermediary Liability: A Legal & Cultural Strategy, Jason H. Peterson, Lydia Segal, Anthony Eonas

Pace Law Review

This Article fills the gap in the debate on fighting cybercrime. It considers the role of intermediaries and the legal and cultural strategies that countries may adopt. Part II.A of this Article examines the critical role of intermediaries in cybercrime. It shows that the intermediaries’ active participation by facilitating the transmission of cybercrime traffic removes a significant barrier for individual perpetrators. Part II.B offers a brief overview of legal efforts to combat cybercrime, and examines the legal liability of intermediaries in both the civil and criminal context and in varying legal regimes with an emphasis on ISPs. Aside from some …

Animal Agriculture Laws On The Chopping Block: Comparing United States And Brazil, Elizabeth Bennett

Pace Environmental Law Review

Brazil and the United States are among the largest producers and exporters of livestock in the world. This raises important animal rights and environmental concerns. While many of the impacts of industrial animal agriculture are similar in Brazil and the United States, there are key differences in the effects on animals and the environment. The variations between Brazil and the United States are due to ecological, production method, and regulatory differences between the countries. Despite their dissimilarities, however, Brazil and the United States both largely fail to adequately protect farm animals and the environment from the impacts of large-scale animal …

Origins And Development Of Teaching Animal Law In Brazil, Tagore Trajano De Almeida Silva

Pace Environmental Law Review

This paper examines the strategies utilized on each continent and shows the path made for these scholars to build a framework to discuss animal law within law schools. The conclusion is that this movement produced by such scholars has changed the way law schools are teaching law and is affording new opportunities to solve animal concerns, and likewise, social problems in Brazil and around the world.

Therefore, this article first discusses the philosophical Brazilian background to teach animal law, and how the animal rights movement creates a framework for professors and students working in this field. It then summarily explores …

Norway’S Companies Act: A 10-Year Look At Gender Equality, Kristen Carroll

Pace International Law Review

This analysis assesses the amendment to Norway’s Companies Act, in light of the 10-year anniversary of the mandate of female representation on corporate boards. First, I discuss the implementation of the quota, Section 6-11a. Second, I compare three statistical studies that analyze the effects of the quota on corporate profitability, overall firm performance, and the changing dynamics of the managerial positions. Finally, I evaluate the various avenues to fully achieving diversity, such as the successes and failures of a quota-type system and possible initiatives that governments and companies can enact to achieve gender-balance in the workplace. While some hypothesize that …

Corporate Governance Sex Regimes: Peripheral Thoughts From Across The Atlantic, Horatia Muir Watt

Pace International Law Review

The very recent and highly mediatized “Declaration of the 343 Salauds”, where 343 (male) signatures in support of prostitution in a form designed to echo the highly significant declaration of as many women in 1971 in favor of the legalization of abortion, sheds particularly interesting light upon debate about sex regimes in connection with French law. France has recently introduced compulsory quotas for women in corporate boards after imposing la parité for public appointments. A comparative perspective, confronting this recent legislative development from across the Atlantic with policy views on affirmative action and philosophical conceptions of diversity in the United …