Law Commons^™

Governing Nature Conservation In Political “Hotbeds”: A Contractual Approach, Taufik Haryanto, Kai P. Purnhagen

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Suction Dredging In The United States: Current Regulations And Potential Paths Forward, Colin Arsenault

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Clearing The Air: Disincentivizing Driving And Encouraging The Use Of Public Transportation To Combat Vehicle Pollution At A State Level, Michelle Castaline

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Planetary Defense: Near-Earth Objects, Nuclear Weapons, And International Law, James A. Green

UC Law SF International Law Review

The risk of a large Near-Earth Object (NEO), such as an asteroid, colliding with the Earth is low, but the consequences of that risk manifesting could be catastrophic. Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented increase in global political will in relation to NEO preparedness, following the meteoroid impact in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. There also has been an increased focus amongst states on the possibility of using nuclear detonation, in particular, as a means of diverting or destroying a collision-course NEO, something that a majority of scientific opinion now appears to view as representing humanity’s best—or perhaps only—option in extreme …

Developing Policy From The Ground Up: Examining Entitlement In The Bay Area To Inform California’S Housing Policy Debates, Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Eric Biber

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Crop Insurance Reform In The Face Of Climate Change, Perry Elerts

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law SF International Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Law And The Struggle Against Government Impunity In Africa, John Mukum Mbaku

UC Law SF International Law Review

In recent years, impunity has become pervasive throughout most African countries. In some African countries, impunity is due to the inability of national governments to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to account for their crimes. In others, impunity arises from the unwillingness of government to utilize the existing legal system to bring criminals, whether they are state- or non-state actors, to justice. Effectively combatting impunity in Africa must begin with the reconstruction of African States to provide democratic institutions, which are capable of adequately constraining the government and preventing civil servants and political elites from acting with impunity; and …

Filling The Gap In The Efficiency Gap: Measuring Partisan Gerrymandering On A Per-District Basis, Richard E. Finneran, Steven K. Luther

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

In Gill v. Whitford, the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to Wisconsin’s state legislative map based upon a lack of standing. While the plaintiffs alleged that the statewide map violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by being gerrymandered to asymmetrically advantage one political party over the other, the Court held that such allegations were insufficient to state a personal, individualized injury under Article III’s Case or Controversy Clause. Since the plaintiffs had not alleged that their voting power in their particular legislative districts had been diluted, the Court found that the plaintiffs’ complaint stated only a “generalized grievance” …

Masthead

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

No abstract provided.

Youtube, K-Pop, And The Emergence Of Content Copycats, Sam Quach

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

YouTube is the internet’s largest and most recognized video streaming platform; the website has millions of daily active users from all over the world and hosts billions of videos. With so much content being hosted on the website, YouTube has developed basic protocol when it comes to copyright issues, including a standardized system for dealing with copyright infringement. But with such a large audience and technology constantly growing and changing, YouTube is constantly faced with new problems. Among content on YouTube, Korean entertainment and pop music (commonly referred to as K-Pop) has quickly become one of the largest markets, with …

Prefatory Matter

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

“The Lord’S Work”: An Overview Of Ceqa’S Judicial Remedies And Recommendations For Reform, Michelle Ouellette, Ali Tehrani

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Thirsty For Justice: The Fight For Safe Drinking Water, Debi Ores

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Cultural Property, Human Rights, And Sustainable Development: The Case Of The Ancient City Of Durrës, Helga Turku

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Adopting And Adjusting To The Development Of The Investor-State Dispute Settlement Mechanism In China’S Recent Bilateral Investment Treaty Negotiations With The European Union, Runyang Liu

UC Law SF International Law Review

The Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism has been widely used in international treaty-making and invoked many times in crossborder dispute resolution. ISDS is a system where a foreign investor can bring claims against a host state for its discriminatory acts upon the investor. As China pursues a new level of outbound investment in the last decade, the ISDS mechanism will apply particularly in the context of investment disputes involving Chinese investors and foreign countries. This note will examine the evolution of ISDS clauses in China’s Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), especially with the European Union (EU), as well as these clauses’ …

Policing The Police: Balancing The Right To Privacy Against The Beneficial Use Of Drone Technology, Jennifer M. Bentley

UC Law Journal

The cost of buying, operating, and maintaining manned aircraft traditionally limited the government’s ability to conduct widespread aerial surveillance. But drone technology is eroding this natural limit because they are cheaper, stealthier, and can be used as a platform for other powerful surveillance tools. Drones are ideally suited for numerous law enforcement tasks such as search and rescue, crime scene investigations, and gaining a bird’s-eye view in dangerous active shooter or hostage situations. Privacy rights advocates fear that drone capabilities are bringing us closer to a “surveillance society” in which our every move is monitored, recorded, and scrutinized by the …

Harris And Whole Woman’S Health Collide: No Funding Provisions Unduly Burden Reproductive Freedom, Alisha Patton

UC Law Journal

This Note analyzes the pro-life crusade to defund Planned Parenthood and exclude private insurance plans that cover abortions from all subsidized insurance markets, ostensibly in accordance with decades-old case law that upheld the Hyde Amendment and other laws that prohibit Medicaid and Title X family planning program funds from being used to pay for abortions. That jurisprudence was based on two premises: (1) that governments have a legitimate interest in favoring live birth over abortion, and (2) that funding restrictions do not constitute unwarranted governmental interference with reproductive freedom because they do not impede abortion access but only disfavor it. …

Codification Of The Economic Substance Doctrine: Substantive Impact And Unintended Consequences, Rebecca Rosenberg

UC Law Business Journal

Section 7701(o) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”) imports the judicial doctrine of economic substance into statutory language. The economic substance doctrine provides that certain tax benefits can be denied if they go beyond congressional intent, even if all of the literal requirements of the Code and its regulations are met. The doctrine is perpetually controversial and has been the subject of recent litigation. This article argues that codification changed the economic substance doctrine (rather than just copying it into statutory form) and produced unintended consequences, many of which have gone unnoticed. The article analyzes the language …

Lost In A Novelty Mug: U.S. Telecom, The Fcc, And Policy Resolution For Net Neutrality, Christopher Terry, Scott Memmel, Ashley Turacek

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper traces the history of net neutrality and the judicial reviews of the Federal Communication Commission’s multiple attempts at regulation, including the agency’s 2006 guidelines overturned in Comcast v. FCC, the 2010 rules overturned in Verizon v. FCC, and the FCC’s reclassification of broadband in its 2015 net neutrality rules, as well as the contemporary battles over the agency’s decision in November of 2017 to repeal the 2015 rules. As the FCC continues to wrestle with net neutrality and open internet regulations, the agency engaged in a series of continuing delays to impede a potential U.S. Supreme Court review …

Defusing A Ticking Time Bomb: The Complicated Considerations Underlying Compulsory Human Genetic Editing, Grant Hayes Frazier

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Gene editing is a type of genetic engineering that enables scientists to change an organism’s DNA by adding, removing, or altering genetic material at particular locations in the human genome. While these editing technologies are in their infancy, they hold great promise for future applications. They also raise many moral, ethical, and legal questions.

Fast forward 10 years. In utero gene editing is effective, safe, and inexpensive (or covered by insurance). A couple with strong religious views against gene editing decides to procreate despite knowing, via family history, they are both homozygous dominant for the allele that causes Huntington’s disease …

Cryptocurrency And The § 1031 Like Kind Exchange, Eli Cole

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

Cryptocurrency has been called “a fraud” by some and “the next internet” by others. However, since the first Bitcoin was mined in 2009, the growth of the cryptocurrency market capitalization has been exponential—surpassing $800 billion at the beginning of 2018. Not surprisingly, the regulations governing these digital pieces of property have lagged the economic growth. In this Article, I attempt to answer the question: should 26 U.S.C. § 1031 apply to an exchange between cryptocurrencies?

This Article argues that the Internal Revenue Service’s decision to classify cryptocurrency as property, combined with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s hesitancy to classify all …

Ghosting In Tax Law: Sunset Provisions And Their Unfaithfulness, Alli Sutherland

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Tax is a subject that could easily put many to sleep. It is dense, convoluted, and intimidating. But it also touches practically every American. This note will discuss how the recent tax overhaul by the Trump Administration includes dangerous provisions, called sunset provisions. These sunset provisions, which get their name from how the law expire after a specified date, are dangerous because they constitute a legislative runaround. Rarely, if ever, do these provisions actually expire. Rather, law makers are able to avoid procedural requirements by placing an end date on the law, but then extending the law’s effective date. This …

New Punitive Damages In Mexican Law – Or The Chronicle Of A Failed Legal Transplant Foretold?, Edgardo Muñoz, Rodolfo Vázquez-Cabello

UC Law SF International Law Review

In February 2014, the Supreme Court of Mexico, referring to some American cases and scholarly articles, held that punitive damages must be awarded to a tort plaintiff as part of the indemnity afforded by Mexican law under the head of moral damages (daños morales). Before this landmark decision, punitive damages were unknown to the Mexican legal system. The authors submit that the legal transplant carried out in Mexico has a few problems, which concern both the incorrect understanding of the adopted rule and the incompatibility of the host legal system. As a consequence, punitive damages, as they stand now in …

Technology Transfer And The Trips Agreement Are Developed Countries Meeting Their End Of The Bargain?, David M. Fox

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

International trade agreements often integrate provisions requiring the transfer of technology from developed to least-developed countries under the assumption that technological development in the world’s poorest countries will help solve pressing global concerns. At first, supplying tangible hardware and equipment to least-developed countries satisfied these trade obligations. Today, however, modern development theory calls for a broader understanding of “technology” to include knowledge, skills, and human resource development. Article 66.2 of the TRIPS Agreement instructs developed country Members to incentivize domestic enterprises and institutions “for the purpose of promoting and encouraging technology transfer to least-developed country Members.” Least-developed countries protest that …

Waiving Goodbye To First Amendment Protections: First Amendment Waiver By Contract, Brittany Scott

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The First Amendment is an embodiment of American freedom and therefore is often considered inviolable. This is a fallacy. First Amendment rights are not absolute and may be waived. The Supreme Court has declined to outline a rule for First Amendment waiver, but the Circuit Courts have filled this gap and adapted the waiver rules from criminal procedure to permit waiver of First Amendment rights by contract. In permitting waiver of First Amendment rights, the Courts give deference to contracts and strain the outer boundaries of First Amendment protections.

Too Much Talk, Too Little Action: The Corporate Side Of Gender Diversity In Governance, Douglas M. Branson

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

The tech industry accounts for twenty-one percent of our gross national product. Yet, tech is the most backward of major U.S. industries when it comes to promoting women to leadership positions or positioning them for future ascension into executive positions. Even lower down in the ranks, the number of women tech companies employ has declined from thirtyseven percent of employees in 1995 to twenty-four percent today (2016), with prognostications that the number will decline further, to twenty-two percent or lower in the next decade. As revealed in compensation tables that companies file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, women account …

Hazing In “White” Sororities: Explanations At The Organizational-Level, Gregory S. Parks, Sarah J. Spangenburg

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

Hazing has been a persistent issue in a variety of contexts, institutions, and organizations. In forty-four states, legislatures have passed anti-hazing statutes. However, the law, as a whole, has been insufficient to curtail hazing. This Article analyzes this phenomenon by looking through the lens of historically white-predominant sororities. Among the broad range of organizational dynamic, at play are the pervasive cognitive biases among members. Further, sororities face many challenges to integrating new and better information across the membership. Lastly, the Article analyzes a range of organizational dynamics that play a role in sorority members’ collective decision-making processes.

Views On Prostitution, Shulamit Almog, Ariel L. Bendor

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

The Essay argues that both law and art represent deeply-rooted cultural ambivalences and ethical incoherence towards prostitution. The choice of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as representative of this tension stems from the sui-generis status of the painting in the history of modern art—as an avant-garde which later became a canon. Of the various views evoked by the painting, four are especially prominent: a moralizing, a normalizing, a victimizing and a patheticizing view. The examination of various Western prostitution laws shows that each of the laws simultaneously expresses different perceptions and ideologies about prostitution, much like the views evoked by the …

Arizona Gamete Donor Law: A Call For Recognizing Women’S Asymmetrical Property Interest In Pre-Embryo Disposition Disputes, Melissa B. Herrera

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a complex series of procedures used to treat fertility or genetic problems and assist with the conception of a child. Through the IVF process, couples and individuals alike can have preembryos created and cryo-preserved for later use. To those who go through the IVF process or are considering doing so, the pre-embryos represent many things, such as hope, flexibility in family planning, and the possibility of a child. It is estimated that over 5 million babies have been born through IVF worldwide, with as many as 620,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States alone. Typically, …