Law Commons^™

Limiting The Use Of The Categorical Approach And Setting A Statute Of Limitations For Deportation, Viridiana Ordonez

UC Law Journal

The United States relies, in part, on certain criminal convictions to determine which noncitizens are deportable. The specific types of criminal convictions subjecting an individual to deportation proceedings are found in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). However, the INA only lists categories and types of crimes that trigger deportation. It is the courts’ responsibility to compare the state criminal statute grounding the conviction with the list provided under the INA. This process is done using the “categorical approach,” which allows courts to make a comparison and determine if a state criminal conviction matches a crime listed in the INA, …

The Role Of Esg Rating Agencies And Market Efficiency In Europe’S Climate Policy, Ebbe Rogge, Lara Ohnesorge

UC Law Environmental Journal

The European Union (“EU”) set out an ambitious policy agenda to reduce its impact on climate change. Although the popular image is that economic growth and sustainability are practically incompatible, this policy agenda includes measures enabling reallocation of investment towards sustainable projects and companies. This paper posits that, by adopting measures requiring the disclosure of non-financial and in particular Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) information, EU policy relies on market efficiency to ensure the desired reallocation of investment.

In order for this market efficiency approach to work properly, non-financial information must be accessible, comparable, and verified. This creates a new …

Green Bonds: Reforming Esg Regulation In The United States To Meet The Requisite Funding Demand For A Decarbonized Economy, Bryant Rivera

UC Law Environmental Journal

At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP26”) in Glasgow, nations around the world reaffirmed their international commitment to limit average global temperature increases by the end of the century to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This international effort will require a significant amount of funding, one that will demand a substantial restructuring of the U.S. financial market towards a carbon neutral economy. In recent years, green bonds have emerged as the leading financial instrument to finance environmental projects and initiatives. Although the market has seen unprecedented growth, it is nevertheless inhibited by its lack of regulatory structure, with all disclosures …

Radical Legal Change: Moving Toward Earth Law, Tara Pierce

UC Law Environmental Journal

This paper will examine the required paradigm shift in socio-legal philosophical thinking and the shared values between the Public Trust Doctrine and Earth Law. These legal frameworks were born from different social narratives, which greatly impacted their ability to serve the public and the Earth Community. Exploring each legal framework’s origins and current practice will illuminate how the Public Trust Doctrine can bridge the gap between Western legal systems toward Earth Law—a holistic approach to justice in the context of history, society, ecology, and humanity’s relationship with our planet. Earth Law focuses on the roles of beings within their ecosystem, …

Dam Jurisprudence Of The Supreme Court Of India: Situating The Case Of Mullaperiyar Dam Dispute, S. G. Sreejith

UC Law SF International Law Review

The Mullaperiyar dam dispute between the South Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which pertains to the safety of a 126-year-old dam, despite a ruling by the Supreme Court of India to retain the dam, keeps on reappearing before the Court in one way or other. The primary reason for such a recurrence is the fear of 4 million people of Kerala living downstream the century-old dam. Yet the Court has been reluctant to make a final settlement to the dispute and keeps on encouraging the states to find a solution through the political process.

The reluctance of the …

Masthead

UC Law SF International Law Review

No abstract provided.

From The Editor-In-Chief, Ashlee Raskulinecz

UC Law SF International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Duty-Free “Apocalypse Insurance”: Revisiting Peter Thiel’S New Zealand Citizenship, Jonathan Barrett

UC Law SF International Law Review

New Zealand has often been imagined as a place of refuge in the event of social, ecological, economic or another catastrophe. The Covid-19 pandemic drew heightened attention to the desirability of access to a remote and temperate country. For ‘preppers’ of Silicon Valley, such access represents a form of apocalypse insurance. Google co-founder Larry Page was able to enter the country, when it was effectively sealed off to outsiders, to secure medical treatment for his child. To the surprise of many, who have been waiting months if not years for their residency applications to be processed, his investor category class …

Corruption And Merit In The African Higher Education System: Legal, Policy And Sociological Reflections, Cristiano D'Orsi

UC Law SF International Law Review

This article analyses, under legal, political, and sociological aspects, the plight of corruption in Higher Education in Africa. On one side, the fight against corruption on the continent seems to use a growing number of legal instruments, at all levels (international, regional, sub-regional and domestic) on the other hand, however, it clashes against rooted traditions and a common mentality that often seem to justify acts of corruption in African academia. Through my work, I shed light on this, at least apparent, dichotomy and to make a synthesis of the various positions that can be found in Africa regarding this sensitive …

Of Robolawyers And Robojudges, Joshua P. Davis

UC Law Journal

Artificial intelligence (AI) may someday play various roles in litigation, particularly complex litigation. It may be able to provide strategic advice, advocate through legal briefs and in court, help judges assess class action settlements, and propose or impose compromises. It may even write judicial opinions and decide cases. For it to perform those litigation tasks, however, would require two breakthroughs: one involving a form of instrumental reasoning that we might loosely call common sense or more precisely call abduction and the other involving a form of reasoning that we will label purposive, that is, the formation of ends or objectives. …

Private Meetings Between Firm Managers And Outside Investors: The European Paradigm, Giovanni Strampelli

UC Law Business Journal

Institutional ownership of listed companies has grown significantly, leading to an increase in ownership concentration in the European Union. Under the current context of re-concentrated ownership, institutional shareholders are expected, also in Europe, to play a more active role in corporate governance and to exert influence on the company’s strategies. Within such a corporate governance landscape institutional investor engagement is becoming a distinctive feature of corporate governance of European listed companies. In particular, board-shareholder dialogue is a key engagement tool and is essential in order to enable institutional investors to fulfil their stewardship functions. Board-shareholder dialogue is also core to …

The Balancing Of Executive Emergency Powers As They Relate To The Pandemic And Eviction Control, Marialexa Natsis

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Asian And Muslim Americans Intersections, Solidarity And Striving Ahead, Khaled A. Beydoun

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Using Federal Power To Compel Fire Prevention And Address Growing Property Insurance Issues In Wildland-Urban Interface, Brandon A. Prince

UC Law Environmental Journal

The Western United States continues to experience devastating wildfire seasons. These severe disasters worsen as climate change lengthens periods of aridity and hotter temperatures. Despite this longstanding and well-documented forecast, wildland-urban interface (“WUI”) development has continued without much restriction over the past thirty years. Insurers who once issued policies in these western WUI regions now experience substantial losses on an annual basis and are reconsidering their approach to market participation in fire-prone areas. In areas with acute fire destruction like California, insurers’ resulting rate increases and non-renewals have forced state government intervention to protect property owners. This tension is emblematic …

Violations Of The Eighth Amendment: How Climate Change Is Creating Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Robert Pistone

UC Law Environmental Journal

As climate change continues to threaten human life on Earth, greenhouse gas emissions are causing more frequent record-setting temperatures and natural disasters. If the current United States prison system does not take steps to address how climate change is affecting the quality of life of its inmates, then imprisonment will be considered cruel and unusual punishment in the near future. In fact, in light of climate change, there is a strong argument that the current treatment of prisoners is already cruel and unusual punishment when other factors are taken into account. This paper focuses on the standards of what conditions …

The Constitutionality Of Mandating Editorial Transparency, Eric Goldman

UC Law Journal

This Article explores the underappreciated constitutional problems that arise when regulators compel Internet services to disclose information about their editorial operations and decisions (what the Article calls “mandatory editorial transparency”). In particular, this Article highlights the inevitable problems caused by regulators’ attempts to confirm the accuracy of Internet services’ disclosures. The prospect of such enforcements will motivate Internet services to change their decisions to please regulators—thus having the same effect on speech as more direct, and obviously unconstitutional, speech regulations. This makes mandatory editorial transparency regulations another policy dead-end in regulators’ quest to control online speech.

Protecting Free Speech And Due Process Values On Dominant Social Media Platforms, Dawn Carla Nunziato

UC Law Journal

Dominant social media platforms have been increasingly perceived as engaging in discrimination against conservative and right-wing viewpoints. Trump’s deplatforming, coupled with the platforms’ recent removal of Covid- and election-related misinformation, led to cries of censorship by conservatives and increased calls for regulation of the platforms. Supreme Court Justice Thomas took up this charge, suggesting a regulatory path forward for lawmakers seeking to hold the platforms liable for alleged viewpoint discrimination and censorship.

This Article examines the desirability and constitutionality of recent legislative initiatives that seek to provide remedies for these alleged ills and to rein in the dominant platforms’ discretion …

Products Liability In The Digital Age: Online Platforms As “Cheapest Cost Avoiders”, Catherine M. Sharkey

UC Law Journal

Products liability in the digital age entails reckoning with the transformative shift away from in-person purchases at brick-and-mortar stores to digital purchases from e-commerce platforms. The epochal rise of the online storefront has vastly expanded the prevalence of direct-to-consumer sales, implicating complex questions of how liability rules should respond when those consumers are harmed by the products they buy, especially in this age of international e-commerce and cross-border sales.

Imposing liability on online platforms on grounds of their superior ability to prevent harms from newly emergent risks, i.e., their status as “cheapest cost avoiders,” reveals courts’ efforts to vindicate the …

Institutional Choice For Software Safety Standards, Bryan H. Choi

UC Law Journal

The pursuit of software safety standards has stalled. In response, commentators and policymakers have looked increasingly to federal agencies to deliver new hope. Some place their faith in existing agencies while others propose a new super agency to oversee software-specific issues. This turn reflects both optimism in the agency model as well as pessimism in other institutions such as the judiciary or private markets.

This Essay argues that the agency model is not a silver bullet. Applying a comparative institutional choice lens, this Essay explains that the characteristic strengths of the agency model—expertise, uniformity, and efficiency—offer less advantage than one …

Regulating Social Media In The Free-Speech Ecosystem, Anuj C. Desai

UC Law Journal

Social media is just one part of the broader free-speech ecosystem. Social media regulation thus only regulates one part of that ecosystem. To evaluate social media regulation thus requires an understanding of the role social media itself plays—or more importantly, ought to play—in that ecosystem. We must thus first answer the following question: what institutional role should social media play in that broader free-speech ecosystem?

I argue that one framework through which to view this question—or perhaps one subset of this question—is, where should social media companies lie on what we might call the “speakerconduit continuum”? When we think about …

It’S Time For California To Enact Employment Protections For Medical Cannabis Patients, Kevin Murphy

UC Law Journal

California law allows an employer to refuse to hire an applicant or discharge an employee for consuming medical cannabis in order to treat a serious medical condition, even if an individual consumes cannabis at home during non-working hours.

For example, in 2001, employer RagingWire Telecommunications fired its newly hired employee—Gary Ross, a United States Veteran who sustained injuries while serving his country— for using medical cannabis at home during non-working hours to relieve the pain those injuries caused. Mr. Ross challenged his termination, and the California Supreme Court sided with RagingWire, finding that California’s Compassionate Use Act did not protect …

From Schoolhouse Gate To Locker Room Door: The Student Athlete’S Constitutional Right To Protest At A Public University Does Not Stop At The Hardwood, Katharine Waters

UC Law Journal

The Supreme Court has not faced a case involving the public university student athlete’s right to protest during game day events, such as during the pre-game warm up, the national anthem, and game play itself. Protests stemming from the arena of sports is nothing new, and athletes are supported by a long and rich history of influential professional athletes making their mark on civil rights movements. In light of recent and tragic killings of Black Americans at the hands of police, collegiate student athletes have begun to use their platform to raise awareness and express their political viewpoints. As a …

Foreword, Gina Ahmar, Rebecca Siegel

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Property Licenses In Cross-Border Insolvency: Lessons From In Re Qimonda, M P Ram Mohan, Aditya Gupta

UC Law Business Journal

Introduced in 2016, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code overhauled the Indian insolvency regime. Five years young, the Code is now in the process of adopting the Cross-Border insolvency, which was omitted from its original mandate. In 2018, a legislatively appointed committee suggested that the Code should adopt the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross Border Insolvency. However, the Committee overlooked a crucial jurisprudential guideline, which colored the interpretation of the Model Law. It was a crossborder insolvency dispute between American and German regimes. An American bankruptcy court subjected to the German administration of American Intellectual Property assets to protection exclusively available …

The Ethics Of Cryptocurrency, Gordon Goodman Justice

UC Law Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Coming Connected-Products Liability Revolution, Robert S. Peck

UC Law Journal

Technological innovation begets legal revolution. And tort law, as a creature of the common law, makes the most profound doctrinal leaps and does so more rapidly than any other area of law when technology changes our everyday lives to create new wrongs and demand remedies. History demonstrates tort’s unique ability to respond to the newest technologies, as it did with the appearance of railroads and later automobiles.

Today, once again, we are living in an age of great technological change, ushered in by ubiquitous smart devices. Computers, connected to other computers through the Internet, populate a wide variety of everyday …

Cutting-Edge Evidence: Strengths And Weaknesses Of New Digital Investigation Methods In Litigation, Alexa Koenig, Lindsay Freeman

UC Law Journal

The increased use of digital technologies in daily life has led to a steep rise in the introduction of highly technical evidence and expert witness testimony in criminal and civil litigation. The growing use of novel, quickly-developing investigation methods for digital evidence presents several challenges related to the difficulty lay persons have in judging complex forensic methodologies. The lack of judicial and legal training in the underlying methods and their potential vulnerabilities can result in fact-finders who over-rely on experts’ conclusions without properly interrogating the evidence themselves.

While many of the scientific and analytical methods employed by digital investigators can …

The Gdpr As Privacy Pretext And The Problem Of Co-Opting Privacy, Neil Richards

UC Law Journal

Privacy and data protection law’s expansion brings with it opportunities for mischief as privacy rules are used pretextually to serve other ends. This Essay examines the problem of such co-option of privacy using a case study of lawsuits in which defendants seek to use the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) to frustrate ordinary civil discovery. In a series of cases, European civil defendants have argued that the GDPR requires them to redact all names from otherwise valid discovery requests for relevant evidence produced under a protective order, thereby turning the GDPR from a rule designed to protect the fundamental …