Law Commons^™

30 Years Removed, Oil-Spill Liability Insurance's Evolution Since The 1989 Exxon Valdez Incident, Rejo Mathew

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In the thirty years since the Exxon Valdez incident, much has changed. This article looks back at the events of the accident and the subsequent changes to the marine pollution insurance industry, from the statutes regulating oil tankers in 1989 to the Oil Pollution Act of the 1990. The regulatory framework resulting from the Exxon Valdez is examined and compared to the litigation deriving from the spill.

The Dark Matter Of Federal Indian Law: The Duty Of Protection, Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Maine Law Review

The United States and every federally recognized tribal nation originally entered into a sovereign-to-sovereign relationship highlighted by the duty of protection, an international customary law doctrine in which a larger, stronger sovereign, America in this case, agrees to “protect” the small, weaker sovereign, in this case, tribal nations. America agreed to this in exchange for massive, occasionally unquantifiable amounts of land and resources, as well as the power to control the external sovereign relations of the protected sovereign. The smaller sovereigns received protected reservation lands, hunting and fishing rights, small cash infusions, and the vague promise of protection. What tribal …

Governance Of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal Research Under The United Nations Conventions On The Law Of The Sea, Wil Burns

Maine Law Review

There has been a spate of research in recent years indicating that achievement of the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement can only be effectuated through both aggressive decarbonization of the global economy and large-scale deployment of so-called carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches. While much of the early focus of CDR research was on terrestrial options, such as afforestation, direct air capture, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, more recently, many in the scientific and policy community have increasingly focused on potential ocean-based approaches, including ocean fertilization, ocean alkalinity enhancement, macroalgae harvesting, and ocean upwelling and downwelling. However, while …

Non-State Actors "Under Color Of Law": Closing A Gap In Protection Under The Convention Against Torture, Anna R. Welch, Sangyeob Kim

Faculty Publications

The world is experiencing a global restructuring that poses a serious threat to international efforts to prevent and protect against torture. The rise of powerful transnational non-state actors such as gangs, drug cartels, militias, and terrorist organizations is challenging states’ authority to control and govern torture committed within their territory.

In the United States, those seeking protection against deportation under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) must establish a likelihood of torture at the instigation of or by consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity. However, what is …

The Constitutional Law Of Equality In Canada, Kathleen E. Mahoney

Maine Law Review

On April 17, 1982, Canada repatriated its constitution from the Parliament at Westminster, sweeping away one of the final vestiges of its colonial past. At the same time, a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was constitutionally entrenched, giving the people express constitutional rights for the first time. The equality provisions, in particular, represented a new era in Canadian constitutional law. The intense debate leading up to the entrenchment of the Charter raised profound questions about the basic nature of the country, its values, and its ability and willingness to acknowledge equality for women and other disadvantaged groups. Since the …

Book Review: Crafted Legal Ambiguity In The South China Sea Arbitration, Ariel A. Hampton

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

People may initial not see the area known as the South China Sea as worthy of the trouble of an Arbitral Tribunal proceeding courtesy of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), especially when they are unsure of the trouble it may bring. This area, rich in resources and firmly entrenched in various historical claims, became the subject of controversy between multiple nations. According to the NUS Centre for International Law in its book The South China Sea Arbitration: The Legal Dimension, the end to the controversy hinged on how the tribunal would choose to characterize …

Human Rights Violations Consequent To Transshipment Practices In Fisheries, Chelsey F. Marto

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Transshipment, the process of transferring catch from a small fishing vessel onto a larger fishing vessel far off shore, has been used to commit a variety of human rights abuses on the sea. Companies can get away with this because there is little to no oversight over the activities. Yet, there has been little to no incentive to change these practices, because companies are generally not penalized for these actions. The author proposes a variety of tactics be implemented in addressing these concerns. These include imposition of sanctions upon countries who allow for nefarious activities, increased video surveillance on board …

Marine Renewable Energy Law And Policy In The Bay Of Fundy: The Impact Of Ambiguous Domestic Boundaries In Canada On Nova Scotia's Regulatory Framework, Esteban Salcedo

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Using a legal history methodology, this paper examines existing marine renewable energy law and policy in Nova Scotia with a focus on its application in the Bay of Fundy. This paper critically assesses the current approach to coastal management in light of recent recommendations summarized in the Fournier report. This paper argues that, despite clear calls to develop integrated ocean management and marine spatial planning in policies and regulations, Canada and Nova Scotia have failed to do so because of unclear federal-provincial boundaries. Ambiguous domestic borders in the Bay of Fundy have been at the source of an overly cautious, …

Precedent And Dialogue In Investment Treaty Arbitration, Richard C. Chen

Faculty Publications

Since the turn of the century, investment treaty arbitration (ITA) tribunals have begun citing past decisions with increasing frequency. They do so despite the absence of any formal doctrine of stare decisis and the presence of structural obstacles to the use of precedent in this context. Scholarship in this area has focused on explaining the rise of this de facto doctrine of precedent and evaluating the merits of the practice. Few have grappled with more practical questions about how precedent should operate in this unique sphere, but even a cursory examination of ITA decisions would reveal that some order and …

Law As Strategy: Thinking Below The State In Afghanistan, Charles H. Norchi

Faculty Publications

U.S.engagement in Afghanistan is inevitable, but there will be choices about strategy. In 1952, the U.S.Naval War College convened a lecture series devoted to strategy. On March 20, the lecturer was Harold D.Lasswell, an architect of the New Haven School of Jurisprudence. Lasswell observed, “The aim of strategy is to maximize the realization of the goal values of the body politic.” This article proposes that law is among the available strategic instruments to advance goal values common to the United States, Afghanistan,and the world community.

Habitual Residence V. Domicile: A Challenge Facing American Conflicts Of Laws, Mo Zhang

Maine Law Review

Habitual residence has now become an internationally accepted connecting factor in conflict of laws and is widely being used as an alternative to, or replacement of, domicile. This concept, however, remains remote to American conflict of laws. Although the use of habitual residence in the U.S. courts is mandated by the codification of the Hague Child Abduction Convention, there is still a lack of general acceptance in American conflict of law literature. The Article argues that habitual residence should be adopted as a conflict of law connecting factor in American conflict of laws, and it would be unwise for the …

The Use Of American Precedents In Canadian Courts, Gerard V. La Forest

Maine Law Review

In 1849, the Supreme Court of New Brunswick faced the issue of whether there was a public right to float logs on navigable streams. Not surprisingly, no general right was found in the English common law as large scale floating of lumber down rivers did not exist in England. “Yet in a young country like Canada, the right to float logs and timber was an economic necessity in many areas and some device had to be found to make the activity legal.” To find that legal device, the New Brunswick court turned to the United States, specifically to Maine, and …

A Comparison Of Constitutionalism In France And The United States, Martin A. Rogoff

Maine Law Review

In the American legal system, the Constitution is the fundamental legal document. All law, and in fact any exercise of public power in any form, is evaluated for validity by constitutional standards. The Constitution deals with such crucially important matters as the structure and operation of government and the fundamental rights of the governed. The Constitution is also the most important symbol of American national life and the perceived repository of the most cherished values of the American people. In France, in marked contrast, a comprehensive code of private law, the Code civil, has for a long time occupied a …

Global Intersections: Critical Race Feminist Human Rights And Inter/National Black Women, Hope Lewis

Maine Law Review

In this brief essay, I illustrate how Critical Race Feminist analysis could reconceptualize the human rights problems facing “Inter/national Black women” --in this case, Black women who migrate between the United States and Jamaica. This focus on Jamaican American migrants is very personal as well as political; I was raised by Jamaican American women. However, I have begun to focus on such women in my research not only in a search for “home” but also because there are important lessons to be learned from those who are the least visible in the legal literature. I draw the framework for a …

Shattered Jade, Broken Shoe: Foreign Economic Development And The Sexual Exploitation Of Women In China, Elizabeth Spahn

Maine Law Review

Predicting the ways in which feminisms might develop in the next century is unfortunately well beyond my own capabilities. In the next decade or two, however, one thing I believe we might want to think about are the relationships between feminisms and global free market capitalisms. The question I am asking, simply stated, is the extent to which economic development (free-market global capitalism) advances, is neutral toward, or harms women. One traditional American way of viewing the global free market is to tout economic development as a panacea for the problems facing the world's poorest and most violated group, women. …

Litigating Genocide: A Consideration Of The Criminal Court In Light Of The German Jew's Legal Response To Nazi Persecution, 1933-1941, Jody M. Prescott

Maine Law Review

After years of negotiation, a majority of the nations of the world have agreed to create an International Criminal Court. It will be given jurisdiction over three core types of offenses: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. With regard to war crimes, however, nations that join the court may take advantage of an “opt-out” procedure, whereby the court's jurisdiction over these offenses may be rejected for seven years after the court comes into existence. For various reasons, a small number of nations, including the United States, have refused to sign the treaty creating the court. While heralded as a …

Copyrighting The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qimron V. Shanks, David L. Cohen

Maine Law Review

In 1992, Professor Elisha Qimron of Ben Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, Israel, brought suit against the editors and publisher of A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a complete set of photographs of the scrolls, for copyright infringement and the tort of mental anguish asking for approximately $250,000 in damages. The case centered on an appendix of the book which included a portion of a scroll text, Misgat Ma'Aseh ha-Torah—Some Rulings Pertaining to the Torah (MMT), reconstructed by Qimron. MMT consists of 121 lines of text, and Qimron's reconstruction—referred to in the suit as the Compiled Text (CT)—consisted …

A Critical Analysis Of The Women's Constitutional And Legal Rights In Zimbabwe In Relation To The Convention Of The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Amy S. Tsanga

Maine Law Review

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) comprehensively outlines the international standards on the rights of women that are to be pursued by State Parties to the Convention. Adopted by the General Assembly in 1979, it entered into force in 1981 and set the scene for a comprehensive approach to the human rights of women by State Parties that have ratified the Convention. The underlying spirit of the Convention is that discrimination against women violates principles of equality and respect for human dignity and presents obstacles to the advancement of women in the political, …

Sex, Allies And Bfoqs: The Case For Not Allowing Foreign Corporations To Violate Title Vii In The United States, Keith Sealing

Maine Law Review

The extent to which foreign corporations as well as their domestic subsidiaries can discriminate against American employees on the basis of sex, age, religion, and national origin in a manner that would be acceptable under their own laws and customs but inimical to American law is currently determined by a muddled jumble of circuit court opinions interpreting a “[w]e express no view” Supreme Court footnote. As a result, American victims of sexual discrimination have much less protection under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when the discriminating actor is a foreign corporation or its domestic subsidiary than …

The Corporate Face Of The Alien Tort Claims Act: How An Old Statute Mandates A New Understanding Of Global Interdependence, Lorelle Londis

Maine Law Review

In the past thirty-five years, international human rights lawyers and, more recently, international environmental lawyers, have been invoking the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) as a tool to prosecute human rights abuses committed abroad by transnational corporations (TNs) in U.S. federal courts. The ATCA provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Although plaintiffs' lawyers have experienced some success in the human rights context, most claims of environmental abuses have failed. In all these …

Frank M. Coffin Lecture On Law And Public Service: The Future Of International Criminal Justice, Richard J. Goldstone

Maine Law Review

The Thirteenth Annual Frank M. Coffin Lecture on Law and Public Service was held in the fall of 2004. Justice Richard J. Goldstone, former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and pioneer for international justice and human rights, delivered the lecture. Established in 1992, the lecture honors Judge Frank M. Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, an inspiration, mentor, and friend to the University of Maine School of Law.

Concerning French International Law Manuels: A Critical Review Of The Principal French Textbooks In Public International Law, Alix Toublanc

Maine Law Review

The perspectives of French lawyers concerning international law and international institutions are formed largely by the basic course in public international law that they took as law students. Students in the course attend formal lectures by the professor (cours magistraux) and often supplementary section meetings, or tutorials, with instructors (travaux diriges), as well as read all or part of a basic textbook (manuel) in public international law and other assigned materials. One way to gain insight into the fundamental ways of thinking about international law of French lawyers and law-trained officials is to take a close look at the manuels …

Contrasting Perspectives And Preemptive Strike: The United States, France, And The War On Terror, Sophie Clavier

Maine Law Review

A few years ago, Samuel P. Huntington's article in Foreign Affairs, "The Clash of Civilizations?" described a "West vs. the Rest" conflict leading to the assumption of an essentially unified Western civilization settling "[g]lobal political and security issues ... effectively ... by a directorate of the United States, Britain and France" and centered around common core values "using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will . . . protect Western interests . . . .” Against the West, the specter of disorder and fundamentalism was looming and would precipitate conflicts. This widely …

Collective Security And The International Enforcement Of International Law: French And American Perspectives, Ana Peyró Llopis

Maine Law Review

Is the American perspective on the enforcement of international law compatible with the French perspective? For American legal scholars, the term enforcement is sometimes used as the equivalent of the following French notions: mise en oeuvre, application, and also coercition. The American term enforcement appears to be used in situations where the French prefer legal terms that are closer to the connotation of implementation rather than that of enforcement. What are the consequences of the use of such different terms? Is there, behind the use of different language, with different meanings and approaches, a different perspective on the enforcement of …

Unilateral And Multilateral Preventive Self-Defense, Stéphanie Bellier

Maine Law Review

The governing principle of the collective security system created by the United Nations Charter in 19451 is the rule prohibiting the use of force in Article 2(4), which provides that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purpose of the United Nations." This rule prohibiting the use of force was considered revolutionary at the time because it transformed into international law ideas which had for centuries, if not millennia, preoccupied the minds of people …

Exorbitant Jurisdiction, Kevin M. Clermont, John R.B. Palmer

Maine Law Review

Exorbitant territorial jurisdiction in civil cases comprises those classes of jurisdiction, although exercised validly under a country's rules, that nonetheless are unfair to the defendant because of a lack of significant connection between the sovereign and either the parties or the dispute. The United States, France, and most of the rest of the world exercise a good deal of exorbitant jurisdiction so defined. In the United States, an emphasis on power derived from territoriality has led to jurisdictional restraint in some respects, but has also allowed general jurisdiction based solely on transient physical presence, the attachment of property, or extensive …

Application Of Treaties And Decisions Of International Tribunals In The United States And France: Reflections On Recent Practice, Martin A. Rogoff

Maine Law Review

In recent years, with the growth of international treaty law and the increasing role of international tribunals, questions involving the application of conventional international law and the decisions of international tribunals by national courts have assumed great practical importance. This is not only because such questions are arising with increasing frequency, but also because the way in which they are handled by domestic courts has a lot do with the efficacy of international law. As a practical matter, the rules of conventional international law and the decisions of international tribunals, if applied or effectuated by domestic courts, may very well …

Commentary: Convergences And Divergences: The United States And France In Multilateral Diplomacy, André Lewin

Maine Law Review

Despite the divergences that have regularly separated the United States and France, or at the very least their officials-who unfortunately influence public opinion as well-there are, in my opinion, more similarities than differences than one would believe between these two countries' approaches to international relations. They both feel that they have a calling to defend the advancement of universal values in the world in order to further humanity along the road of peace, democracy, happiness, and justice. The United States, which can be considered a relatively new country, values respect for human rights, free enterprise, equal opportunity for everyone, individual …

France, Europe, The United States, Abdelkhaleq Berramdane

Maine Law Review

Fascination and rejection have always characterized Franco-American relations, like an old couple who are not able to forgive: for France, the battle of Yorktown where Lafayette and Rochambeau contributed to the independence of the former British colonies; for the United States, American participation, twice, in the liberation of France. Neither one willing to credit its salvation to the other. A tumultuous relationship very much resembling the rocky history of the Statue of Liberty ("Liberty Enlightening the World"), offered by a still fragile Republic to a distant sister, who only begrudgingly offered it a pedestal. For centuries French literature has been …

Thought Versus Action: The Influence Of Legal Tradition On French And American Approaches To International Law, Dana Zartner Falstrom

Maine Law Review

In the months leading up to the U.S. intervention in Iraq in March 2003, the dialogue between the United States and France on the appropriate course of action to take in response to Iraq's report on its weapons of mass destruction revealed differences between these traditional allies as to the options available under international law. These differences did not center on the goals of any proposed action-both sides in fact agreed upon the goals, which were to ensure there were no weapons of mass destruction; to prevent an increase in terrorist activity; and to address the continuing violations of international …