Law Commons^™

Between Shut It Off And Keep It On: The Legality Of Internet Shutdowns Under International Law, Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Internet shutdowns are on the surge across the globe, at least four dozen states-imposed internet shutdowns in 2024 alone, in armed conflicts and other situations. In some states where an authoritarian propensity or “digital sovereignty” reigns, internet shutdowns are being imposed to control political narratives during the conduct of hostilities. These states justify their actions using a “shut it off” argument, claiming that the internet is a luxury and further asserting that access to the internet may be overridden by national security or other justifications. On the other hand, there are states that advance open access to the

Internet shutdowns …

The Ever-Expanding Horizon Of Directors’ And Officers’ Duties: An Analysis Of Recent Developments In The United States And Australia, Zehra G. Kavame Eroglu, Isa Alade

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed within five months of each other, resulting in the deaths of 346 people, shareholders filed a suit against the directors for breach of duties. The Delaware Court of Chancery noted that while safety was “essential and mission critical” to Boeing’s business, there was no board committee assigned the specific task of overseeing airplane safety. Turning to Australia, Storm Financial’s collapse caused many clients, most of whom were retirees or nearing retirement, to suffer massive financial losses. With little or no prospect of rebuilding their financial position, these clients lost their investments, their homes …

Lawfare’S New Frontier: International Commercial Arbitration In The Shadow Of Sanctions, Sophie Yue Zhao, Han-Wei Liu

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines how international commercial arbitration is being reshaped by economic statecraft through the lens of lawfare—the strategic use of law as a substitute for traditional coercive tools. Building on Orde Kittrie’s framework, it identifies two modalities of State-driven lawfare affecting arbitration. Instrumental lawfare operates where domestic legal measures displace arbitral authority, exemplified by Russia’s assertion of exclusive jurisdiction over sanctions-related disputes. Compliance-leverage lawfare, by contrast, does not bar arbitration outright but raises the costs and risks of participation, evident in restrictions on legal services and banking access that complicate representation and payment in arbitral proceedings. Beyond State action, …

Improving Case Management For Refugee Child Brides, Harper Kelly Esterle

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A significant number of forcibly displaced persons throughout the world are not only children, but children who are married. When these married minor refugees arrive in host countries, they are often met with concern, judgment, or a critical lack of understanding or regulated procedure for handling their immigration cases. Children are often forcibly separated from their partners and thus isolated from the only family they came with, or they are forced to undergo an extensive judicial review process that, by the time it is resolved, is no longer relevant as the married minors at issue have since reached the age …

Institutionalizing Protection Of Climate Migrants Through A Global Framework Convention On Climate-Induced Migration, Caroline Spencer

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Climate change poses an urgent global challenge, threatening to internally displace 216 million people across six regions by 2050. While it is difficult to predict the extent of crossborder migration, there is no question that climate change will drive cross-border migration. Human rights law and international climate change law require states to protect climate migrants’ human rights; however, the current international framework is inadequate and exhibits a significant protection gap. States possess an obligation under both international human rights law and climate change law to pursue adaptation measures that protect and restore affected human rights, including ensuring protection against refoulement. …

Results Without Reasons, Margaret H. Lemos

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern theories of precedent assume a connection between the outcome of a case and the reasons that support it. A case stands as precedent not (only) for its result but for its ratio decidendi, the rationale on which the decision is based. But what happens when there is no such rationale—when a multimember court issues a decision without majority agreement on the reasons? In the Supreme Court, such cases are governed by Marks v. United States, which instructs lower courts to find the Court’s holding in the position of the Justice(s) who “concurred in the judgments on the …

A Century Of Complexity: Reassessing Jurisdictional Veil Piercing In Light Of Modern Corporate Structures, Dominic Steve Brown

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern corporate enterprises frequently operate through intricate networks of layered subsidiaries, yet courts continue to rely on a rigid and outdated presumption of corporate separateness rooted in a decision predating the current personal jurisdiction regime. In the context of jurisdictional veil piercing, this presumption of separateness has produced doctrinal confusion, inconsistent outcomes, and underenforcement against parent corporations that frequently control, and profit from, forum-based activities carried out by subsidiaries.

This Note argues that the prevailing approach, involving the importation of substantive corporate law doctrines into the jurisdictional analysis, contravenes both modern personal jurisdiction doctrine and contemporary corporate practice. Drawing on …

The Normative Canons Of Criminal Law, Brian G. Slocum

Vanderbilt Law Review

The rule of lenity is an ancient maxim directing that ambiguities in criminal statutes be interpreted in favor of defendants. Courts rarely rely on the rule of lenity, though, and its future is currently being debated. Justice Kavanaugh argues for its elimination, even as Justice Gorsuch argues for it to be strengthened. Most commentators agree with Justice Gorsuch, typically advocating that the rule of lenity be made more powerful. This Article argues for a different approach: The rule of lenity can be strengthened by limiting it to resolving linguistic ambiguity. 

This Article explains why the rule of lenity plays an …

Weird Cops (Agency Police), Farhang Heydari

Vanderbilt Law Review

The police badge has migrated deep into the administrative state. Parks, schools, transit, housing, revenue, conservation, insurance, and gaming agencies now field tens of thousands of sworn “Agency Police”—often with full arrest powers despite missions far removed from general public safety. The footprint of these officers is significant and expanding, outpacing the growth of traditional law enforcement. Far from being limited to certain communities, Agency Police attract support across the political spectrum, from law-and-order policymakers to reformers. And yet, Agency Police are largely ignored in legal scholarship. The result is that a large slice of U.S. criminal enforcement is poorly …

“[Y]Et Another Victory For Deal Certainty”: Chancery Court Orders Specific Performance Of “Hell-Or-High-Water” Covenant To Remedy Reluctant Acquiror’S Obstruction Of Cfius Approval Process, Robert S. Reder, Ricky Bayon-Barrera

Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc

No abstract provided.

Chancery Court Refuses To Dismiss Claim That Activision Directors Failed To Satisfy Revlon Standard Of Conduct In Sale To Microsoft, Robert S. Reder, Jae Ho Yoon

Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc

No abstract provided.

Controlling The Narrative:Copyright’S Derivative Rights Doctrine & Semiotic Disobedience In The Age Of Ai, John Tehranian

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article argues that copyright’s derivative rights doctrine—long treated as a technical mechanism of market control—has operated as a powerful but underexamined tool of epistemic governance. As the doctrine’s scope has expanded, it has increasingly privileged dominant narratives while recasting resistive ones as acts of infringement. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies—from the largely forgotten copyright disputes over the English translations of Mein Kampf and Bambi on the eve of World War II to the infamous stand-off between Wall Street’s Charging Bull and Fearless Girl statues—the Article demonstrates how derivative rights have been deployed to suppress what Sonya Katyal …

Who's Afraid Of Copyright And Ai?, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Copyright and AI need not be a copyright no man’s land. Recent decisions by the Copyright Office have gotten so much media attention that many creators are unsure if they can secure copyright protection if they use AI as a creative tool. The proposed creative control paradigm can help us all tackle the challenge of determining when works created with the assistance of AI are copyrightable. Instead of relying on long-established nuanced precedent for protecting works generated with new technology, the Copyright Office asserts that any content generated with assistance from AI tools is unprotectable. This position is radically inconsistent …

Artificial Personhood: The Implications Of Recognizing The Legal Personhood Of Artificialintelligence, Daniel C. Borges

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here in a big way. As society grapples with the implications of this profound new technology, the question of whether AI entities should be granted independent legal recognition, akin to human personhood, has emerged as a pivotal topic in jurisprudence. This Article explores the foundations, evolution, and implications of AI personhood, addressing philosophical perspectives, the development of personhood as a legal fiction (with specific emphasis on corporate personhood), and the need for AI personhood to counter the risks posed by rapidly developing AI technology. It defines the "AI person" as one whose legal recognition furthers a …

Addressing The Stale Line Of Sports-Betting Behavior: Examining The Economic Shortfalls And Tax Solutions In Legalizing Sports Betting, Peyton Rameas

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Sports betting is a form of gambling that does not suffer from the same negative social stigma as casino gambling despite its equally addictive properties and damaging impact on household consumption. While sports betting was previously banned in most of the United States, following the Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association decision, which empowered states to regulate sports betting within their borders, a wave of states that previously banned all forms of sports betting legalized the practice. Unsurprisingly, this rapid legalization of sports betting was accompanied by a flurry of statewide regulations, leading to disparate consumer protection across the states. …

When The Purse Strings Paint The Picture: Executive Overreach And Censorship In Federal Arts Funding, Megan Brown

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

For decades, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has been tasked with distributing federal funds to museums, galleries, and artists to promote visual artwork for its meritorious qualities and cultural impact. However, the NEA’s role as both a patron and regulator of visual artwork has placed it at the center of a balancing act—funding creative expression that often displays controversial themes, while facing political pressure to define what is a worthy investment of taxpayer dollars. This conversation continues in light of recent executive orders: “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” and “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs …

Turning The Tide: Reforming Western Water Law In The Age Of Ai Infrastructure, Rhyma Asim

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has fueled a global race to construct increasingly powerful supercomputers and data centers. Yet, the legal infrastructure meant to regulate these water-intensive projects remains dangerously underdeveloped. Current water law principles in prior appropriation states only further exacerbate this concern. This Note suggests that reform of water law principles can provide a framework for regulating AI data centers’ water consumption in order to protect societal interests during the global AI race. While data centers present beneficial technological advancements, their lack of transparency regarding water consumption presents concerns for local communities suffering from the numerous …

Limiting Inconsistencies In Legal Languages, Sarah B. Lawsky - Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Inconsistencies play different roles in law and in logic, respectively, and programming languages designed to code law should therefore, when possible, be designed to prevent the encoding of inconsistencies. While inconsistencies in standard logic “explode” the argument, allowing anything at all to be proven, apparent inconsistencies in law simply indicate that further guidance is needed. Programming languages should be limited not because such inconsistencies do not exist in the statute, but rather exactly because they do. Inconsistencies in the law should, as they are now, be addressed by Congress, the courts, and administrative agencies, and any computer code implementing the …

Open Secrets, Robin Feldman Distinguished Professor Of Law, Vaughn Goehrig -- Center For Innovation

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Patents and trade secrets were never intended to meet, but in the world of biologic drugs, they’ve become as thick as thieves. Patent law’s disclosure requirement has demanded far too little of biologics manufacturers—allowing them to keep vital manufacturing details under trade secret lock and key. This intellectual property patchwork has been devastating for drug affordability: Because the most critical manufacturing information remains hidden, makers of follow-on biologics (called biosimilars) are often stuck reinventing the wheel, even after the original patents have expired. This Article makes two principal contributions to illuminating this problem. First, it presents, for the first time …

Patent Law's Trade Remedy, Michael L. Doane

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Although a trade remedy, not an intellectual property rights statute, Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 plays an important and controversial role in the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the United States. As a trade remedy, Section 337 is designed and intended to promote innovation and investment in the United States through support of statutorily defined domestic industries against unfair competition from infringing imported products. This Article analyzes Section 337 as a trade remedy from the perspective of intellectual property rights owners and innovators such as start-up companies, universities, individual inventors, and other research and development-focused entities. …

Accessibility In The Edtech Era: The Growth In Implementation Oflearning Technologies And Thestudents Who Are Left Behind, Madeleine Braksick

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Educational Technology (EdTech) has gained popularity in recent years, enabling distance learning and connectedness across school districts, and among students, teachers, and families alike. However, vague or nonexistent standards for regulating these technologies have led to students with rights to special education services not having those services upheld to the same standard as traditional educational mechanisms. While the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has been modified over time to form heightened standards for making education appropriate for all students, it has consistently fallen short in its regulation of both assistive and educational technologies. This Note explores the consequences of …

When Robots Read Westlaw: Linking Inputs And Outputs In Generative Ai Fair Use Analysis, Aaron Lam

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Generative artificial intelligence has revealed a novel tension in copyright law: a two-stage act (input and output) of copying that traditional fair-use doctrine never squarely anticipated. In the input stage, vast swaths of copyrighted expression are reproduced and ingested to train large language models. In the output stage, those models generate works that may substitute for or dilute the market of the originals. Courts now face both stages. Their rulings diverge when they consider training and outputs together. In Bartz v. Anthropic PBC and Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., the courts characterized training uses as “highly transformative,” yet reached opposite …

Foreword: Raising Our Voices, Together, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Let’S Break Chains: Ending Solitary Confinement In Prisons, Charlotte Kim

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Band-Aid Over A Bullet Hole: The Lack Of Mental Health Care In Women’S Prisons And The Culture That Perpetuates It., Deborah, Julie, Karli Tellis, Misty, Olivia Hatch, Sara Manian

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Furtherance Or Failure Of Justice: Felony Murder Framework In Tennessee, Anokhi Patel, Erika, Joelyn Onyekachi, Meleah, Oluwafunmilayo Oguns, Vernice, Erin Melton

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Carceral State, The Criminalization Of Black Thought And Behavior, And Its Effects On The Black Community And Black Art, Sydney Stewart

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

Rehabilitation In Name Only: Structural And Procedural Failures In Tennessee’S Parole System, Laney Quickel, Ashia Davis, Kresha Patel, Michelle, Camillia, Sherra

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Need For A Sentencing “Second Look” Statute In Tennessee, Alisha, Bershia, Lindsey, Rhyma Asim, Cassandra Berice, Kyle Smith

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.

What We Can Glean From The Book Of Ruth: A Novel Approach To Keeping The Schoolhouse Doors Open To All Children, Summer Basham Todd

Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter

No abstract provided.