Law Commons^™

Protecting Human Rights During Emergencies: Delegation, Derogation, And Deference, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Leading human rights treaties permit states as a temporary measure to suspend a variety of human rights guarantees during national crises. This chapter argues that human rights derogation is best justified as a temporary mechanism for empowering states to protect human rights, rather than as a device for enabling national authorities to advance their own interests in a manner that compromises human rights protection. Human rights treaties use broad legal standards to entrust states with responsibility for deciding what measures are best calculated to maximize human right protection during emergencies. For this delegation of authority to operate effectively, international tribunals …

E-Elections: Time For Japan To Embrace Online Campaigning, Matthew J. Wilson

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Asia has embraced the Internet and social media. Japan and South Korea rank among the world’s leaders in technological innovation and Internet penetration. China boasts over 420 million Internet users, and other Asian countries have experienced the widespread acceptance of online technologies. With the rapid ascendency of the Internet and social media, however, Asian countries have sometimes struggled with striking the proper balance between individual rights and the legal regulation of online activities. One prime example of such struggle involves the clash between Japan’s election laws and individual political freedoms.

Although Japan generally subscribes to democratic traditions and the principle …

Demystifying The Determination Of Foreign Law In U.S. Courts: Opening The Door To A Greater Global Understanding, Matthew J. Wilson

Akron Law Faculty Publications

With globalization and the proliferation of international commercial interaction, U.S. courts commonly encounter issues governed by the laws of other sovereigns. These encounters arise by virtue of private agreements or choice-of-law rules covering contractual relationships, cross-border conduct, tortuous acts, employment matters, intellectual property rights, and various other legal foundations. Because the substantive law applied in an international lawsuit can be outcome-determinative, it is important to accurately ascertain and determine the relevant law. In fact, the proper functioning of private international law in a domestic system is based on the appropriate application of law.

U.S. federal and state courts are presumed …

"Smile, You're On Cellphone Camera!": Regulating Online Video Privacy In The Myspace Generation, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the latest Batman movie, Bruce Wayne’s corporate right hand man, Lucius Fox, copes stoically with the death and destruction dogging his boss. Interestingly, the last straw for him is Bruce’s request that he use digital video surveillance created through the city’s cellphone network to spy on the people of Gotham City in order to locate the Joker. Does this tell us something about the increasing social importance of privacy, particularly in an age where digital video technology is ubiquitous and largely unregulated?

While much digital privacy law and commentary has focused on text files containing personal data, little attention …

Law Of The Intermediated Information Exchange, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

When Wikipedia, Google and other online service providers staged a ‘blackout protest’ against the Stop Online Piracy Act in January 2012, their actions inadvertently emphasized a fundamental truth that is often missed about the nature of cyberlaw. In attempts to address what is unique about the field, commentators have failed to appreciate that the field could – and should – be reconceputalized as a law of the global intermediated information exchange. Such a conception would provide a set of organizing principles that are lacking in existing scholarship. Nothing happens online that does not involve one or more intermediaries – the …

Cyberlaw 2.0, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the early days of the Internet, Judge Frank Easterbrook famously dismissed the idea of an emerging field of cyberspace law as akin to a “law of the horse”— a pastiche of unrelated legal principles tied together only by virtue of applying to the Internet, having no unifying principles that would teach us anything meaningful. This article revisits Easterbrook’s assertions with the benefit of hindsight. It suggests that subsequent case law and legislative developments in fact do support a distinct cyberlaw field. It introduces the novel argument that cyberlaw is a global “law of the intermediated information exchange.” In other …

Combating Cyber-Victimization, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In today’s interconnected society, high profile examples of online victimization abound. Cyber-bullies, stalkers and harassers launch attacks on the less powerful, causing a variety of harms. Recent scholarship has identified some of the more salient damage, including reputational harms, severe emotional distress, loss of employment, and physical assault. Extreme cases of online abuse have resulted in death through suicide or as a result of targeted attacks. This article makes two major contributions to the cyber-victimization literature. It proposes specific reforms to criminal and tort laws to address this conduct more effectively. Further, it situates those reforms within a new multi-modal …

Bad Faith In Cyberspace: Grounding Domain Name Theory In Trademark, Property, And Restitution, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The year 2009 marks the tenth anniversary of domain name regulation under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Adopted to combat cybersquatting, these rules left a confused picture of domain name theory in their wake. Early cybersquatters registered Internet domain names corresponding with other’s trademarks to sell them for a profit. However, this practice was quickly and easily contained. New practices arose in domain name markets, not initially contemplated by the drafters of the ACPA and the UDRP. One example is clickfarming – using domain names to generate revenues from click-on …

International Law And Dworkin's Legal Monism, Michael S. Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Section 2: Congress & The Obama White House, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

We Want What's Ours: Learning From South Africa's Land Restitution Program (Oxford University Press), Bernadette Atuahene

All Faculty Scholarship

http://wewantwhatsours.com

Millions of people all over the world have been displaced from their homes and property. Dispossessed individuals and communities often lose more than the physical structures they live in and their material belongings, they are also denied their dignity. These are dignity takings, and land dispossessions occurring in South Africa during colonialism and apartheid are quintessential examples. There have been numerous examples of dignity takings throughout the world, but South Africa stands apart because of its unique remedial efforts. The nation has attempted to move beyond the more common step of providing reparations (compensation for physical losses) to instead …

An Overview Of The International Treatment Of Exceptions, Eric Schwartz

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

This article is intended as a very brief overview and history of the international treatment of “fair use” or its equivalent — that is, a general summary of the treaty obligations and national law exceptions (in statute or by common law) to the exclusive rights of authors and owners of copyrights.

Stratification, Expansion, And Retrenchment: International Legal Education In U.S. Law Schools, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Free Trade In Patented Goods: International Exhaustion For Patents, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

Modern international trade law seeks to increase global welfare by lowering barriers to trade and encouraging international competition. This “free trade” approach, while originally applied to reduce tariffs on trade, has been extended to challenge non-tariff barriers, with modern trade agreements targeting telecommunication regulations, industrial and product safety standards, and intellectual property rules. Patent law, however, remains inconsistent with free-trade principles by allowing patent holders to subdivide the world market along national borders and to forbid trade in patented goods from one nation to another. This Article demonstrates that the doctrines thwarting free trade in patented goods are protectionist remnants …

Disability, Development, And Human Rights: A Mandate And Framework For International Financial Institutions, Michael Ashley Stein, Penelope J. S. Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Responsibility For Regime Change, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

What obligations does a state have after it forcibly overthrows the regime of another state or territory? The Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention provide some answers, but their prohibition on interfering with the governing structure of the targeted territory is outmoded. Based on a careful examination of subsequent practice of the parties to the conventions, this Article asserts a new interpretation of these treaties and argues that regime changers are now under positive obligations in the postwar period and beyond.

Through their conduct and evaluation of modern regime-change missions, states, both individually and acting collectively through international organizations, …

"Islamic Law" In Us Courts: Judicial Jihad Or Constitutional Imperative?, Faisal Kutty

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Surprising Acquittals In The Gotovina And Perisic Cases: Is The Icty Appeals Chamber A Trial Chamber Is Sheep's Clothing, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Diplomacy And Its Others: The Case Of Comfort Women, Monica E. Eppinger, Karen Knop, Annelise Riles

All Faculty Scholarship

The “Comfort Women incident,” now at least several decades old, troubles the familiar view of law as a funnel for politics. Viewed as a funnel, the wide range of legal, political, cultural, and diplomatic efforts to seek or resist redress for the system of sexual slavery institutionalized by the Japanese military during the Second World War would be assessed as ultimately pushing in the same direction: toward vindicating human rights. We see in the Comfort Women incident a far more chaotic interaction of law and politics. As critical legal feminist, we are concerned with finding a truthful and ethical way …

A Realist Approach To Copyright Law's Formalities, Michael W. Carroll

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

Rejecting the conventional story that formalities in copyright law were abolished by the Berne Convention, this Article demonstrates that privately administered systems of formalities play a significant role in the administration of copyright law worldwide. Indeed, they must because copyright is designed to support a transaction structure which requires rightsholders who seek to attract licensing partners to go through some formal step to identify themselves and the works in which they have a legal or beneficial interest. Canvassing the landscape of mandatory and voluntary public and private systems of formalities, this article argues that: (1) national policymakers retain more policy …