Law Commons^™

What If Refugees Mattered? The Challenge To International Law, Catherine Dauvergne

All Faculty Publications

The starting point of this work is that the figure of the refugee is under-theorized in international law, to the point of being almost entirely absent from dominant accounts of international law. This absence is all the more striking because international law is, if anything, over-theorized. Or, in Martti Koskenniemi’s (vastly more polite) words, “more than other fields, international law’s centre of gravity has been with theoretical abstraction and doctrinal construction.” So why is the figure of the refugee absent? And why does it matter? These are the key questions I am exploring in this work.

Rbr Management, Llc V. Eighth Judicial District Court [State Of Nevada], 142 Nev., Adv. Op. 44 (June 18, 2026), Erika Loveland

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Emergency medical service providers and ambulances are not "provider[s] of health care" under NRS 41A.017, so claims against them are not professional negligence claims and require no expert affidavit.

The Colorado River Water Supply Crisis In A Few Graphs: Part 1, Jack Schmidt, Anne Castle, Eric Kuhn, Kathryn Sorensen, Katherine Tara

The Traveling Wilburys of the Colorado River

In 2026 and for only the third time in the 21st century, there was no accumulation, and no recovery, of total Basin live storage6 during the snowmelt season. Nor was there any accumulation or recovery of total live storage in Lake Powell and Lake Mead during the 2026 snowmelt season. Total Basin live storage (hereafter, total Basin storage) is all the water available in the Colorado River Basin’s reservoir “savings account” and stored in reservoirs within the watershed.7 On June 1, total Basin storage was 22.94 million acre feet (maf), only 1.62 maf above the previous minimum of March 20238 …

Causey V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 43 (June 18, 2026), Madeleine Langhoff

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Child abuse can be a continuing offense warranting only a single court or can be multiple, individual counts depending on the circumstances.

Zhang V. Zhang, 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 45 (June 18, 2026), Nathan Mackay

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Even when a party has violated their disclosure requirements, a district court must analyze the Young factors before issuing a discovery sanction that effectively terminates the case with prejudice.

An Analysis Of Human Trafficking In Alabama, Kimberly Abrams

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this analysis is to gain a thorough understanding of human trafficking in the Alabama. The illegal issue of this analysis is for those who lack a sense of human trafficking, which surrounds the communities where they reside. The theory guiding this study is due to the complexity of the issue globally around the world as it explains the causes of human trafficking amongst victims, which include those who experience poverty, lack of access to job opportunities, natural disasters, and lack of legal protection for immigrants. Additionally, the purpose of this dissertation is to provide insights into the …

The Impact Of Modern Police Equipment And Training On Reported Anxiety And Depression Of Police Officers, Matthew Roy Burford

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study investigated the relationships among law enforcement officers’ access to modern equipment, their confidence in their training, and their reported levels of anxiety and depression. The study also tested whether confidence in training moderated the association between equipment and mental health outcomes. Mental health symptoms were measured using the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al., 1961) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al., 1988). Two researchers-developed instruments to assess officers’ perceived adequacy of their equipment and confidence in their training. Participants were recruited from law enforcement agencies across the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and data were collected through …

Ndls Communicator: Week Of 06.15.26, Notre Dame Law School

NDLS Communicator

The Latest News

• Notre Dame Law School Announces Top Academic Awards for the Class of 2026
• Global Visiting Professors Enrich Scholarship and Community at Notre Dame Law School

Student News

• Joseph Reilly receives Lardy Scholarship Award for 2026-27
• Notre Dame J.S.D. Candidates Present at the 2026 J.S.D. Roundtable hosted by the American University Washington College of Law

Faculty Briefs

• Bruce Huber
• Fr. Pat Reidy
• Pattrick Corrigan
• Haley Proctor
• Paul Miller
• Jimmy Gurulé
• Paolo Carozza
• Carter Snead
• Nicole Stelle Garnett
• A.J. Bellia
• Roger Alford
• Derek Muller
• Msgr. John Paul Kimes
• Diane Desierto
• Rick Garnett
• Yan Yu
• Vincent Philip Muñoz

ND Law …

Byron Aaron Garcia V. State Of Nevada, 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 42 (Jun. 11, 2026), Lauren Jung

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A probationer is not denied due process when the district court relies on the totality of everything, including the preliminary hearing transcript, prior police investigation report, and probation violation report and police report to revoke probation and impose a suspended sentence.

Evolving Roles And Realities In Canadian Academic Law Libraries, Yemisi Dina, Sharon Wang, Sooin Kim, Alexia Loumankis

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Canadian academic law libraries are undergoing profound transformation, shaped by shifting university funding models, restructured institutional reporting lines, and the accelerating move toward digital legal information. This plenary session will explore how law libraries across Canada are responding to these pressures while continuing to support legal education, research, and access to justice.

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Of The National Law School Veterans Clinic Consortium, In Support Of Petitioner, Johnson V. United States Congress, No. 25-735 (U.S. Supreme Court), Yelena Duterte

Court Documents and Proposed Legislation

No abstract provided.

Cardozo Law News Brief: June 5, 2026, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo Law News Briefs

Highlights from the June 5, 2026 Cardozo Law News Brief include:

• The Cardozo Center for Public Service Law honored public-service leaders and advocates at its 34th annual INSPIRE! Awards, celebrating individuals whose work advances Cardozo’s public-service mission.
• Professor Wilfred Codrington III spoke to News From the States and appeared on NPR to discuss the Purcell Principle and the Supreme Court’s role in election-related litigation and redistricting disputes.
• Professor Lindsay Nash authored an op-ed in Lawfare arguing for greater judicial oversight of immigration arrests conducted through administrative warrants.
• Professor Alexander Reinert spoke to the Santa Fe New Mexican about the challenges …

Abundance And The Supreme Court, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

Scarcity mars much of American life. Housing prices in our most productive cities are out of control. The nation’s transportation infrastructure is aging and obsolete because it costs so much more to build here than in other developed countries. Meanwhile, China generates nearly three times as much solar energy as the United States, with the gap growing every year.

Why does the richest nation in the history of the world struggle so mightily to get stuff done? That’s the question that propels Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s 2025 bestseller Abundance, which galvanized what may be the hottest and most controversial …

Las Vegas Police Protective Association V. City Of Las Vegas 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 41 (Jun. 03, 2026), Adrienne Jack-Sands

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The district court may determine whether a dispute is arbitrable, but the arbitrator must be the one to evaluate whether procedural prerequisites have been satisfied and adjudicate the underlying issue.

Intellectual Humility By Design: How Courts Earn Legitimacy And Improve Decisions, Steve Leben

Faculty Works

Courts decide disputes as one branch of our government. Their authority depends not only on getting the outcome right but also on public acceptance of their authority. In a time when confidence in institutions is under pressure, courts cannot assume that legitimacy will take care of itself. They must earn it—case by case—through both the substance of what they decide and the way they exercise authority in public view.

A large body of procedural-justice research explains one side of that equation. People are more willing to accept court decisions, even unfavorable ones, when the process communicates voice, neutrality, respect, and …

Stafford Act's Requirement To Consider Climate Change In State Hazard Mitigation Plans, Olivia N. Guarna

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change is fueling an unprecedented number of extreme weather and climate disasters with dire costs on human life and property. States and local governments now face a responsibility to adapt to these increasing disaster risks to improve community resilience and avoid an ever-growing magnitude of loss. Congress passed the Stafford Act in 1988 to provide a means for sustained and coordinated federal aid in response to disasters. The Stafford Act includes a comprehensive non-emergency hazard mitigation program. Hazard mitigation assistance empowers states, tribes, and local governments to engage in planning and mitigation activities that improve disaster outcomes and minimize …

The Impact Of New York's 2026 Climate Law Retreat, Jonathan A. Binder, Vincent M. Nolette

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

On May 26, 2026, New York State enacted significant revisions to its 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The 2026 Amendments, which include changes to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting methodology, the statewide GHG emission limits, and the requirement to adopt implementing regulations, collectively weaken the Act's ambition. New York’s retreat from state climate action after championing it for years reflects a broader national trend of de-prioritizing mitigation efforts.

The 2026 Amendments will have vast and important consequences for the implementation of the CLCPA. Numerous actions will need to be updated through rulemaking, guidance, or other administrative …

Good Intentions, Mixed Messages: Considering Mental Health In Attorney Discipline, Sarah J. Schendel

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The legal profession urges struggling lawyers to seek help—but what happens when those same lawyers become the subject of discipline? As mental health challenges among lawyers become more widely acknowledged and understood, the disciplinary systems that govern the profession remain uneven and opaque in their treatment of mental health as a mitigating factor. This Article presents the first comprehensive review of over a decade of disciplinary decisions and admonitions in Massachusetts, focusing on how mental health is considered during sanctioning and whether current standards meaningfully reflect the profession’s stated commitments to fairness, public protection, and attorney well-being.

The analysis reveals …

Off-Label Neuroimaging, Jane C. Moriarty

Law Faculty Publications

The growth of neuroimaging evidence in the courtroom is consistent with the increased reliance on technical and machine-based specialties at trial. Litigants routinely seek to introduce neuroimaging evidence in both civil and criminal trials to supplement traditional medical, psychiatric, and psychological opinion testimony. A substantial portion of neuroimaging evidence is still in the developmental stage—what I term “off-label neuroimaging.” Unsurprisingly, evaluating the reliability of developing neuroimaging poses challenging questions for gatekeeping courts. Among the complex evidentiary issues neuroimaging presents for courts and litigants, this Article considers one foundational question: How should courts determine whether neuroimaging evidence is sufficiently reliable for …

Comment On Opm’S Confidential Government Information Nondisclosure Agreement, Rachel Arnow-Richman, Mark Fenster, Jonathan F. Harris, Margaret B. Kwoka, Orly Lobel

UF Law Faculty Publications

This comment critically responds to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) May 2026 proposal to implement a government-wide nondisclosure agreement (NDA) for federal workers. Drawing from our scholarship on workplace governance, employee mobility, whistleblowing, and information controls, we argue that the OPM’s proposal is inconsistent with growing recognition of the risks associated with broad workplace secrecy agreements. Recent federal and state reforms limiting the use of NDAs recognize that such agreements can deter reporting, suppress information of public concern, and impede litigants and government actors from prosecuting wrongdoing. TThese concerns are especially salient in the context of public employment, …

The Administrative Law Of Mccarthyism, Nicholas Handler

Faculty Scholarship

This Article recovers the largely overlooked legal and administrative history of the federal loyalty-security program, and argues that it played a formative role in the development of modern civil service protections and administrative law. During the McCarthy era, the United States Civil Service Commission (CSC), under pressure from Congress, implemented a sweeping loyalty program aimed at rooting out purportedly disloyal federal employees. Though often remembered as a moment of political overreach and civil liberties violations, this Article shows that the loyalty program simultaneously catalyzed a surprising expansion in procedural rights for government workers—both through internal reforms initiated by the CSC …

Owning Geothermal Energy, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Geothermal energy holds vast potential for decarbonizing the U.S. energy system, yet the sector remains significantly underdeveloped, supplying only 0.4% of the nation's electricity. A principal barrier to growth is the fragmented and ambiguous legal landscape currently governing ownership of geothermal resources: thirty-three states lack any clear statutory or common-law framework identifying who owns subsurface thermal energy. This Article examines the physical characteristics of geothermal energy, recent developments in the U.S. geothermal sector, and the principal doctrinal approaches that might govern ownership of subsurface heat, including the ad coelum doctrine, common-pool and open-access frameworks, the rule of capture, and public …

Aggregation And The “Universal” Injunction, Portia Pedro, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, we begin with a brief summary of the CASA decision’s holding regarding the availability of “universal” injunctions. Part II discusses the relationship between remedies and judicial review and the important role that such injunctions play in that regard. Part III explores how class actions could serve as an alternative path for federal courts, after engaging in judicial review, to make their decisions meaningful by requiring officials to comply with the law and to cease illegal actions or policies. We also respond to several objections to the use of class actions in this context. The final Part addresses …

The Supreme Court Under Threat: Early Lessons In Judicial Self-Protection, Curtis A. Bradley, Neil S. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores how the U.S. Supreme Court, despite being vulnerable to defiance of its decisions and political retaliation, has developed tools of judicial self-protection to preserve its institutional authority and thus its capacity to sustain the Constitution and the rule of law. Arguing that the Court performs not only a legal role that requires interpretation of the law but also a political one that demands institutional preservation, the Essay examines how the Court has historically navigated political threats by using a range of tools—including avoidance, delay, narrow rulings, strategic dicta, and rhetorical appeals. The Essay focuses on three nineteenth-century …

Making The Party Presentation Principle Safe For Originalism, Randy E. Barnett, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court sometimes adheres to what it calls the “party presentation principle”—terminology that dates back to 2008. Although judicial articulations of the principle have been inconsistent and imprecise, the gist is the familiar notion that courts should resolve cases on the basis of the issues and reasons presented by the parties to the dispute. Conversely, questions not properly raised by the parties should be avoided by the Court. Thus, the Court has on several occasions declined to address arguments outside the scope of the questions raised by the parties in their petition for certiorari.

For originalists, the importance of …

Evolving Networks: Information Exchanges Reshaping Of Global Finance, Andrew P. Morriss, Charlotte Ku

Faculty Scholarship

This article challenges the characterization of international financial centers (IFCs), often called "tax havens," as enablers of tax evasion and money laundering. Drawing on an extensive analysis of tax treaties, regulatory statutes, and historical literature, we explore the evolution of the global information exchange network, its impact on integrating IFCs into the global financial system, and the resulting curtailment of their use for illicit purposes. The expansion of treaties, from Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs) to Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) and multilateral frameworks like the OECD's Common Reporting Standard (CRS), has significantly limited the potential for secrecy-driven financial activities …

Jurisdictional Waters, Jamison E. Colburn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sex On Trial, Nathalie Greenfield, Sandra L. Babcock

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Andrew v. White that the State’s introduction of sexualizing evidence in a woman’s capital trial may violate due process. In Brenda Andrew’s case, prosecutors presented evidence about her sexual relationships, clothing, and style of underwear as proof that she was guilty of capital murder. Our research, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, reveals for the first time that the prosecution’s tactics in Brenda Andrew’s case were far from unique. Based on a systematic review of the trial transcripts of every woman currently on death row in the …

The Degradation Of Prices: Platform Power, The Erosion Of Price Comparison, And Rebuilding Comparison Shopping In The Digital Economy, Stephanie T. Nguyen, Shaoul Sussman

Center for Law and the Economy

The ability to know the price of a product or service and then compare prices of similar products or services is a foundational cornerstone of consumer choice and competitive markets. Once, buyers could more easily compare identical products across multiple sellers. However, this process has systematically degraded over time and has become increasingly difficult to do in practice. When prices are a reliable signal of product and market value, consumers can make informed purchasing decisions and sellers can compete for business by offering more attractive prices to consumers. This is a core market force that keeps price levels in check …

Seqra Developments: Amendments To Ease Housing Construction, Revised Regulations, New Cases, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In the hopes of easing the housing shortage, on May 26 the New York Legislature passed and Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill that will exempt many multifamily housing projects from the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).

A month before, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued regulations on protecting disadvantaged communities, and took steps to require more discussion of climate impacts under SEQRA.