Law Commons^™

Sex, Lies, And Genetic Testing: What Are Your Rights To Privacy In Florida?, Jon L. Mills

UF Law Faculty Publications

Individual and human rights in this country have evolved from national movements and national standards. The Fourteenth Amendment's application of rights to the states was a landmark in human rights, guaranteeing all citizens, no matter their state of residence, a baseline of protection. The Federal Constitution was the protector-“states' rights” was the code phrase for discrimination. But in the American crucible of cultural diversity a national standard for “community” may result in the lowest common denominator or a definition based on averaging. Would it not be better when the most individual of rights, privacy, is implicated to define that right …

Beyond Admissions: Racial Equality In Law Schools, Sharon E. Rush

UF Law Faculty Publications

Beginning with a discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, this article discusses the meaning of “integration.” In McLaurin, the University of Oklahoma was forced to abandon its segregation policy and not separate black students from their white classmates in all settings (not just the classroom). The McLaurin decision raised the fundamental questions: "What is integration?" and "How is integration related to racial equality?" Significantly, the McLaurin Court clarifies that equality is premised on integration and that integration means more than just having a presence in an institution. …

Preserving Dynamic Systems: Wetlands, Ecology And Law, Alyson C. Flournoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

Ecology has advanced human understanding of natural systems considerably over the course of this century. Wetlands law and policy have evolved in response to our increased understanding of wetlands and the many benefits we derive from them. Notwithstanding this shift in policy and law, roughly 50% of the wetlands that existed in the continental United States in colonial times have been lost or degraded largely as a result of recent human activity. Current policies struggle to reconcile the goal of preventing further loss with the pervasive concern for making our laws more efficient.

This essay explores the lessons ecology offers …

Corporate Natural Law: The Dominance Of Justice In A Codified World, Stuart R. Cohn

UF Law Faculty Publications

One tends to think of corporate law as quite formalistic, bound by corporate statutes, articles of incorporation, bylaws, and customary rules of commercial conduct. While many aspects of corporate law are indeed so rule-bound, the truth is that the major issues facing directors, officers and shareholders, ranging from fiduciary duties to minority rights, are generally determined by much more amorphous principles of equity. Hence the notion of “corporate natural law.”

Legal Culture, Legal Strategy, And The Law In Lawyers' Heads, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

Legal activity invariably takes place within some structure, however lax. No matter how often the impossibility of such structure is announced by academics, murmurs of disbelief are heard in the trenches below. Legal formalism is the effort to make sense of the lawyer's perception of an intelligible order. This is why in the last two centuries formalism has been killed again and again, but has always refused to stay dead. Weinrib claims to find the structure that explains Formalism's refusal to stay dead in natural law. This Article argues for an entirely different explanation. Law exists in the minds of …

Ecosystem Management And The Everglades: A Legal And Institutional Analysis, Thomas T. Ankersen, Richard Hamann

UF Law Faculty Publications

Three dominant themes can be distilled from ongoing efforts to identify a set of generic principles to guide the management philosophy known as ""ecosystem management."" These include: (1) the notion of boundaries, both geographical and institutional; (2) scientific uncertainty; and (3) governance. This article analyzes the manner in which the present legal and institutional framework for environmental management addresses these themes.

Part II identifies the problems inherent in defining the appropriate management unit for ecosystem management and in delineating the unit's boundaries in the face of inherently complex and unstable ecological factors. Part II also considers the more insidious institutional …

Understanding Mediators' Orientations, Strategies, And Techniques: A Grid For The Perplexed, Leonard L. Riskin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article begins with a review of previous efforts to categorize mediation and their shortfalls, including the lack of any widely-shared comprehensive method for describing the various approaches to mediation practice. The Article then offers a new "grid" system for classifying mediator orientations, strategies, and techniques and describes the potential utility of the grid, particularly its effectiveness in selecting mediators.

Florida's Troubled Phosphate Companies: Can Bankruptcy Law Be Used To Relieve Their Obligation To Reclaim The Land?, Mary Jane Angelo

UF Law Faculty Publications

The conflict that brings us here arises when the earth is disturbed and the environment in which we live is threatened. . . . On the one hand are the corporations who mine phosphate reserves in Florida—their intentions are based on the argument that an ever-shrinking agrarian base in America must have fertilizer to remain effective and productive. On the other hand are the individuals and groups who oppose that mining and their argument is based upon the contention that such mining is too destructive of a unique and very fragile ecosystem.

By the year 2000, phosphate companies will have …

Books Vs. Non-Book Information, Betty W. Taylor

UF Law Faculty Publications

Book survival, particularly in the field of law, is faced with various challenges in this modern age of computer technology." Are law librarians at the crossroads where we have chosen non-book resources over books because of their superiority in content and value? Will books survive? Will only some types of books survive? These questions serve as fodder for futurists, happy solutions for financial woes of administrators, and concern of librarians about service, space, and, perhaps most important of all, their own survival.

Natives, Newcomers And Nativism: A Human Rights Model For The Twenty-First Century, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article undertakes a broad overview of nativist sentiment and discrimination in U.S. social and legal history. Following a powerful vignette of a personal experience encountering nativism because of her accent, the author briefly reviews the history of the New York City Human Rights Commission in Part II. Part III traces the history of U.S. immigration and the parallel legacy of nativism, while Part IV details the legal developments arising from alienage discrimination. After reviewing relevant sources of international human rights law, the author concludes in Part VI by advocating a new human rights paradigm that will promote equality and …

Internet For Legal Information: The U.S. Experience, Claire M. Germain, Patricia G. Court, Jean Wenger, Scott Childs

UF Law Faculty Publications

This empirical study starts from the newest medium, the internet, and explains briefly what researchers can expect to find there in terms of legal information, and how to find the needed information. It focuses on U.S. legal information, but also touches on foreign and international law. It includes comparisons with other legal research platforms and raises a few issues.

Bridging The Gap Between The Rules Of Evidence And Justice For Victims Of Domestic Violence, Lisa Marie De Sanctis

UF Law Faculty Publications

The time has come to bridge the gap between following the rules of evidence and serving justice for victims of domestic violence. I propose that the best way to accomplish this goal is to create a specialized evidentiary rule for the admissibility of uncharged offenses of domestic violence in domestic violence prosecutions.4 The proposed evidentiary rule is based on the new Federal Rules of Evidence 413- 414, which accomplish the same for victims of rape and sexual molestation.

First, in order to give the reader an understanding of the need for this legislation, I will discuss the difficulties that prosecutors …

The Death Of Liability, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

Based on systems/strategic analysis, this paper predicts the complete failure of legal liability system. Liability is the system by which injured persons recover money damages from those who injure them. The system operates through the entry and enforcement of judgments by the courts. The paper argues that the system is vulnerable to defeat by a variety of judgment proofing techniques which can be categorized as secured debt strategies, ownership strategies, exemption strategies, and foreign haven strategies. Computerization has recently brought about dramatic reductions in the costs of pursuing these strategies, making them cost effective for more potential defendants. As use …

The United Nations Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods: Guide To Research And Literature, Claire M. Germain

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article maps research strategies concerning the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and explores some research issues relating to the Convention and its interpretation. More specifically, it provides guidance on where to start, how to find the leading texts, commentaries and practitioners' guides, and where to find the texts of documents. Finally, this article describes some new Internet-based projects, examines where to find additional information, and examines how to keep "up-to-date" with this burgeoning area of international sales law.

Informants And The Fourth Amendment: A Reconsideration, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the Court's current interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which sanctions the government's authority to insert secret spies and informants into our lives, is misguided. Part I highlights the historical background of the Fourth Amendment to show why its procedural safeguards are relevant when considering whether the government should be free of constitutional restraint when deploying informants and spies in our homes and offices. Part II will explain and critique the Court's cases on informants. Part III contends that the Court's doctrine on informants rests on a fallacious conception of privacy. As an alternative to the current …

Reverence For Life And Environmental Ethics In Biblical Law And Covenant, Richard H. Hiers

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article undertakes to examine the covenants and biblical laws concerning human relations with the earth and the various life forms whose habitat it provides. Of course biblical texts do not all speak with a common voice. These texts include differing, and even conflicting perspectives and understandings. However, biblical law and covenant show much greater concern for the well-being of “the environment” and all living things than either proponents or critics of Judaism and Christianity generally have recognized. Many other biblical texts also are relevant to the subject of this article; some of these are noted as background. Because it …

Women's Rights As Human Rights - Rules, Realities And The Role Of Culture: A Formula For Reform, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Beijing, China. Tuesday, September 5, 1995. Beijing International Conference Center (BICC). The afternoon plenary of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women: Equality, Peace, Development is about to start in a hall too small to seat everyone who wants to be there. Other than places for some of the delegates from each attending State, space is limited and in high demand. A lucky few lined up for hours to get a ticket; many ended up negotiating prime space in front of one of several TV screens strategically located throughout the building. A hushed silence fell in the hall and …

Building Bridges: Bringing International Human Rights Home, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This commentary on "Building Bridges" was prepared in connection with a panel presentation addressing the same theme by Latina/o law professors during the 1995 Hispanic National Bar Association's annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It urges that we globalize our domestic legal practice by integrating international human rights norms as a means of developing, expanding and transforming the content and meaning of our human/civil rights jurisprudence. This piece contends that we have a wealth of human rights laws to which we have denied ourselves access in the past and of which we should make greater and better use in …