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Controlled Impairments Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: A Search For The Meaning Of "Disability", Erica Worth Harris Jul 1998

Controlled Impairments Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: A Search For The Meaning Of "Disability", Erica Worth Harris

Washington Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination. Since its passage in 1991, the number of individuals seeking protection under the Act has steadily increased and the types of impairments claimed to qualify as disabilities have dramatically expanded. Many disability claims test the boundaries of the Act and reveal a muddied conception of what constitutes a disability for purposes of the ADA. This Article investigates the meaning of the term disability to define more clearly who should benefit under the Act. By focusing on controlled impairments, a group of disability claims that has produced a split …


The Press: Its Sins And Grace, Anthony Lewis Jul 1998

The Press: Its Sins And Grace, Anthony Lewis

Washington Law Review

Under the First Amendment, as it has come to be understood, the American press has more freedom than the press of any other country. I want to explore the question of what our press does with that great freedom. Does it show a matching responsibility? How well does it perform the role that the framers of the Constitution thought justified the protection they were giving us, the role of holding government accountable to the people? James Madison put it that in the United States "the people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty." That was "altogether different" from Britain, he …


No More Messing Around: Substantive Due Process Challenges To State Laws Prohibiting Fornication, Traci Shallbetter Stratton Jul 1998

No More Messing Around: Substantive Due Process Challenges To State Laws Prohibiting Fornication, Traci Shallbetter Stratton

Washington Law Review

Anglo-American law has historically prohibited fornication, and through the 1960s fornication remained illegal in all but ten states. Few questioned the validity of laws proscribing various forms of private, adult, consensual sexual behavior until the early 1970s. Aside from legislative repeal, substantive due process has been the primary weapon in the fight against state sex laws. Although the U.S. Supreme Court's substantive due process jurisprudence, particularly in the area of personal privacy, has brought the constitutionality of fornication statutes into question, it has not definitively resolved the matter. This Comment argues that laws prohibiting fornication do not violate substantive due …


Riss V. Angel: Washington Remodels The Framework For Interpreting Restrictive Covenants, Casey J. Little Apr 1998

Riss V. Angel: Washington Remodels The Framework For Interpreting Restrictive Covenants, Casey J. Little

Washington Law Review

In Riss v. Angel, the Supreme Court of Washington declared that in disputes between subdivision homeowners, courts must construe restrictive covenants to give effect to the covenants' intended purposes by considering surrounding circumstances to protect the homeowners' collective interests. The court further held that when restrictive covenants grant discretion to architectural review committees (ARCs) to approve new construction or remodels, ARCs or other homeowners association committees that enforce such covenants must exercise their authority reasonably and in good faith. Riss represents a departure from prior precedent that required courts to construe strictly the terms of restrictive covenants to limit …


Sex Discrimination And Insurance For Contraception, Sylvia A. Law Apr 1998

Sex Discrimination And Insurance For Contraception, Sylvia A. Law

Washington Law Review

Unintended pregnancy is a serious problem in the United States. Most private insurance plans do not pay for contraception even though they pay for other prescription drugs and devices. This Article argues that this pattern constitutes sex discrimination and is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. It discusses the reasons this issue has been neglected and suggests ways federal and state officials might remedy this common form of gender discrimination.


Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law: Response. Efficiency And Equity: What Else Can Be Gained By Combining Coase And Rawls, Russell B. Korobkin, Thomas S. Ulen Apr 1998

Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law: Response. Efficiency And Equity: What Else Can Be Gained By Combining Coase And Rawls, Russell B. Korobkin, Thomas S. Ulen

Washington Law Review

Professors Swygert and Yanes seek to bring efficiency and equity to bear explicitly on the economic analysis of law by merging Rawlsean social contract philosophy into law and economics' basic premise, the Coase Theorem. We are in complete agreement with Swygert and Yanes that good legal policy should be concerned with both efficiency and equity, and we welcome their attempt to merge the two as a useful step in an important debate. Ultimately, though, we are unconvinced by their argument as it currently stands for two reasons. First, by focusing only on the way in which their approach might affect …


The Property Scope Of Habeas Corpus Review In Civil Removal Proceedings, Andrea Lovell Apr 1998

The Property Scope Of Habeas Corpus Review In Civil Removal Proceedings, Andrea Lovell

Washington Law Review

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), two 1996 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, eliminated direct judicial review in the federal courts of appeals of final removal orders for aliens convicted of certain enumerated crimes. The legislation also appears to limit the habeas corpus jurisdiction of the federal district courts. While most circuit courts agree that some degree of habeas corpus review of removal orders is constitutionally mandated, several have interpreted AEDPA and IIRIRA as limiting the scope of that review. This Comment argues that the scope …


Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law: Response. An Integration Of Equity And Efficiency, Richard O. Zerbe Jr. Apr 1998

Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law: Response. An Integration Of Equity And Efficiency, Richard O. Zerbe Jr.

Washington Law Review

Swygert and Yanes, in an article in this issue of the Washington Law Review, suggest a means to achieve this integration. In this Article, I first discuss the shortcomings of the approach suggested by Swygert and Yanes. Next, I suggest a more practical approach for integrating efficiency and equity that relies on benefit cost analysis. Finally, I consider some of the cases to which Swygert and Yanes apply their analysis. The fundamental shortcoming of the Swygert and Yanes approach is that it offers little for deciding practical cases. The authors combine two abstract and heuristic proposals and quite naturally …


Asymptomatic Hiv As A Disability Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Elizabeth C. Chambers Apr 1998

Asymptomatic Hiv As A Disability Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Elizabeth C. Chambers

Washington Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not state whether it prohibits discrimination against individuals who are infected with HIV but asymptomatic. Some courts have held that the language of the ADA is unambiguous and does not cover asymptomatic HIV as a disability because the virus is not an "impairment" that substantially limits a "major life activity." Other courts have looked behind the statutory language and found that Congress intended to protect asymptomatic individuals with HIV because the virus impairs one's ability to procreate and/or engage in sexual relations. This Comment argues that asymptomatic individuals with HIV are indeed protected …


Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law. A Unified Theory Of Justice: The Integration Of Fairness Into Efficiency, Michael I. Swygert, Katherine Earle Yanes Apr 1998

Focus On Fairness, Efficiency, And The Law. A Unified Theory Of Justice: The Integration Of Fairness Into Efficiency, Michael I. Swygert, Katherine Earle Yanes

Washington Law Review

An idea generally shared by both economists and philosophers is that a legal rule may either achieve distributive fairness or bring about an efficient outcome, but not both. In this Article, the authors argue that justice requires that legal rules consider both fairness and efficiency. The Article discusses the Coase Theorem, as a tool for determining the most efficient allocation of rights and duties, and the ideas of John Rawls for deriving a fair social contract. The authors then combine aspects of these two hypothetical consensus models into a unified theory of justice that considers the question of what agreements …


Capitalizing The Target's Transaction Costs In Hostile Takeovers, David J. Roberts Apr 1998

Capitalizing The Target's Transaction Costs In Hostile Takeovers, David J. Roberts

Washington Law Review

In A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co. v. Commissioner, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that costs a corporation incurred to resist a hostile takeover were analogous to costs incurred to defend a business against attack and thus qualified as ordinary and necessary business expenses deductible under Internal Revenue Code section 162. Alternatively, the court held that those costs associated with abandoned capital transactions qualified for loss deductions under section 165. This Note argues that although the court reached approximately the right result in this case, its primary reliance on a defense of business rationale for deductibility under …


One Country, Two Systems: Theory Into Practice, Guiguo Wang, Priscilla M F Leung Mar 1998

One Country, Two Systems: Theory Into Practice, Guiguo Wang, Priscilla M F Leung

Washington International Law Journal

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was established on July 1, 1997, when the former colony was handed over by Britain to China. Thereafter the policy of "One Country, Two Systems" began as dictated by the Basic Law. This article examines the evolution of the "One Country, Two Systems" policy and discusses how this policy has been reflected in the Basic Law. As any change in the Basic Law may affect the implementation of this policy, and perhaps the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, this article also analyses the scheme, policies and rules in relation to interpreting and amending …


The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines Under The Japanese Constitution And Their Implications For U.S. Foreign Policy, Chris Ajemian Mar 1998

The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines Under The Japanese Constitution And Their Implications For U.S. Foreign Policy, Chris Ajemian

Washington International Law Journal

The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines represent additional commitment by Japan to the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the primary source of Northeast Asian security and stability. Certain tasks within Japan's enhanced role raise questions of whether the Guidelines are compatible with Article 9 of Japan's Constitution. On its face, Article 9 renounces Japan's right to wage war or maintain military force, yet it has been interpreted to allow a defensively-oriented, though massive, military. Based on the existing interpretation of Article 9, it is likely that Japan will declare its new role under the Guidelines constitutional. U.S. policy toward Japan in the short-term …


Malaysia's "Computer Crimes Act 1997" Gets Tough On Cybercrime But Fails To Advance The Development Of Cyberlaws, Donna L. Beatty Mar 1998

Malaysia's "Computer Crimes Act 1997" Gets Tough On Cybercrime But Fails To Advance The Development Of Cyberlaws, Donna L. Beatty

Washington International Law Journal

Malaysia is in the process of developing the Multimedia Super Corridor ("MSC"), a high-tech zone sometimes called "the Silicon Valley of the East." As a way of attracting investors to the MSC, Malaysia is adopting business-friendly policies and comprehensive "cyberlaws" designed to assure MSC participants that they and their technology will be protected. One of Malaysia's many goals is to be a leader in the development of cyberlaws. However, the Computer Crimes Act 1997 is too flawed to place Malaysia in that role. The Computer Crimes Act is designed to prevent computer crimes such as hacking, virus planting and the …


Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan Mar 1998

Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan

Washington International Law Journal

Australia offers greater legislative protection against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation than does the United States. This difference is not due to greater social or political awareness on the part of Australians. Rather, Australian federal law results from the work of progressive national committees given wide discretion to address discrimination under international agreements to which Australia is a party. The creation of Australian federal laws is not instructive in the U.S. context because the limited scope of these laws is incompatible with American discrimination statutes. Furthermore, the process by which sexual orientation became a proscribed ground under …


Taking Another Look At The Regulation Of Mutual Funds In The Aftermath Of The Asian Financial Crisis, Thomas Krider Mar 1998

Taking Another Look At The Regulation Of Mutual Funds In The Aftermath Of The Asian Financial Crisis, Thomas Krider

Washington International Law Journal

This Comment analyzes the 1997 financial crisis in Asia and its effect on U.S. mutual fund investors. The crisis was most acute in, and this Comment focuses on, the countries of Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. The lack of transparency in these countries led to substantial losses for U.S. investors whose money was in nontransparent organizations through their ownership of mutual funds. The International Monetary Fund responded to the Asian crisis with aid packages intended to prevent the insolvency of those countries in financial trouble. As part of the IMF's program, one of the primary requirements for receiving aid is …


The First Step Forward—The Aids Dismissal Case And The Protection Against Aids-Based Employment Discrimination In Japan, Marc Lim Mar 1998

The First Step Forward—The Aids Dismissal Case And The Protection Against Aids-Based Employment Discrimination In Japan, Marc Lim

Washington International Law Journal

The fight against AIDS in Japan, a journey that has encountered much resistance from a Japanese public and corporate sector ill-educated on the disease, may have taken a new turn. Before 1995, employees infected with HIV or suffering from AIDS had little recourse in fighting against the discrimination they faced in their private lives and in the Japanese corporate sector. With the AIDS Dismissal Case, the Japanese judiciary, in a show of judicial activism, found the dismissal of an HIV-infected worker based upon his HIV status illegal and an infringement upon the worker's human rights. In addition, the court found …


Erosion Of The Indigenous Right To Negotiate In Australia: Proposed Amendments To The Native Title Act, Gretchen Freeman Cappio Mar 1998

Erosion Of The Indigenous Right To Negotiate In Australia: Proposed Amendments To The Native Title Act, Gretchen Freeman Cappio

Washington International Law Journal

The Australian government seeks to amend the Native Title Act, which presently gives indigenous Australians real property rights by virtue of their history living on the land. In their present form, the proposed amendments to the Native Title Act threaten indigenous representation regarding land disputes. The right to negotiate currently protected by the Act must be preserved, ensuring indigenous participation as well as consensual and procedural agreement. The government should not change its course: indigenous parties deserve the same rights today as were granted just five years ago. Government and indigenous leaders must work cooperatively to draft new amendments to …


Harmonizing The Japanese Patent Sytem With Its U.S. Counterpart Through Judge-Made Law: Interaction Between Japanese And U.S. Case Law Developments, Toshiko Takenaka Mar 1998

Harmonizing The Japanese Patent Sytem With Its U.S. Counterpart Through Judge-Made Law: Interaction Between Japanese And U.S. Case Law Developments, Toshiko Takenaka

Washington International Law Journal

Japanese jurisprudence has been strongly influenced by German jurisprudence, but this trend is changing because more legal professionals including judges, patent attorneys and patent office examiners study at U.S. Law Schools. Some recent Japanese court decisions reflect this strong influence from U.S. jurisprudence. Particularly, the influence is significant in the field of patent claim interpretation, courts' power to review the validity, parallel importation and patent infringement damages. This article concludes that there are few significant differences remaining between the U.S. and Japanese patent laws, and Japanese courts' eagerness to adopt U.S patent law significantly contributes to harmonizing the remaining differences.


Preventing Insider Misappropriation Of Not-For-Profit Health Care Provider Assets: A Federal Tax Law Prescription, John F. Coverdale Jan 1998

Preventing Insider Misappropriation Of Not-For-Profit Health Care Provider Assets: A Federal Tax Law Prescription, John F. Coverdale

Washington Law Review

Not-for-profit health care providers are converting to for-profit status on an unprecedented scale. Directors and officers have too frequently taken advantage of the conversions to misappropriate the organizations' assets. Common law remedies have proven inadequate, and many states have no specific statutory remedies. The state statutory remedies that have been enacted range from fairly comprehensive to quite inadequate. Not-for-profit health providers are generally also subject to the federal tax rules governing tax-exempt organizations. Until recently, however, the only sanction available to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was to revoke the organization's tax-exempt status. The IRS rarely invoked this remedy both …


1998 And Beyond In New Caledonia: At Freedom's Gate?, Alan Berman Jan 1998

1998 And Beyond In New Caledonia: At Freedom's Gate?, Alan Berman

Washington International Law Journal

This article examines the upcoming 1998 referendum on self-determination in New Caledonia through the larger contextual lens of French historical involvement in the territory. The article addresses the impact French colonization has had on Kanak culture, legal institutions, social organization and economic livelihood. The historical policies of the French government are canvassed by exploring the manner in which France manipulated the legal process and political institutions it created in New Caledonia to entrench colonial control. The article concludes that the process of decolonization is unlikely to be completed in the near future. Finally, the article discusses the potential consequences for …


Local Public Employment Discrimination Against Korean Permanent Residents In Japan: A U.S. Perspective, James M. Kearney Jan 1998

Local Public Employment Discrimination Against Korean Permanent Residents In Japan: A U.S. Perspective, James M. Kearney

Washington International Law Journal

Japanese government officials have recently indicated a willingness to relax restrictions that have prohibited Korean permanent residents of Japan from competing for local civil service jobs, though changes have not yet been forthcoming. The current bar on resident aliens has important symbolic and practical significance in a country widely criticized for its entrenched racism and for its lack of substantive civil rights law. This Comment traces the history and special circumstances of Koreans in Japan and argues that Koreans are already protected from most kinds of public employment discrimination by Article 22 (freedom to choose an occupation) and Article 14 …


Affirmative Action, Ethnic Minorities And China's Universities, Barry Sautman Jan 1998

Affirmative Action, Ethnic Minorities And China's Universities, Barry Sautman

Washington International Law Journal

China greatly expanded its longstanding set of preferential policies for ethnic minorities in the 1980s and 1990s. Affirmative action in higher education annually allows for the admission of tens of thousands of ethnic minority students who, based on their national entrance examination scores alone, would be unable to gain a much sought-after place in one of the country's thousand universities. The variety of ways in which the admission and retention of PRC minority students are facilitated by laws, regulations and policies are examined, as are attitudes toward affirmative action on the part of Han majority and ethnic minority students. In …


The Roles Of Comparative Law: Inaugural Lecture For The Dan Fenno Henderson Professorship In East Asian Legal Studies, Daniel H. Foote Jan 1998

The Roles Of Comparative Law: Inaugural Lecture For The Dan Fenno Henderson Professorship In East Asian Legal Studies, Daniel H. Foote

Washington Law Review

Being named to the Dan Fenno Henderson Professorship in East Asian Legal Studies is at one and the same time a proud and truly humbling moment. It is especially humbling to hold a professorship bearing the illustrious name of Dan Fenno Henderson. In the Japanese law field, Henderson is without peer. He created the field as we know it today, and his accomplishments are truly staggering.


Quixotic Attempt? The Ninth Circuit, The Bia, And The Search For A Human Rights Framework To Asylum Law, Shelley M. Hall Jan 1998

Quixotic Attempt? The Ninth Circuit, The Bia, And The Search For A Human Rights Framework To Asylum Law, Shelley M. Hall

Washington Law Review

The Ninth Circuit and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) historically have disagreed about the application of human rights norms in many areas of asylum law. Although recent decisions by the BIA indicate more receptiveness toward the Ninth Circuit's broader approach, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 seeks to stifle judicial review in many areas of immigration law, including asylum. This Comment analyzes the potential impact of the law on the development of asylum jurisprudence and recommends areas for future dialogue between the Ninth Circuit and the BIA.


Marital Status Discrimination In Washington: Relevance Of The Identity And Actions Of An Employee's Spouse, Katrina R. Kelly Jan 1998

Marital Status Discrimination In Washington: Relevance Of The Identity And Actions Of An Employee's Spouse, Katrina R. Kelly

Washington Law Review

Before 1993, Washington's employment anti-discrimination statute did not define the term "marital status," and courts interpreted the term broadly to include discrimination based upon the actions or identity of an employee's spouse. A 1993 amendment to the Law Against Discrimination added a definition of marital status. Although the Supreme Court of Washington has not yet considered the impact of this amendment, the dissent in Magula v. Benton Franklin TitlCeo . argued that the change in the statute should narrow the interpretation of marital status to exclude the identity and actions of an employee's spouse. This Comment argues that the scope …


Determining The Scope Of A Copyright Owner's Right To Bar Imports: L'Anza Research International, Inc. V. Quality King Distributors, Maureen M. Cyr Jan 1998

Determining The Scope Of A Copyright Owner's Right To Bar Imports: L'Anza Research International, Inc. V. Quality King Distributors, Maureen M. Cyr

Washington Law Review

In L'Anza Research International, Inc. v. Quality King Distributors, the Ninth Circuit held that a copyright owner's right to bar imports is not limited by the first sale doctrine, which ordinarily prohibits a copyright owner from controlling the further distribution of copies after the copyright owner has consented to their sale. This Note examines the importation right in light of the purposes of the Copyright Act's distribution and first sale provisions, congressional intent behind the importation right, and the underlying purposes of copyright law. The Note argues that the first sale doctrine properly limits a copyright owner's right to …


The Right To A Fair Trial In China, Daphne Huang Jan 1998

The Right To A Fair Trial In China, Daphne Huang

Washington International Law Journal

The right to a fair trial is a growing international standard that protects defendant rights before, during, and after trial. Despite significant changes to China's Criminal Procedure Law and Criminal Law, China presently fails to comply with the standard. China's history of human rights abuses and the obstacles to compliance make enforcement of the right seem an insunnountable task. However, the trends of democratization and economic globalization, combined with optimistic reports of political reform in China provide hope that compliance with the right will eventually be achieved.


International Cultural Property: Another Tragedy Of The Commons, Claudia Caruthers Jan 1998

International Cultural Property: Another Tragedy Of The Commons, Claudia Caruthers

Washington International Law Journal

In-situ and intra-national preservation of cultural property is threatened by a highly remunerative international black market. Despite the existing nexus of both domestic and international laws drafted to halt illicit trafficking in cultural property, black markets, such as ones in Southeast Asian art and artifacts, are thriving. This Comment examines whether the existing web of laws and regulations serve, in fact, to foster, rather than discourage, the continuance and growth of the art black market. Likening the destruction of rare cultural resources to the destruction of scarce natural resources, this Comment uses Garrett Hardin's game theory tragedy of the commons …


The Threat Of Oil Pollution In The Malacca Strait: Arguing For A Broad Interpretation Of The United Nations Convention On The Law Of The Sea, Craig J. Capon Jan 1998

The Threat Of Oil Pollution In The Malacca Strait: Arguing For A Broad Interpretation Of The United Nations Convention On The Law Of The Sea, Craig J. Capon

Washington International Law Journal

The threat of oil pollution in the world's busiest waterway, the Malacca Strait, and the legal complications that surround it continues to be a controversial issue despite international law reforms. Recent accidents have demonstrated that current measures to prevent pollution are inadequate and that traditional methods of enforcement are ineffective. Unfortunately, there is a tension between international law of the sea provisions governing pollution control in the Malacca Strait, and the desires of bordering coastal States to regulate vessels trafficking the Strait so that accident risk is minimized. Moreover, there is tension between UNCLOS provisions prohibiting the assessment of fees …