Law Commons^™

Arctic Warming: Environmental, Human, And Security Implications, Mary B. West

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Arctic warming has myriad implications for the Arctic environment, residents, and nations. Although definitive predictions are difficult, without question the scope and rapidity of change will test the adaptive capacities of the Arctic environment as well as its residents. Warming is affecting marine ecosystems and marine life, terrestrial ecosystems, and the animals and people who depend on them. Human impacts include effects on access to food and resources; health and well being; and community cohesion, traditions, and culture. Increased shipping and resource activity create the need for additional maritime presence and security; better environmental and safety regulations; peaceful resolution of …

Judicial And Arbitral Proceedings And The Outer Limits Of The Continental Shelf, John E. Noyes

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article explores when international third-party dispute settlement forums may hear cases concerning the outer limits of a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from baselines. The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea articulated determinate rules for establishing those limits and created an institution--the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf--to make recommendations concerning them. Limits set by coastal states "on the basis of" such recommendations "shall be final and binding." Yet the Law of the Sea Convention's third-party dispute settlement system may also apply to outer limits questions concerning the Arctic Ocean and other oceans.

International …

International Security And International Law In The Northwest Passage, James Kraska

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Concern over the loss of sea ice has renewed discussions over the legal status of the Arctic and subarctic transcontinental maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, referred to as the "Northwest Passage." Over the past thirty years, Canada has maintained that the waters of the Passage are some combination of internal waters or territorial seas. Applying the rules of international law, as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, suggests that the Passage is a strait used for international navigation. Expressing concerns over maritime safety and security, recognition of northern sovereignty, and protection of …

Who Controls The Northwest Passage?, Michael Byers, Suzanne Lalonde

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

From Martin Frobisher in 1576 to John Franklin in 1845, generations of European explorers searched for a navigable route through the Arctic islands to Asia. Their greatest challenge was sea-ice, which has almost always filled the straits, even in summer. Climate change, however, is fundamentally altering the sea-ice conditions: In September 2007, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time in recorded history. This Article reviews the consequences of this development, particularly in terms of the security and environmental risks that would result from international shipping along North America's longest coast. It analyzes the differing positions of Canada and …

Treason In The Age Of Terrorism: An Explanation And Evaluation Of Treason's Return In Democratic States, Kristen E. Eichensehr

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Treason is an ancient crime, but it fell into disuse in most Western democratic states after World War I. Now it is making a comeback with prosecutions or threatened prosecutions against a new type of enemy--accused terrorists--in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. In the postwar period, commentators wrongly argued that treason would no longer be prosecuted because it is antiliberal, too difficult to prove, unnecessary because modern democracies are stable and secure, and premised on an extinct sense of loyalty to the state. This Article begins by debunking these claims and explaining treason's recent reappearance. First, democratic …

Nafta Cross-Border Trucking: Mexico Retaliates After Congress Stops Mexican Trucks At The Border, Chad Macdonald

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entitles Mexican tractor-trailers to enter the U.S. to deliver cargo from Mexico. In spite of NAFTA, the U.S. has only allowed Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. during a controversial demonstration project that granted U.S. operating licenses to a select number of Mexican trucks during the Bush administration. The dispute over NAFTA's cross-border trucking provisions climaxed on March 16, 2009, when Mexico imposed $2.4 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports in response to U.S. noncompliance.

This Note chronicles the U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking dispute and argues that the U.S. should re-start a …

"Shelter Chic": Can The U.S. Government Make It Work?, Kristina R. Montanaro

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note discusses government donations of seized counterfeit goods to charitable institutions and the implications of these practices. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contributions to the Red Cross for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort serve as a backdrop for important concepts. In making these contributions, the CBP relied on its emergency authority and a presidential proclamation to avoid basic statutory requirements that it (a) obtain consent from the right holders and (b) de-trademark counterfeit goods prior to donation. While the donations inarguably benefitted countless disaster victims and freed up valuable CBP warehouse space, they may have had a detrimental …

The Crisis Of International Law, Rafael Domingo

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article delves into the reasons for the current crisis in the traditional international law system, considering how the system developed through the centuries in order to respond to the needs and circumstances of past historical epochs, as well as how the system is no longer capable of meeting the unique developments and needs of life in the Third Millennium. The Article considers the fundamental problems of a state-based system of international law that--rather than focusing on the prime actor and focus of the law, the human person, and his inherent dignity--concentrates on and gives enormous power to the artificial …

Eu Law, International Law And Economic Sanctions Against Terrorism: The Judiciary In Distress?, P. Takis Tridimas

Faculty Scholarship

This article seeks to examine the relationship between European Union law, international law, and the protection of fundamental rights in the light of recent case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Court of First Instance (CFI) relating to economic sanctions against individuals. On 3 September 2008, the ECJ delivered its long-awaited judgment in Kadi and Al Barakaat on appeal from the CFI. In its judgment under appeal, the CFI had held that the European Community (EC) is competent to adopt regulations imposing economic sanctions against private organizations in pursuance of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions seeking …

Restating The U.S. Law Of International Commercial Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

In December 2007, the American Law Institute ("ALI") approved the development of a new Restatement, Third, of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration (the "Restatement"). On February 23, 2009, the Restaters and authors of this Essay presented a Preliminary Draft of a chapter of the Restatement (the "Draft") at an invitational meeting in New York. The Draft addresses Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. This brief Essay provides some reflections of the Reporters from the process of producing and presenting the Draft. Subsequent Drafts have been produced and approved by the ALI.

Courts, Clergy, And Congregations: Disputes Between Religious Institutions And Their Leaders, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

For nearly forty years, the courts have barred a variety of lawsuits by clergy against their religious entity-employers. These suits frequently involve matters of civil rights, such as sex-based discrimination in employment, but they also involve claims of defamation, violation of fair labor standards, and breach of employment contracts, among others. To justify the barriers to these suits, courts typically rely on concepts drawn from the First Amendment's Religion Clauses. In particular, courts frequently invoke theories of free exercise of religion by religious institutions, or notions of "excessive entanglement" between church and state, to justify this line of case law. …

The Dark Side Of Universal Banking: Financial Conglomerates And The Origins Of The Subprime Financial Crisis, Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Since the subprime financial crisis began in mid-2007, banks and insurers around the world have reported $1.1 trillion of losses. Seventeen large universal banks account for more than half of those losses, and nine of them either failed, were nationalized, or were placed on government-funded life support. Central banks and governments in the U.S., U.K. and Europe have provided $9 trillion of support to financial institutions to prevent the collapse of global financial markets.

Given the massive losses suffered by universal banks, and the extraordinary governmental assistance they have received, they are clearly the epicenter of the global financial crisis. …

Outsourcing Immigration Compliance, Eleanor Marie Brown

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Immigration is a hot button issue about which Americans have sent a clear message. They prefer not to admit more aliens until the government is able to credibly screen for entrants who will abide by the terms of admission and sanction those who do not. While immigration debates now focus almost entirely on undocumented workers, they have overshadowed another critical, yet poorly understood challenge: designing institutions to properly screen for aliens who are visa-compliant and sanction non-compliant aliens. Because failed guest worker programs unquestionably increase the size of the undocumented population, this article addresses the difficulty of institutional design by …

Cultural Cognition Of The Risks And Benefits Of Nanotechnology, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

We conducted an experimental public opinion study of the effect of balanced information on nanotechnology risk-benefit perceptions. The study found that subjects did not react in a uniform, much less a uniformly positive manner, but rather polarized along lines consistent with cultural predispositions toward technological risk generally.

Four Out Of Four Panelists Agree: U.S. Fiscal Policy Does Not Cheat Future Generations, Neil H. Buchanan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

As part of the George Washington Law Review's symposium "What Does Our Legal System Owe Future Generations? New Analyses of Intergenerational Justice for a New Century," participants discussed the nature of intergenerational obligations as they relate to fiscal policy. The panelists reached consensus that intergenerational justice is not an appropriate lens through which to analyze fiscal issues, because there is no obvious starting point from which to build a moral consensus about whether current generations owe anything at all to future generations, much less how to quantify any such obligation. In addition, even pessimistic forecasts indicate that future generations will …

Embryo Exchanges And Adoption Tax Credits, Naomi R. Cahn, Sarah B. Lawsky

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The “Option of Adoption Act,” a Georgia law that was introduced by a staunchly anti-abortion Georgia state representative, establishes procedures for genetic donors to relinquish their rights to embryos before birth and permits, but does not require, embryo recipients to petition a court for recognition that they are the legal parents of a child born to them as a result of an embryo transfer. This article clears up what seems to be widespread confusion about a fairly straightforward question of tax law related to such embryo “adoptions.” Notwithstanding various sources' claims to the contrary, neither a Georgia adoption tax credit …

Professional Malpractice In A World Of Amateurs, Thomas D. Morgan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

An increasing number of tasks once reserved to lawyers are now being performed by non-lawyers. That reality seems likely to continue. The question then becomes against what standard of performance such “amateur” practice should be assessed. One answer might be that a non-lawyer should be guilty of malpractice if the work is performed below the level of quality to which a lawyer would be held. This paper argues that the work should instead be judged against the standard of performance the non-lawyer purported to be able to deliver.

Making Sense Of Procedural Injury, Richard J. Pierce Jr

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay uses the Supreme Court’s 2009 opinion describing the version of the harmless error rule courts must use in administrative law cases as a point of entry in attempting to understand the Court’s 1992 opinion recognizing that 'procedural rights are special' for standing purposes. It concludes that courts should apply an easy-to-meet plausibility test in determining whether an agency’s refusal to provide a procedure required by statute or by the constitution has a causal relationship with the challenged agency action sufficient to allow the petitioner to obtain review of the action based on a procedural injury theory. Such a …

Perennial Outsiders: The Educational Experience Of Turkish Youth In Germany, Catherine J. Ross

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

'When you talk about the debate on Turkey’s E.U. membership,' a German of Turkish origin who serves in the Parliament of the European Union explains, 'it immediately becomes a talk about head-scarf issues and building mosques.' This is in part because Western Europe has long considered itself a 'Christian Club.' The treatment of second-generation Turks in Germany and other European countries offers a window into the obstacles that must be confronted and overcome before Turks gain full equality in Europe. Totaling about four million, persons of Turkish origin make up the largest immigrant group in Europe, and virtually all of …

In Defense Of Victim Impact Statements, Paul Cassell

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This paper provides a comprehensive justification of "victim impact statements" in criminal sentencing, explaining how such statements are important to crime victims and how the critics of such statements fail to grapple with the need for these statements to victims.

Socio-Economic Rights And Refugee Status: Deepening The Dialogue Between Human Rights And Refugee Law, Fatma E. Marouf, Deborah Anker

Scholarly Works

Over the past two decades, international human rights law has provided an increasingly useful framework for interpreting key criteria of the definition of a refugee. A human rights-based approach to analyzing refugee status helps to increase consistency and uniformity in decision making by state parties regarding who qualifies for international protection.

Michelle Foster's book, International Refugee Law and Socio-economic Rights: Refuge from Deprivation (Cambridge U. Press 2007), comes at a critical time, not only because of increasing acceptance of the connection between refugee law and human rights law and significant developments in the current understanding of economic and social rights, …

When Reading Between The Lines Is Not Enough: Lessons From Media Coverage Of A Domestic Violence Homicide-Suicide, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

Scholarly Works

In October 2008, Karthik Rajaram murdered his wife, mother-in-law, sons and, ultimately, himself, in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. This Article analyzes media reports about the deaths to illustrate the resilience of patriarchy and significant gaps in research and scholarship about domestic violence, and suggests a strategic approach to building counter-narratives about violence against women.

The Article is composed of five parts. Part I is the Introduction. Part II draws on narrative theory and critical media scholarship to lay the groundwork for analysis, and to show why media coverage of homicide-suicide is implicated in the production of dominant ideology.

Part …

Last Best Chance For The Great Writ: Equitable Tolling And Federal Habeas Corpus, Anne R. Traum

Scholarly Works

This Article examines an important unsettled question in federal habeas law: whether equitable tolling is available under the statute of limitations applicable to federal habeas petitions filed by state prisoners. The answer to this question will determine access to federal judicial review of thousands of prisoners’ claims that their convictions resulted from violations of their federal constitutional rights in state courts. In twelve cases reviewing the statute of limitations under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), the Supreme Court has curtailed the availability of statutory tolling of the limitations period. Equitable tolling of the statute of …

Is The Bankruptcy Code An Adequate Mechanism For Resolving The Distress Of Systemically Important Institutions?, Edward R. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

The President and members of Congress are considering proposals that would give the government broad authority to rescue financial institutions whose failure might threaten market stability. These systemically important institutions include bank and insurance holding companies, investment banks, and other "large, highly leveraged, and interconnected" entities that are not currently subject to federal resolution authority. Interest in these proposals stems from the credit crisis, particularly the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. That bankruptcy, according to some observers, caused massive destabilization in credit markets for two reasons. First, market participants were surprised that the government would permit a massive market player to …

The Public Policy Exception To Recognition And Enforcement Of Judgments In Cases Of Copyright Infringement, Marketa Trimble

Scholarly Works

In recent years proposals have been made for an international convention that would facilitate a smooth recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in intellectual property matters. Like all of these proposals, the American Law Institute’s preliminary version, short titled "Draft Principles" published in March 2007, strives to eliminate most hurdles to recognition and enforcement by providing rules for jurisdiction, choice of law and coordination of multi-territorial actions. As long as the rules are applied by the court that issues a judgment (the “rendering court”), most of the obstacles to recognition and enforcement − differing jurisdictional rules and choice of law …

Same-Sex Marriage In The Heartland: The Case For Legislative Minimalism In Crafting Religious Exemptions, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

This commentary cousels legislative caution in creating exemptions to Iowa's nondiscrimination law for those with religious objections to same-sex marriage.

The Constitutional Canon As Argumentative Metonymy, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

This article builds on Philip Bobbitt's Wittgensteinian insights into constitutional argument and law. The author examines the way that we interact with canonical texts as we construct arguments in the forms that Bobbitt has described. The author contends that these texts serve as metonyms for larger sets of associated principles and values, and that their invocation usually is not meant to point to the literal meaning of the text itself. This conception helps explain how a canonical text's meaning in constitutional argument can evolve over time, and hopefully offers the creative practitioner some insight into the kinds of arguments that …

Pleasant Grove V. Summum: Losing The Battle To Win The War, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

This short essay explores the potential doctrinal implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Pleasant Grove v. Summum.

Toward Fundamental Change For The Protection Of Low-Wage Workers: The “Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights" Debate In The Obama Era, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In order to avoid the pendulum swings of politics, advocates must argue for more fundamental norms for the protection of labor rights. Statutory protections, while important, will not provide long-lasting change toward establishing workers' rights as fundamental under constitutional and international law principles. Workers' rights must be seen as fundamental to the functioning of a democratic society, rather than as the special interest agenda of unions or plaintiffs' attorneys. This can be done through more advocacy for a minimum set of workers' rights as human rights, including the right to organize labor unions and the right to be free from …

Teaching Problem-Solving And Preventive Law Skills Through International Labour And Employment Law, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

This essay describes how problem-solving and preventive law principles apply in the teaching of international labor and employment law. This is because the subject itself crosses disciplinary and geographical boundaries. Students are taught about the importance of the lawyer's role as a counselor, rather than simply a litigator, which is at the center of the model of the lawyer as a problem solver.