Law Commons^™

“Liquidated Damages” In Guest Worker Contracts: Involuntary Servitude, Debt Peonage Or Valid Contract Clause?, Maria L. Ontiveros

Nevada Law Journal

Non-citizen migrant workers who come to the United States on short term work visas, especially H-1B visas, often sign contracts that include a promise to work for the employer for a set period of time. These contracts may include a “liquidated damages clause” that requires the worker to pay the employer a large sum of money if they stop working for the employer, either to switch employers or to return home. Because these sums of money are so large relative to the worker’s ability to pay, they prevent workers from leaving employment. This paper examines whether those liquidated damages clauses …

Slavery, Liberty, And The Right To Contract, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Thirteenth Amendment And Minimum Wage Laws, Ruben J. Garcia

Nevada Law Journal

The Thirteenth Amendment is undergoing a renaissance in scholarship and advocacy. Labor scholars and advocates are looking at the Thirteenth Amendment as a new source of constitutional rights for several reasons. First, its prohibition against involuntary servitude applies both to the public and private spheres. Second, its capacious text and history allows for new interpretive approaches. Third, the idea of a constitutional floor for free labor is an appealing one in an era of retrenchment in legislatures and the courts.

The Trump Administration and the Republican Congress can significantly change the direction of labor policy in the coming years. Now, …

Root And Branch: The Thirteenth Amendment And Environmental Justice, Mehmet K. Konar-Steenberg

Nevada Law Journal

‘[The Thirteenth Amendment] abolishes slavery . . . root and branch. It abolishes it in the general and the particular. . . . Any other interpretation belittles the great amendment and allows slavery still to linger among us in some of its insufferable pretensions.’

A New Look At Contract Mistake Doctrine And Personal Injury Releases, Grace M. Giesel

Nevada Law Journal

‘[C]ourts cannot make for the parties better agreements than they themselves have been satisfied to make.’

Competitive Coping Strategies In The American Legal Academy: An Empirical Study, Bernard A. Burk, Jerome M. Organ, Emma B. Rasiel

Nevada Law Journal

Many casual observers of the American legal academy are aware of the substantial falloff in both the number and the conventional qualifications of applicants to law school that began after 2010. But few appreciate how widespread and serious its effects have been. For the vast majority of law schools, those effects have been somewhere between significant and devastating.

From academic years 2010–11 through 2016–17, the number of unique applicants to accredited law schools fell 36 percent, and the number of applications fell 44 percent, while students with the best conventional qualifications disproportionately stayed away. The effects on the academy have …

University Title Ix Compliance: A Work In Progress In The Wake Of Reform, Michelle J. Harnik

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Dark Side Of Tribal Sovereign Immunity: The Gap Between Law And Remedy, Alma Orozco

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Alaska Native Perspectives On The Alaska Constitution, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, John Sky Starkey

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note From The Editor

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address: The Alaska Constitution And The Future Of Individual Rights, Erwin Chemerinsky

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Alaska, The Last Statehood Constitution, And Subnational Rights And Governance, Robert F. Williams

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racing To Regulation: A Comparative Analysis Of Virtual Currency Regulation In Alaska And The Proposed Alaska Money Services Act Carlos Manzano, Carlos Manzano

Alaska Law Review

The emergence of virtual currencies has revolutionized the financial industry by creating an alternative form of payment that seeks to insulate individuals from government and bank influence. Yet, federal regulation of virtual currency has remained limited. Many state legislators have rushed to fill the gap by enacting laws regulating virtual currency use and transmission. This state-by-state approach has led to significant variation between state regulatory regimes, creating a regulatory spectrum of lenient to strict regulatory approaches. In March 2017, Alaska House Representatives Zach Fansler and Sam Kito proposed the Alaska Money Services Act to require licensing for virtual currency activity. …

Banishment Of Non-Natives By Alaska Native Tribes: A Response To Alcoholism And Drug Addiction Halley Petersen, Halley Petersen

Alaska Law Review

Since 2015, at least a dozen tribal court banishments have been reported in Alaska, mainly involving alleged bootleggers and drug dealers in rural communities. Rural Alaska communities, which are predominantly Alaska Native, face high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, and related crime. Faced with these drug and alcohol issues and insufficient access to law enforcement, it is not surprising that some communities have decided to banish offenders. However, banishment is not currently legal, at least when imposed upon non-Native citizens. Tribal courts lack sufficient jurisdiction over non-Natives to banish them for bootlegging or dealing drugs. Tribal governments are sovereigns with …

Alaska’S Merit Selection Of Judges: The Council’S Role, Past And Present, Teri White Carns, Susie Mason Dosik

Alaska Law Review

Delegates to Alaska's Constitutional Convention adopted a Judiciary Article that called for the state's judges to be selected and retained in a merit selection system. Modeled after the "Missouri Plan," attorneys applying for judgeships are reviewed by the Judicial Council; two or more candidates are nominated to the governor; the governor appoints from the Council's list; and all judges periodically stand for retention in the general elections. Alaska's Judicial Council is composed of three non-attorneys appointed by the governor and confirmed by the legislature, three attorneys appointed by the Alaska Bar Board of Governors, and the Chief Justice who serves …

Journal Staff

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preparing The Way: Tom Stewart’S Recollections On The Alaska State Constitutional Convention, Thomas Metzloff

Alaska Law Review

One of the most important figures in the successful effort for Alaska statehood was Tom Stewart. Born into an established Juneau family headed by Ben Stewart, founder of the Alaska Territorial Department of Mines, Tom was raised in Juneau. After earning his B.A. at the University of Washington, he attended Yale Law School. Following graduation, he clerked for United States District Court Judge George Folta in Juneau in 1951 and became a member of the Alaska Bar. After clerking, he served as Assistant Attorney General for Alaska from 1951 to 1954. He was then elected to the House of Representatives …

Merit Selection Of Judges In Alaska: The Judicial Council, The Independence Of The Judiciary, And The Popular Will, Walter L. Carpeneti, Brett Frazer

Alaska Law Review

The judicial selection and retention provisions of the Alaska Constitution, found in Article IV, achieve a delicate and remarkably successful balance between competing interests. The purposes of this article are to describe this constitutional plan (called “merit selection” because it begins with nomination based on merit alone), explain why the founders adopted it, examine historical challenges to it, and assess its performance on the 60th anniversary of Alaska statehood.

Judicializing History: Mass Crimes Trials And The Historian As Expert Witness In West Germany, Cambodia, And Bangladesh, Rebecca Gidley, Mathew Turner

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Henry Rousso warned that the engagement of historians as expert witnesses in trials, particularly highly politicized proceedings of mass crimes, risks a judicialization of history. This article tests Rousso’s argument through analysis of three quite different case studies: the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial; the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; and the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. It argues that Rousso’s objections misrepresent the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, while failing to account for the engagement of historical expertise in mass atrocity trials beyond Europe. Paradoxically, Rousso’s criticisms are less suited to the European context that represents his purview, and apply more …

The Duty To Prevent Genocide Under International Law: Naming And Shaming As A Measure Of Prevention, Björn Schiffbauer

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In contrast to prosecuting and punishing committed acts of genocide, the Genocide Convention is silent as to means of preventing future acts. Today it is generally accepted that the duty to prevent is legally binding, but there is still uncertainty in international law about its specific content. This article seeks to fill this gap in the light of the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention. It provides a minimum requirement approach, i.e. indispensable State actions to comply with their duty to prevent: naming and shaming situations of genocide as what they are. Even situations from times before the Genocide …

Straining To Prevent The Rohingya Genocide: A Sociology Of Law Perspective, Katherine Southwick

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper analyzes the generally muted international response to the protracted plight of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar, from the perspective of sociology of law. The first part provides background on the Rohingya crisis and discusses relevant international legal frameworks relating to crimes against humanity and genocide. The second part adapts analytical frameworks developed by Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat on the emergence and transformation of disputes, in order to examine some of the factors that frustrate the processes of naming crimes, blaming perpetrators, and claiming rights and protection for the Rohingya minority in the international context. Work …

New Documents Shed Light: Why Did Peacekeepers Withdraw During Rwanda’S 1994 Genocide?, Emily A. Willard

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Why did the international community decide to withdraw United Nations peacekeeping troops from Rwanda during the 1994 genocide? Analysis of newly released documents and results from an international conference with former U.N. and government officials sheds further light on our understanding of what took place leading up to and during the Rwandan genocide. This article focuses on two key moments: 1) the United States’ reluctance to support the peacekeeping mission from before its mandate began and prior to the killing of U.S. troops in Somalia in autumn 1993; and the United States’ central role pushing the United Nations Security Council …

Finding A Better Way Around Employment At Will: Protecting Employees' Autonomy Interests Through Tort Law, William Corbett

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Comment On 'Judicial Compensation And Performance', J.J. Prescott

Articles

The most significant challenges to better understanding judicial behavior are lack of data and the absence of plausible exogenous variation in judicial environments. The random assignment of judges to cases has admittedly been helpful in gaining traction on the effects of judicial decisions (e.g., Dobbie, Goldin, and Yang 2018). Yet developing a full empirical account of “what judges maximize” (Posner 1993) would require a setting in which judges are randomly subjected to a wide variety of (real-world) environments with different costs, constraints, and rewards. This prospect remains pie in the sky, but that does not mean that we have not …

From The Editor, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

High-Energy Laser Weapons: Overpromising Readiness, Ash Rossiter

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Innovation Tradecraft: Sustaining Technological Advantage In The Future Army, Adam J. Harrison, Bharat Rao, Bala Mulloth

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

The Single Contract Basis Of International Corporate Taxation: A Review Of Saipem V Firs, Okanga Ogbu Okanga

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Nigeria's principal corporate tax legislation, the Companies Income Tax Act 1961, stipulates as a basis for the taxation of a nonresident company deriving income in Nigeria, what it terms a “single contract.” This, according to the statute, entails a contract that embodies the activities of surveys, deliveries, installations or construction (common features of what is in common parlance termed a “turnkey project”). A major challenge with the application of the provision lies in the comprehension of the pivotal term, “single contract.” A diversity of views on the import of the term paints a telling picture of ambiguity and underlies the …

A Conversation With The Honorable Rosalie Silberman Abella And Dean Matthew Diller, Rosalie Silberman Abella, Matthew Diller

Fordham Law Review

DEAN MATTHEW DILLER: This year we are leading up to our celebration of 100 Years of Women at Fordham Law School. In September 1918, the Fordham Law faculty voted to admit women, and we are planning to celebrate that in style. But tonight perhaps is a bit of a teaser for that. Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella is a woman of firsts. She is the first Jewish woman to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada, and before the Supreme Court, when she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976, she became the first Jewish woman …

Women In The Legal Academy: A Brief History Of Feminist Legal Theory, Robin West

Fordham Law Review

Women’s entry into the legal academy in significant numbers—first as students, then as faculty—was a 1970s and 1980s phenomenon. During those decades, women in law schools struggled: first, for admission and inclusion as individual students on a formally equal footing with male students; then for parity in their numbers in classes and on faculties; and, eventually, for some measure of substantive equality across various parameters, including their performance and evaluation both in and in front of the classroom, as well as in the quality of their experiences as students and faculty members and in the benefits to be reaped from …