Law Commons^™

Ambulatory Versus Fixed Baselines Under The Law Of The Sea, Sean Murphy

American University Law Review

When “diving” into consideration of sea-level rise issues, one finds various “pools” of international law that are perfectly suited for answering some of the issues we are addressing. For example, Professor Galvão Teles spoke about the protection of persons in the event of sea-level rise. There are, of course, various aspects of human rights law and international law relating to disasters that can be employed to resolve some of the concerns in that regard. It is just a question of applying that law to a new, factual phenomenon.

Having said that, there are some areas where existing international law is …

Accommodation Discrimination, Katherine Macfarlane

American University Law Review

Reasonable accommodations should be tools of equality yet can feel more like punishment than remedy. To receive accommodations, people with disabilities must disclose intimate details about their health. The accommodation process that follows disclosure is arduous, dissuading many people with disabilities who need accommodations from requesting them.

Even if accommodations are granted, institutional enforcement is not guaranteed. Instead, the labor of implementing reasonable accommodations often falls to disabled people themselves. Accommodated people with disabilities also endure remarks about receiving “special” treatment for disabilities that are allegedly exaggerated or faked. Though people with disabilities may bring failure to accommodate claims when …

College Athletic Conferences: The Big Benefits And Their Future Role In College Sports, Theodore F. Kelly

Student Works

No abstract provided.

The Unfulfilled Promise: What Circumstances Matter When Assessing A Child’S Individualized Education Plan?, Andrew Simon

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Redlining And Opioid Overdose Outcomes: Do Historical Housing Policies Still Impact Health Today?, Sahana Paravantavida

Honors Theses

This study examines the relationship between historical housing policies and current health outcomes, specifically the impact of redlining on opioid overdose rates. Using data collected from the state of New Jersey, neighborhoods with a history of redlining have higher rates of opioid overdose deaths. My findings suggest that historical housing policies, which systematically excluded certain populations from accessing affordable housing and resources, continue to impact health outcomes today.

The Security-Shaped Hole In Global Anti-Corruption: Closing The Loop On The Fcpa, Tarun Krishnakumar

UC Law Business Journal

Despite the significant interplays between national security and corruption, discourse around the national security dimensions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – the most prominent global anticorruption framework – has been limited. With the deepening of global economic dependencies and data flows in critical areas such as telecommunications and ICT, there is ample reason to suggest that the use of private sector entities by governments for national security (e.g., intelligence-gathering) purposes is only likely to become more common. Recent controversies around the activities of Crypto AG and Huawei only serve to support this trend.

Within this broad context, this …

Making South Dakota History: An Introduction To The Special Impeachment Issue, Hannah Haksgaard, Tyler Moore, Gabrielle Unruh

Faculty Publications

In September 2020, South Dakota’s Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was driving on a rural highway when he struck and killed a pedestrian. After pleading guilty to two criminal misdemeanors, Ravnsborg was impeached, convicted, removed from state office, and barred from holding it again. This was South Dakota’s first impeachment of a constitutional officer. To chronicle this historic first, the South Dakota Law Review is publishing a special issue containing ten essays authored by those directly involved with the impeachment. This essay introduces the special issue by describing the factual and procedural background for Ravnsborg’s impeachment, providing a brief summary of …

Comment: The Project Of Freedom, Alexandra L. Klein

Washington and Lee Law Review

A person’s status may change over time and people should have the right to maximize their autonomy and learn and grow from their experiences. Legal structures must encourage autonomy and growth, rather than producing a static environment that prevents people from challenging external controls imposed upon their lives. Law can create legal structures that sustain an individual’s right to live according to their values. As Ms. Rosen writes, “[i]f an individual is capable of valuing, the wishes stemming from those values should dictate how the individual ought to be treated.” By protecting those values, Ms. Rosen’s Note advises us how …

"To An Athlete Dying Young": For Tom Horton (May 9, 1955 - November 15, 2022), Frank Pommersheim

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Trial Of Thomas More - Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

The path from Magna Carta to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights runs through the trial of Thomas More. Robert Bolt's magnificent portrayal of that trial in A Man for All Seasons provides an opportunity to learn and reflect on how a political trial can teach us about the meaning of justice. The search for universals must be rooted in the particulars. The particulars in this case will also resonate with modern audiences who seek to understand their own politics in times of crisis.

Editorial Foreword Legal Challenges And Opportunities In The Energy Transition, Raphael J. Heffron, Marcin Kraśniewski

Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies

Editorial

Cruel And Unusual Punishment: How The Ongoing War On Drugs And Discrimination In Healthcare Created A Viable Eighth Amendment Claim For Black Inmates During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Vincent Jones

Health Matrix: The Journal of Law-Medicine

No abstract provided.

The State Citizenship Clause, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment declares: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” This opening sentence contains not one, but two citizenship clauses. The first defines national citizenship. The second defines state citizenship. Although significant historical scholarship exists regarding the other provisions in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment, the State Citizenship Clause has been unstudied, unapplied and, quite often, unrecognized.

Going The Extra Mile: Expanding The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act, Emily Casey

Law Student Publications

The Promoting Affordable Housing Near Transit Act (“Act”), introduced in Congress in June 2021 and signed into law six months later, proposes a goal of balancing the disproportionately-high costs of housing and transportation felt by lower-income families by combining these resources in one project: transit-oriented housing developments. Middle-income and wealthy suburbanites have ready access to cities by car, but lower-income urbanites lack access to the suburbs without a private vehicle. While the goal of the Act recognizes this disparate outcome, the Act’s failure to include expansion of mass transit into the suburbs will continue to restrict low-income minorities to urban …

“Fundamental Fairness”: Finding A Civil Right To Counsel In International Human Rights Law, Meredith Elliot Hollman

Law Student Publications

Every other Western democracy now recognizes a right to counsel in at least some kinds of civil cases, typically those involving basic human rights. The World Justice Project’s 2021 Rule of Law Index ranked the United States 126th of 139 countries for “People Can Access and Afford Civil Justice.” Within its regional and income categories, the United States was dead last. The United Nations and other international treaty bodies have urged the United States to improve access to justice by providing civil legal aid. How did we fall behind, and what can we learn from the rest of the world? …

Duped By Dope: The Sackler Family’S Attempt To Escape Opioid Liability And The Need To Close The Non-Debtor Release Loophole, Bryson T. Strachan

Law Student Publications

The opioid epidemic continues to rage on in the United States, ravaging its rural populations. One of its main causes? OxyContin. Purdue Pharma (“Purdue”), the maker of OxyContin, aggressively marketed opioids to the American public while racking up a fortune of over $13 billion dollars for its owners,3 the Sackler family. As a result, roughly 3,000 lawsuits were filed against Purdue and members of the Sackler family. Generally, the lawsuits alleged that Purdue and members of the Sackler family knew OxyContin was highly addictive yet aggressively marketed high dosages of the drug and misrepresented the drug as nonaddictive and without …

Python Patrol: Combatting The Problem Of Evasive Non-Native Snakes In Florida, Jessica Rooke

Law Student Publications

The Florida hotspot of non-native invasive species has long been recognized as a fascinating, yet perplexing environmental issue since the late 1900s. After decades of patchwork efforts by the federal and state government, it has become clear that a more holistic approach must be taken to help eradicate the Burmese Pythons that have overtaken Southern Florida. This article highlights the prior efforts taken federally and state-wide to combat this issue and assesses the current gaps in these efforts and what must be done to achieve a more holistic approach. Other states are used as points of comparison in regard to …

A Call For Change: Doing More To Protect Black And Brown Victims Of Domestic Violence, Kiana Gilcrist

Law Student Publications

Domestic violence (“DV”) disproportionately affects Black and Brown women. This article examines the tense history of law enforcement engagement with minority groups, which has caused a strain on that relationship, leaving minority groups more likely to choose to stay in their DV situations than seek out law enforcement help. The divide still impacts these groups today. Additionally, the article highlights several organizations that have formed to address the needs of minority individuals. Other organizations have been around, but their ties to law enforcement create an added barrier for Black and Brown women seeking protection. The article concludes by briefly examining …

The Legislative Graveyard: A Review Of Virginia's 2022 Regular General Assembly Session, Kaylin Cecchini, Haley Edmonds

Law Student Publications

In 2019, Democrats won a majority in the House of Delegates and the Senate, and the Commonwealth was led by a Democratic Governor. The Democrats’ majority trifecta, which they had obtained for the first time since 1992, was once again lost on November 2, 2021, when Virginians voted to renew the Republican leadership in the Office of the Governor and in the House of Delegates. Under this once again bifurcated, yet unusually polarized, assembly, legislators on either side of the political aisle faced an uphill battle getting legislation passed, with the majority of bills ending in a stalemate. As a …

Individual Funding: A Policy Solution To Family Abuse In Rural Areas Impacted By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jessica King

Law Student Publications

Intimate partner violence is an issue in the United States experienced by more than one in three women. This article addresses the topic of intimate partner violence and the factors contributing to the perpetuation of abuse. It focuses on how these factors manifest in rural areas and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased isolation and economic abuse. This article explores policies currently used to combat intimate partner violence in these contexts. The current acts, including the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA), and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), expressly …

Cftc & Sec: The Wild West Of Cryptocurrency Regulation, Taylor Anne Moffett

Law Student Publications

Over the past few years, a turf war has been brewing between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) over which agency should regulate cryptocurrencies. Both agencies have pursued numerous enforcement actions over the cryptocurrencies they believe to be within their jurisdiction. This turf war has many moving components, but the focus always comes back to one question: which cryptocurrencies are commodities, and which cryptocurrencies are securities? The distinction is important because the CFTC has statutory authority to regulate commodities, whereas the SEC has statutory authority to regulate securities. This Comment rejects the pursuit …

A Beginner's Guide To Cryptocurrencies: Explaining The Technologies Behind Cryptocurrencies, How The United States Taxes And Regulates Them, And Offering Changes To The Existing Taxation And Regulation Schemes, J. Merritt Francis

Law Student Publications

The United States federal government has attempted to use its existing regulatory and taxation schemes to regulate and tax cryptocurrencies, while many individuals are still unsure as to what cryptocurrency really is. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Future Trading Commission have both asserted their jurisdiction over cryptocurrency, resulting in unclear guidance for developers in the cryptocurrency space and a failure to adequately protect investors. Further, the Internal Revenue Service taxes cryptocurrency like a security rather than a currency, which disincentivizes adopting cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Nevertheless, although cryptocurrencies are taxed like securities, there are tax …

Python Patrol: Combatting The Problem Of Invasive Non-Native Snakes In Florida, Jessica Rooke

Law Student Publications

The Florida hotspot of non-native invasive species has long been recognized as a fascinating, yet perplexing environmental issue since the late 1900s. After decades of patchwork efforts by the federal and state government, it has become clear that a more holistic approach must be taken to help eradicate the Burmese Pythons that have overtaken Southern Florida. This article highlights the prior efforts taken federally and state-wide to combat this issue and assesses the current gaps in these efforts and what must be done to achieve a more holistic approach. Other states are used as points of comparison in regard to …

Leading By Example: Canada's Approach To Seizing Frozen Assets And Holding Corrupt Leaders To Account, Robert J. Currie, Fen Osler Hampson, Allan Rock

Research Papers, Working Papers, Conference Papers

This paper examines the precedent-setting nature of Canada’s new legislation on foreign-owned asset forfeiture and some of the legal issues raised following the adoption of this new legislation. It also discusses some of the policy and legislative initiatives underway in other countries following upon Canada’s ground-breaking legislation and how the current global context is shaping these initiatives, specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As the paper argues, it is still an open question whether Canada’s independent initiative will set a new framework and precedent for asset forfeiture that will change customary international law on this matter or whether formidable political and …

Learning From Mistakes: A Guide To Expanding The Oversight Board, Kevin Frazier

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

More than 4.4 billion people use social media. A few platforms attract a significant number of those users—for example, 2.9 billion people use Facebook, 2.3 billion use YouTube, and 1.2 billion use WeChat. How these major platforms govern themselves with respect to content moderation has an impact on billions of users and may lead to policy changes across other platforms that affect billions more. That is why it is so important to analyze Meta’s Oversight Board—an independent body created for the purpose of “promot[ing] free expression by making principled, independent decisions regarding content on Facebook and Instagram by issuing recommendations …

New Frontiers In Technology: Can Traditional Intellectual Property Rights Laws Be Adapted And Applied To Nfts?, Mariyah S. Wakhariya

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

A decade ago, ‘NFTs’ were rarely heard of or known to anyone, unless they worked in or kept up with the tech world. However, they are not new - they have been around for almost two decades. Their popularity has grown over the past few years. ‘NFT’ stands for ‘non-fungible token’. An NFT is a digital file with a unique identity that is verified on a blockchain and is therefore not interchangeable - i.e., a kind of crypto asset, like an authentication certificate for digital artifacts. In theory, NFTs can represent almost any real or intangible property. These days, it …

Book Review, Kirsten Campbell, The Justice Of Humans: Subject, Society And Sexual Violence In International Criminal Justice (2022), Shannon Fyfe

Scholarly Articles

In The Justice of Humans: Subject, Society and Sexual Violence in International Criminal Justice, Kirsten Campbell sets out to analyze approaches to international justice for victims of mass violence through a feminist lens. Using a remarkable breadth of disciplines, Campbell develops a “feminist social theory of the existing legal and feminist forms of international justice and a socio-legal methodology for empirically investigating them” (p. 4). She draws on her own extensive experience with the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to consider two responses to conflict-related sexual violence there: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the …

Sharia And Legal Regulations Of Musharaka Financing, Amina Samiaa

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article examines the Sharia and legal controls governing Musharaka financing as a core participatory finance instrument based on profit-and-loss sharing. It clarifies the concept of Musharaka, its legal basis, and its main advantages, then discusses key contractual conditions, profit distribution mechanisms, loss allocation rules, and the principal forms of Musharaka (permanent and diminishing). It also highlights the Moroccan regulatory framework—particularly Law No. 103-12 and Bank Al‑Maghrib guidance—and the practical challenges faced by banks in implementation.

The Role Of Trademark Functions And Their Classification In Ensuring Consumer Rights, Mohamed Mahboubi

Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management)

This article examines the core functions of trademarks as instruments of distinction, marketing, and trust-building, and highlights their role in protecting consumers against deception, fraud, and market confusion—especially in a context of expanding trade and rising counterfeiting. It argues that legal recognition of trademark functions—source indication, quality signaling, and communicative/advertising roles—enhances market transparency and supports fair competition. The study also discusses how trademark classifications (individual, collective, certification, and well-known marks) strengthen consumer protection mechanisms, while reviewing the Moroccan legal framework and relevant international standards.

The Perils Of A Comparator: A Modern Pleading Standard For Title Vii Disparate Treatment Claims, Muhammad Burney

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.