Law and Politics Commons^™

Removal Rehashed Legal History: Response, Andrea Scoseria Katz, Noah A. Rosenblum

Scholarship@WashULaw

We are grateful to the Harvard Law Review Forum for the chance to respond in these pages to The Executive Power of Removal. In this new piece, Professors Aditya Bamzai and Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash aim to persuade readers that the President’s power to remove executive officers is exclusive and nondefeasible; textually mandated; and a matter of common assent at the time of the Founding.

There are high hurdles to proving this argument, and this piece fails to scale them. There is little evidence for any of these separate contentions, whether we look to the Constitution’s text or the history …

The Judicial Assault On The Administrative State Regulating Upheavals In The Securities Markets And Boardrooms, Joel Seligman

Scholarship@WashULaw

The most substantial change in the United States Government has been the extraordinary growth and increased complexity of the United States Government itself. George Washington initially was President of a country with a population of about four million, eleven States, and three Cabinet Departments (State, Treasury, and War). Washington’s Government had no standing army, no Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and no programs addressing the environment, labor, or health. In 1791, the Treasury Department had approximately 500 employees, the War Department had 12, the State Department, 8.

Today, the National Government has twenty-four Cabinet members. In 2023, there are 2.89 …

Yes, Tax The Rich — And Also The Merely Affluent, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

Most Americans believe that economic inequality is too high, and many think that higher taxes are the answer. There is some disagreement about who should pay higher taxes, but there is broad agreement about who should not. At least since the heyday of the Occupy Wall Street movement, 'We Are the 99 Percent'' has been the dividing line.

“Those in the 1 percent are walking off with the riches, but in doing so they have provided nothing but anxiety and insecurity to the 99 percent,” explained Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz in his 2012 book The Price of Inequality. The …

Climate Change And The Threat To U.S. Jails And Prisons, Laurie L. Levenson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Content Moderation As Surveillance, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Technology platforms are the new governments, and content moderation is the new law, or so goes a common refrain. As platforms increasingly turn toward new, automated mechanisms of enforcing their rules, the apparent power of the private sector seems only to grow. Yet beneath the surface lies a web of complex relationships between public and private authorities that call into question whether platforms truly possess such unilateral power. Law enforcement and police are exerting influence over platform content rules, giving governments a louder voice in supposedly “private” decisions. At the same time, law enforcement avails itself of the affordances of …

The Role Of Recognition In Kelsen's Account Of Legal Obligation And Political Duty, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Kelsen’s critique of absolute sovereignty famously appeals to a basic norm of international recognition. However, in his discussion of legal obligation, generally speaking, he notoriously rejects mutual recognition as having any normative consequence. I argue that this apparent contradiction in Kelsen's estimate regarding the normative force of recognition is resolved in his dynamic account of the democratic generation of law. Democracy is embedded within a modern political ethos that obligates legal subjects to recognize each other along four dimensions: as contractors whose mutually beneficial cooperation measures esteem by fair standards of contribution; as autonomous agents endowed with equal rights; as …

Operation Lone Star: The Spectacle Of Immigration Federalism, Danielle Puretz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 to respond to the “crisis” at the United States/Mexico border. While in the US immigration is usually thought of as a federal responsibility, different states have worked to expand their capacity to welcome or exclude immigrants. Operation Lone Star is an example of how one state is working to restrict immigration to the US and build notoriety for its republican governor. Drawing on press releases, executive orders, news articles, opinion pieces, and other sources I highlight the performative politics within this initiative. Operation Lone Star is an example of …

Criminal Policy To Combat The Spread Of Electronic Rumours (Under Decree-Law No. 34 Of 2021 On Combating Rumours And Cyber Crimes), Ashraf Kandil

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The UAE's role in combating electronic rumors and reducing its dissemination has been demonstrated by the legislative development of IT crime laws in the UAE. The most recent is the issuance of the Federal Decree-Law No. (34) of 2021 concerning the fight against rumors and cybercrime. Otherwise, the problem of the current study revolves around the flexibility of drafting the procedural texts in order to deal with the constant development of the forms and circumstances of spreading rumors, as well as to indicate their effectiveness in reducing their effects. Therefore, the current study aims to identify the criminal policy to …

Oklahoma V. Castro-Huerta, United States Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh

US Government Documents Related to Indigenous Nations

This United States (US) Supreme Court decision, argued April 27, 2022 and decided June 29, 2022 expanded the reach of state jurisdiction to allow for prosecution of crimes that occur on Indigenous land, regardless of whether or not a state is named as having such jurisdiction under US Public Law 280. In 2020, the US Supreme Court's decision on McGirt v. Oklahoma established that much of the eastern part of the state of Oklahoma is Indigenous land and therefore falls under either tribal jurisdiction or Federal jurisdiction. In 2015 Victor Manuel Castro-Huerta was charged and convicted of child neglect by …

The Apostrophic Impasse: Diacritical Remarks On The Stories Of International Law, Legal Decolonial Genealogy And Antony Anghie’S Historiography, Britt L.A.Q. (Haadiya) Hendrix

Theses and Dissertations

The (hi)stories of international law have strengthened the tentacles of coloniality in the legal regime as they continue to taunt the precarious lifeworlds of people, our planet and social imaginaries of an otherwise. The flow of coloniality has similarly rematerialized in decolonial legal theories and the postcolonial historiographical accounts of international law. I intend to demonstrate this colonial revival in the groundbreaking text of Antony Anghie Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Creation of International Law (2005) which challenged the (hi)stories of traditional jurisprudence. The latter was not necessarily a rejection nor negation of Western thought, because I argue that postcolonial historiography …

Combatting Global Sex Trafficking: The United Nations As A Powerless Entity Or An Untapped Resource?, Kimberly M. Lennox

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Currency Manipulation: The Tale Of Missed Jurisdiction And No Regulation, Thomas J. Crociata

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning-Based Medical Devices: Regulatory And Patentability Challenges, May Lee

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Keep The Local Control, Federalize Teacher Prep: Finland's Model Makes The Case For A Nationalized Teacher Certification Program, Audry E. Thompson

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

China's Foreign Investment Law: Moving Toward Greater Liberalization?, Xianjun Feng, Chuanhui Wang

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

No abstract provided.

The International Law And Politics Of The Trump Administration's Iran Policy, Nedim Hogic

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

Abstract: Donald Trump’s promise to lead an “America first” foreign policy captured the attention of both American and international legal scholars. This paper aims to join that debate by examining the international legal challenges of Trump administration’s policy towards Iran. It does so by examining two main approaches of the administration: the exercise of unilateral sanctions towards Iran and the negotiation strategy deployed by Donald Trump personally. In examining the former, the paper relies on doctrinal legal research. In examining the latter behavioral approach to international law and economics, I use a relatively novel approach borrowing insights from political psychology …

The Post-Pandemic Order: A Blueprint For Balancing Health And Ip Interests In The Age Of Covid Variants, Arjun Padmanabhan, Tanner J. Wadsworth

Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (2012 - Present)

In December 2021, the World Health Assembly (“WHA”) convened to develop a pandemic response treaty for future pandemics. Unfortunately, as presently envisioned, the resulting pandemic response framework will suffer from many of the same inadequacies that prevented existing frameworks from responding effectively to COVID-19. The threat of new pandemics emerging in the future—and new variants developing in the present—call for a more integrated, robust, comprehensive solution.

This Article lays a blueprint for that solution: a global multilateral Council empowered to (1) investigate developing pandemics; (2) incentivize pharmaceutical companies to rapidly-produce vaccines and share them through voluntary licenses or TRIPS compulsory …

Legislating Against Liberties: Congress And The Constitution In The Aftermath Of War, Harry Blain

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How far can a democracy go to protect itself without jeopardizing the liberties upon which democracy depends? This dissertation examines why wartime restrictions on civil liberties outlive their original justifications. Through a comparative historical analysis of five major American wars, it illustrates the decisive role of the U.S. Congress in preserving these restrictions during peacetime. This argument challenges the prevailing consensus in the literature, which identifies wartime executive power as the main threat to postwar freedoms. It also reveals broader narratives of American constitutional development, including the rise and fall of intrusive congressional investigations, the decline of sedition legislation since …

The “End” Of Neutrality: Tumultuous Times Require A Deeper Value, Carol Pauli

Faculty Scholarship

This essay has observed that, when times are tumultuous, third parties who intend to be neutral may need some mooring beyond the norms that are shifting. It argues that neutrality is an unsatisfying value in such times and suggests that neutrals look to the deeper values of their field. It proposes human dignity as a good place to begin, and it invites others to explore whether an initial commitment to the inherent worth of every person would make a helpful difference in practice.

Disposable Immigrants: The Reality Of Sexual Assault In Immigration Detention Centers, Valerie Gisel Zarate

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

A Pandemic Of Separation Of Powers Violations In Texas: The Interrelationship Of The Texas Disaster Act And Texas Gov’T Code Section 22.0035, Ron Beal

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article is on the interrelationship of the Texas Disaster Act and Texas Government Code Section 22.0035. The author demonstrates that the Governor of Texas and the Texas Supreme Court have grossly violated the separation of powers on a continuing basis since March 29, 2020 by Governor Abbott issuing Executive Order 13, which prohibits the granting of bail to anyone awaiting trial, and the Texas Supreme Court’s unwillingness to invalidate that order administratively or judicially. Finally, the Article addresses the nearly one thousand district and county court judges who are constantly violating the separations of powers by failing to invalidate …

America: The World’S Police—How The Defund The Police Movement Frames An Analysis For Defunding The Military, Anya Kreider

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In this article, the author examines the tenets of the Defund the Police movement and applies them to the American military to make the argument that not only should the police be defunded, but so should the American military. The purpose of this piece is to push the conversation regarding policing beyond American borders to examine American influence internationally. The article incorporates various Critical Race Theories to explore the intersection of policing and the military. The Defund the Police Movement also provides a framework for critiquing the American military because the American police and military are inextricably connected. Part I …

The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations (Ngos) In Improving Human Rights In Iraq, Naser A. Yahya

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Iraq has had a long history of human rights violations since its inception as a modern state in 1921. This is true especially under the personalistic dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Under his regime, the Iraqi people suffered a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including political imprisonment, torture, and summary and arbitrary executions. This regime used a variety of mechanisms to squelch political dissent, including house-to-house searches; arbitrary arrests, often in large numbers; surveillance; harassment and questioning of family members; detention of targeted individuals, such as those returning to Iraq pursuant to amnesties, at unknown locations; …

Court Legitimacy & The Shadow Docket, Colton Tilley

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Identity Documents For Transgender Texans: A Proposal For A Uniform System For Correcting Gender Markers In Texas, Lydia R. Harris

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Texas’s lack of a codified gender correction process is unjust, illegal, and against public policy. This comment highlights the injustice faced by transgender Texans without gender concordant identity documents. These injustices include discrimination based on gender stereotypes, violation of the transgender individual’s right to privacy, and violations of public policy. This comment explores possible solutions to the injustices faced by transgender Texans due to the lack of a codified uniform way to correct gender markers in Texas modeled on other jurisdictions’ approaches to this problem.

First, this comment traces the history of the recognition of transgender people and transgender rights …

The Mother Of Exiles Is Abandoning Her Children: The Systemic Failure To Protect Unaccompanied Minors Arriving At Our Borders, Rosa M. Peterson

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Unaccompanied minors arrive at the United States border every day. Many brought by the hope of finding a life lived without fear, a luxury many United States citizens take for granted. Their truths become the barriers and shackles which keep them in detention centers and unaccompanied minor facilities throughout the United States; children find their very words wielded as weapons against them in immigration court. Words often spoken to therapists in perceived confidence, during counseling sessions. This practice is a systemic failure to protect unaccompanied minors arriving at our borders who are seeking protection and help. The United States …

Protecting A Woman’S Right To Abortion During A Public Health Crisis, San Juanita Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

As COVID-19 infected our nation, states were quick to issue executive orders restricting various aspects of daily life under the pretense of public safety. It was clear at the outset that certain civil liberties were going to be tested. Among them, the constitutional right to an abortion.

This comment explores Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the limitations it imposed on abortion access. It will attempt to address the legitimacy of the “public health concerns” listed in executive orders issued throughout numerous states and will discuss the pertinent legal framework and judicial scrutiny to apply.

According to the Fifth …

Sexual Profiling & Blaqueer Furtivity: Blaqueers On The Run, T. Anansi Wilson

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This article has taken some time to recollect. I have been struggling to find the grammar to communicate a phenomenon that is both central to BlaQueer life and beyond BlaQueer living. This difficulty, the silences, the gaps, the nonsensical and agrammatical nature of this phenomena—that of BlaQueer furtivity, the strict scrutiny of Black life and sexual profiling—are central features not only of this project but of the legal, extralegal and social logics and powers that mark, make and remake BlaQueer folks as always, already furtive, subject to strict scrutiny and necessarily sexual profiling. I have been struggling with whether to …

Examining Stock Trading Reforms For Congress Hearing Before The U.S. House Of Representatives Committee On House Administration, Donna M. Nagy

Public Testimony by Maurer Faculty

Professor Nagy testified (text attached, video below) in support of federal legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from owning the securities of individual publicly traded companies as well as certain other investments that would likely conflict with their official duties.

It was nearly 10 years ago to the day when President Barack Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, requiring enhanced financial disclosures and creating new securities transaction reporting rules for members of Congress, certain members of their family, and their staff. The Act also made absolutely clear that a member of Congress who trades securities …

The Fuel For Neo-Nazism, Brandon M. Rubsamen

Global Tides

This paper attempts to explain the cause of support for far-right extremism movements in Europe. It takes a comparative approach in explaining that support by first analyzing Germany and Luxembourg. In each country, politics, history, economics, and society are explored in order to elicit a root cause. Once that main factor is found, Norway and Greece are also analyzed to see if the hypothesis holds. Political stability is hypothesized to be the root cause in far-right support in Germany (and lack thereof in Luxembourg), and the examples of Norway and Greece support this hypothesis. By comparing and contrasting aspects of …