Law and Politics Commons^™

Trump Has A Point On Trade, William Snape

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Democracy On The Brink, Down But Not Defeated, Andrew F. Popper

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay assesses the current state of governance and is premised on the notion that distrust, anger, and discontent in our legal system represent a threat to the whole of the regulatory state and voting, the preeminent engines of democracy. The decline in trust in government is attributable in meaningful part to the prevalence of lies and false narratives that, if believed, will undermine government at every level. While various recent actions of Congress and certain Supreme Court cases have the potential to further dilute confidence in governance, they are not the focal point of this essay. It is disinformation …

Fifa's One Association - One Vote Rule: Does Democratic Governance Ensure Its "Corporate" Integrity?, Ilias Bantekas

American University Business Law Review

This article suggests that in the absence of any requirement in favor of democratic governance of corporations and non-profit entities in national law, as well as in light of a general practice of bifurcated systems (oscillating between de jure equality and power-based governance) in respect of intergovernmental organizations, a nondemocratic governance structure in international sports federations would not deviate from the general rule. What is clearly at stake in complex organizations is effectiveness in achieving the aims of the organization, irrespective if all members are satisfied. The deceptively democratic nature of sporting federations such as FIFA is very much the …

The Rhetoric Of Abortion In Amicus Briefs, Jamie Abrams, Amanda Potts

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The amicus briefs filed in landmark abortion cases before the U.S. Supreme Court serve as a barometer revealing how various constituencies talk about abortion, women, fetuses, physicians, rights, and harms over time. This article conducts an interdisciplinary legal-linguistic study of the amicus briefs that were filed in the milestone abortion cases of Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. As the first large-scale study of all amicus briefs submitted in these key cases, this article identifies the roles of amicus briefs, analyzes their rhetorical strategies, and describes how their authors engage …

Contemporary Tribal Lawyering & Legal Ethics, Murphy Chen

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Revolution Will Not Be Moderated: Examining Florida And Texas's Attempts To Prohibit Social Media Content Moderation, Caroline Jones

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Today, around seventy percent of American citizens actively use social media for news content, entertainment, and social engagement. Since 2005, the number of Americans using social media in some capacity has increased 13 fold from five to sixty-five percent. Despite numerous studies demonstrating a correlation between social media rhetoric and real-world violence against women, racial and ethnic minority communities, and the LGBTQIA community, both Florida and Texas passed bills limiting the ways in which social media sites can moderate the content and users on their platforms in 2021. Florida’s Senate Bill 7072 requires social media platforms to allow political candidates …

Arbitrating Executive Privilege, Todd David Peterson

American University Law Review

This Article addresses the dramatic collapse in effective congressional oversight that took place during the Trump Administration. For decades, persistent congressional committees had been able to pry documents and testimony from a recalcitrant executive branch despite the absence of legally enforceable remedies. The media typically regarded executive-privilege claims as attempts to cover up executive wrongdoing, which prompted voter suspicion that damaged the President’s approval ratings. Eventually, the political cost of asserting executive privilege would become so high that the Department of Justice would work out a negotiated settlement, which allowed Congress to obtain most of the documents and testimony it …

The 2022 U.S. Steel/Aluminum Tariff Ruling: A Legal Reckoning For The United States And The Wto Over The National Security Exception In International Law, Klint W. Alexander

American University Law Review

On December 9, 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued landmark rulings against the United States in four cases brought by China, Switzerland, Norway, and Turkey involving the U.S. imposition and maintenance of restrictive trade measures on steel and aluminum imports dating back to 2018. The major effect of the rulings was to quash the idea that a WTO member had unfettered discretion to invoke the national security exception under Article XXI(b) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994) whenever it suits its interests. The recent decisions build upon important WTO precedents addressing the applicability of the …

Canada’S Arctic Policy Framework: Governance Transformation In Nunavut, C. Mark Macneill

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

On August 28, 2017 Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau committed to a renewed relationship with Indigenous Peoples based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership. To accomplish this mission, major structural changes in how the Government of Canada engages and relates with Indigenous peoples across the country were co-developed with indigenous, territorial and provincial partners to form a new Arctic Policy Framework (APF). This has had major implications of departmental transformation, particularly for the former Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs (INAC), Nunavut. Regional Office (NRO), its staff, programs, and operations.

Survival Voting And Minority Political Rights, Douglas M. Spencer, Lisa Grow Sun, Brigham Daniels, Chantel Sloan, Natalie Blades

American University Law Review

The health of American democracy has literally been challenged. The global pandemic has powerfully exposed a long-standing truth: electoral policies that are frequently referred to as “convenience voting” are really a mode of “survival voting” for millions of Americans. As our data show, racial minorities are overrepresented among voters whose health is most vulnerable, and politicians have leveraged these health disparities to subordinate the political voice of racial minorities.

To date, data about racial disparities in health has played a very limited role in assessing voting rights. A new health lens on the racial impacts of voting rules would beneficially …

Litigating The Separation Of Powers, Elizabeth Earle Beske

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Ganging Up On Terrorism: Transnational Gangs And Tier Iii Terrorist Organizations, Adam S. Domitz

American University Law Review

The Immigration and Nationality Act sets forth three distinct tiers of terrorist organizations. Unlike Tiers I and II, Tier III does not require official designation in the Federal Register by cabinet level officials. Instead, the tier calls for case-by-case adjudication by executive branch employees such as asylum officers and immigration judges. Noncitizens who engage in certain activities with or who have certain ties to any of the three tiers of organizations are inadmissible to the United States and barred from most forms of immigration relief, subject to limited exceptions. Nevertheless, in recent years, a variety of entities—including the Trump administration—have …

Foreword, Fernando R. Laguarda

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

It was an honor to be asked to write this introduction to the American UniversityLegislation & PolicyBriefannual publication. AULPB was launched in 2008 with help from then-Professor Jamie Raskin as the Legislation and Policy Roundtable, becoming a fully-fledged publication in 2011. Today, the AULPB plays a vital role in the intellectual life of the Washington College of Law, serving as the central forum for scholarship on topics at the intersection of law and public policy. In the past three years, AULPB has also organized symposia focusing on cutting edge topics elevated by bipartisan dialogue. I was privileged to work closely …

Do You Really Know What Happened To Psy?: Controversial South Korean Music Censorship, Min-Soo "Minee" Roh

Legal Writing Competition Winners

This paper was submitted to the Entertainment Law Initiative(ELI)'s The 22nd Annual Entertainment Law Initiative Writing Competition and was recognized by the Recording Academy by a formal letter for admission.

Illiberalism And Authoritarianism In The American States, James A. Gardner

American University Law Review

Federalism contemplates subnational variation, but in the United States, the nature and significance of that variation has long been contested. In light of the recent turn, globally and nationally, toward authoritarianism, and the concurrent sharp decline in public support not merely for democracy but also for the philosophical liberalism on which democracy rests, it is necessary to discard or to substantially revise prior accounts of the nature of state-to-state variation in the United States. All such accounts implicitly presuppose a common commitment, across the political spectrum, to the core tenets of democratic liberalism, and consequently assume that subnational variations in …

Equality Is A Brokered Idea, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay examines the Supreme Court's stunning decision in the census case, Department of Commerce v. New York. I characterize Chief Justice John Roberts' decision to side with the liberals as an example of pursuing the ends of equality by other means – this time, through the rule of reason. Although the appeal was limited in scope, the stakes for political and racial equality were sky high. In blocking the administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, 5 members of the Court found the justification the administration gave to be a pretext. In this instance, that lie …

Judge, Jury, And Executioner: Why Private Parties Have Standing To Challenge An Executive Order That Prohibits Icts Transactions With Foreign Adversaries, Ari K. Bental

American University Law Review

On May 15, 2019, President Donald Trump, invoking his constitutional executive and statutory emergency powers, signed Executive Order 13,873, which prohibits U.S. persons from conducting information and communications technology and services (ICTS) transactions with foreign adversaries. Though the executive branch has refrained from publicly identifying countries or entities as foreign adversaries under the Executive Order, observers agree that the Executive Order’s main targets are China and telecommunications companies, namely Huawei, that threaten American national security and competitiveness in the race to provide the lion’s share of critical infrastructure to support the world’s growing 5G network.

Executive Order 13,873 raises several …

Cve And Constitutionality In The Twin Cities: How Countering Violent Extremism Threatens The Equal Protection Rights Of American Muslims In Minneapolis-St. Paul, Sarah Chaney Reichenbach

American University Law Review

In 2011, President Barack Obama announced a national strategy for countering violent extremism (CVE) to attempt to prevent the “radicalization” of potential violent extremists. The Obama Administration intended the strategy to employ a community-based approach, bringing together the government, law enforcement, and local communities for CVE efforts. Despite claiming to target extremism in all forms, government-funded CVE programs in the United States have almost exclusively focused on Islamic extremism. One pilot program focused on the Twin Cities in Minnesota—Minneapolis and St. Paul—home to the largest Somali community in the United States, most of whom are Muslim. The Trump Administration has …

Into The Void: The Gao's Role In The Regulartory State, Bridget C.E. Dooling

American University Law Review

The study of Congress largely focuses on its members, committees, and leaders. Meanwhile, the study of federal agencies tends to focus on those that fall within the executive branch. But many agencies and institutions exist to support Congress, and administrative law and political science scholarship has largely overlooked their internal operations. Far more than ministerial, some of these agencies have the ability to shape policy in very meaningful ways. They also have their own institutional interests distinct from the legislators they serve. As instruments of Congress, though, these agencies are generally exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act and a host …

The Dichotomy Between Overcriminalization And Underregulation, Ellen S. Podgor

American University Law Review

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) failed to properly investigate Bernard Madoff’s multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme for over ten years. Many individuals and charities suffered devastating financial consequences from this criminal conduct, and when eventually charged and convicted, Madoff received a sentence of 150 years in prison. Improper regulatory oversight was also faulted in the investigation following the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. Employees of the company lost their lives, and individuals were charged with criminal offenses. These are just two of the many examples of agency failures to properly enforce and provide regulatory oversight, with eventual criminal prosecutions resulting from the …

Indecency Regulation Of The Fcc And Censorship Law In Republic Korea: Comparison And Contrasts, Min-Soo "Minee" Roh

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

Regulating music on radio or television is not a straightforward process, as the music is comprised of lyrics of words. On top of the lyrics, any music performance has an additional layer of choreography and dress code. If any individual elements or combined elements is obscene or indecent, the government attempts to regulate broadcasting both music and performance. This leads to regulating general speech on communications and it requires this paper to look into regulation of broadcasting in general and specific examples of music broadcasting regulation on radio and television, particularly, in the United States (“States”) and in Republic of …

Why The Legal Strategy Of Exploiting Immigrant Families Should Worry Us All, Jamie Abrams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article applies a family law lens to explore the systemic and traumatic effects of modern laws and policies on immigrant families. A family law lens widens the scope of individuals harmed by recent immigration laws and policies to show why all families are affected and harmed by shifts in state power, state action, and state rhetoric. The family law lens reveals a worrisome shift in intentionality that has moved the state from a bystander to family-based immigration trauma to an incendiary agent perpetrating family trauma.

Modern immigration laws and policies are deploying legal and political strategies that intentionally sever …

Manufactured Emergencies, Robert Tsai

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Emergencies are presumed to be unusual affairs, but the United States has been in one state of emergency or another for the last forty years. That is a concern. The erosion of democratic norms has led not only to the collapse of the traditional conceptual boundary between ordinary rule and emergency governance, but also to the emergence of an even graver problem: the manufactured crisis. In an age characterized by extreme partisanship, institutional gridlock, and technological manipulation of information, it has become exceedingly easy and far more tempting for a President to invoke extraordinary power by ginning up exigencies. To …

The Perils And Possibilities Of Refugee Federalism, Burch Elias

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Washington Redskins Case And The Search For Dignity, Victoria Phillips

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: For more than sixty years, Native American activists have been involved in discussions and protests over the appropriation and use of tribal references in sports names, logos, and mascots. During this same period, many of these uses have since been changed, driven by civil rights struggles and a growing awareness of the proven social harms and racism inherent in these references. Despite a gradual movement towards abolition and evolving signs of cultural understanding, many mascots invoking Native names and imagery persist today across professional, collegiate, and local school district sports. These mascots and team names, and the trademarks associated …

The Diversity Challenge: Exploring The 'Invisible College' Of International Arbitration, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As diversity can affect the perceived legitimacy of a state’s dispute resolution system and the quality of judicial decisions, diversity levels in the national bench and bar have been an area of transnational concern. By contrast, little is known about diversity of adjudicators and counsel in international arbitration. With a lack of accurate, complete, and publicly available data about international arbitrators and practitioners, speculation about membership in the “invisible college” of international arbitration abounds. Using data from a survey of attendees at the prestigious and elite biennial Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration permitted one glimpse into the …

Foreign Investments And The Market For Law, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In this Article, Professors O'Hara O'Connor and Franck adapt and extend Larry Ribstein's positive framework for analyzing the role of jurisdictional competition in the law market. Specifically, the authors provide an institutional framework focused on interest group representation that can be used to balance the tensions underlying foreign investment law, including the desire to compete to attract investments and countervailing preferences to retain domestic policy-making discretion. The framework has implications for the respective roles of BITs and investment contracts as well as the inclusion and interpretation of various foreign investment provisions.

Conflating Politics And Development? Examining Investment Treaty Arbitration Outcomes, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

International dispute settlement is an area of ongoing evaluation and tension within the international political economy. As states continue their negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the efficacy of international arbitration as a method of dispute settlement remains controversial. Whereas some sing its praises as a method of protecting private property interests against improper government interference, others decry investment treaty arbitration (ITA) as biased against states. The literature has thus far not disentangled how politics and development contribute to investment dispute outcomes. In an effort to control for the effect of internal …

Judicial Ethics And Supreme Court Exceptionalism, Amanda Frost

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In his 2011 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts cast doubt on Congress’s authority to regulate the Justices’ ethical conduct, declaring that the constitutionality of such legislation has “never been tested.” Roberts’ comments not only raise important questions about the relationship between Congress and the Supreme Court, they also call into question the constitutionality of a number of existing and proposed ethics statutes. Thus, the topic deserves close attention.

This Essay contends that Congress has broad constitutional authority to regulate the Justices’ ethical conduct, just as it has exercised control over other vital aspects of the …

The Future Of Limitless Debate: The Filibuster In The 113th Congress, Mark Kogan

Legislation and Policy Brief

Human cloning, the caning of teen vandals, and the belief that aliens descend from space to abduct humans and livestock all hold something in common: they are more popular than Congress. With the 112th Congress bottoming out at a record-low 9% approval rating, it is clear that Americans are deeply unsatisfied with the gridlock gripping Washington. While it is popular, and even easy, to lambaste Republicans for blanket obstructionism and to condemn Democrats for failure to stand up to minority bullying, collective blame shifting will not breach the dam of a hyper-partisan Congress. Instead, individuals hoping to get Congress moving …