Law and Society Commons^™

In Pursuit Of Water Justice In Jakarta, Widya Naseva Tuslian, Patricia Rinwigati, Stanislaus Sandyawan

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Despite becoming a rapidly growing megacity, in some of Jakarta’s areas, particularly in the underprivileged areas, a significant portion of its citizens still lack access to adequate domestic water. For years, water privatization has been considered a major barrier to solving the issue. Jakarta’s citizens have mobilized themselves to publicly reclaim Jakarta’s water governance. One of the significant actions was filing a citizen lawsuit against the relevant state authorities, which eventually was ruled in favor of the state authorities due to procedural reasons. Using the ROLAX framework developed by Bedner and Vel, this paper tries to understand to what extent …

Thai Drug Offenses And Narcotic Charges: Tracing Thailand’S Drug Control And Capital Punishment History, Jonathan Hasson, Carolyn Hoyle

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The Article examines Thailand's political economy of drugs and use of sanctions, including capital punishment, using a historical approach. It traces Thailand's nation building and emergence as a global hub for illicit drugs against the backdrop of European and US interventions since the colonial era. The Article reveals how Western concepts and discourses were appropriated by Thai elites to advance local agendas while suppressing democratic movements. The Article explores how the drug trade became entangled with government corruption, militarization, and extrajudicial state violence which often targeted ethnic minorities. In light of recent cannabis policy changes, the Article considers the historical …

Is Usmca Good For Mexican Labor? A Preliminary Analysis Of Usmca And Labor Market Outcomes In Mexico, Diego Marroquín Bitar

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) introduced significant labor provisions aimed at bolstering labor rights and promoting union democracy, representing a departure from its predecessor, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This paper examines USMCA’s potential benefits and limitations on labor, arguing that the trade agreement’s effectiveness in improving labor conditions in Mexico may be limited. By primarily benefitting export-oriented firms, USMCA leaves a significant portion of Mexico’s workforce untouched. Moreover, USMCA's new wage requirements, intended to raise labor standards, may paradoxically increase production costs for formal firms, potentially lowering overall productivity. This paper underscores the persistent formal-informal labor divide …

Addressing The Root Cause Of Covid-19 Hate Crimes Against The Aapi Community: Shifting From Reactive Policies To Preventative Solutions, Alexa A. Panganiban

Journal of Law and Policy

While the COVID-19 Pandemic affected health, social interaction, and politics on a global scale, Asian Americans in the United States faced the added hardship of racism and xenophobia. Unfortunately, anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. is not unprecedented and has historical roots dating back to at least the nineteenth century. However, with right-wing leaders using condescending labels like “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” to describe the deadly infection, Asian hate has escalated to astronomical levels. Within one year of the onset of the Pandemic, more than 9,000 reports of Asian hate were filed, and this exponential surge led to the adoption …

Designing And Developing A Medical-Legal Partnership To Address Cancer Patients' Health-Harming Legal Needs, Allison B. Dowling, Vicki W. Girard, Megan E. Gordon, Abigail Sweeney, Christopher M. Gallagher, Amy D. Ly, Lisa Kessler, Deborah F. Perry

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Georgetown University's Cancer Legal Assistance and Well-being Project launched in 2020 as a medical-legal partnership that works with health care providers at a Washington, D.C. safety-net hospital to treat the health-harming legal needs of historically and intentionally marginalized patients with cancer.

Section 898: Targeting The Companies Behind Gun Violence In New York With Public Nuisance Doctrine, Mara Kravitz

William & Mary Law Review

On July 6, 2021, the New York State Legislature enacted sections 898-a to -e of the New York General Business Law (section 898), creating a clear path for public entities and private gun violence victims to sue gun industry members for their role in the gun violence public nuisance in New York. This Note explores why the legislature took a public nuisance approach to curbing gun violence, framing section 898 within public nuisance doctrine’s broader common law history and legal elements.

To unpack how and why New York took this approach, the first Part of this Note traces the history …

The Politics And Consequences Of State Secession, Olawale Olumodimu

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Article argues that the non-express prohibition of state secession in the Nigerian Constitution does not automatically allow component states to break away unilaterally. It appears the framers of the Constitution wanted to ensure political continuity and national unity rather than allow for Nigeria’s disintegration. Beyond Nigeria, international law only allows unilateral secession in the context of decolonization and the people’s right to self-determination.

Nigeria has a responsibility to provide self-determination to its citizens; however, secession is not a legal channel to seek self-determination in the absence of targeted, widespread, or systemic criminal acts committed by or on behalf of …

Foiled Foia: The Excessive Exemption, Edward L. Wilkinson Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Freedom of Information Act permits requestors access to government information unless an exemption applies. Exemption (b)(3)(B) permits the government to protect information if there is a specific reference to a FOIA exemption in the withholding statute. Congress created this new requirement in 2009 in order to remove decision making power from administrative agencies and courts and reserve the power to disclose or withhold information with the legislative branch. This exemption poses problems to courts when there is a clear intent to protect information in the withholding statute without a clear reference to Exemption (b)(3)(B). As a result, courts have …

Defiance, Lackland H. Bloom Jr

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Mosaic Theory In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence: The Last Bastion Of Privacy In A Camera-Surveilled World, Auggie Alvarado

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Where Do Families Come From? The Law Of Family Definition, Katharine Baker

BYU Law Review

Why does the law recognize families? Sometimes family recognition serves to foster cooperative communities in which sharing norms, more than the market or the government, determine rights and obligations. These communities often take care of dependents and serve as important sources of individual self-determination and pluralism. At other times, family delineation serves a corrective purpose, when it forces family members who are not sharing with each other to do so. At still other times, family delineation serves a distributive purpose, as when the law uses “family” definition to distribute resources to determine an intended beneficiary. This use of “family” for …

The Harm In The Fiduciary Myth, Kelli Alces Williams

BYU Law Review

Fiduciary law has become the doctrine of choice in scholarship aiming to protect vulnerable parties from powerful decisionmakers. But fiduciary law cannot fill all the gaps in those impersonal, public relationships because the beneficiary class is large, disparate, and widely dispersed. Public leaders and decision makers cannot zealously pursue the interests of all parties vulnerable to their decision making and they are often driven by various personal interests in choosing which set of beneficiary interests to prioritize. The persistent myth that leaders of large groups are fiduciaries and that fiduciary obligation is the answer to all power imbalance problems harms …

Juvenile Justice & Diminished Criminal Culpability, Mitchell F. Crusto

University of Miami Law Review

When regulating the bad, albeit illegal, choices made by minors, the law is conflicted. On the one hand, we have a clear national policy to ensure the safety of and to promote the positive development of our young people, yet we simultaneously criminalize minors who make bad choices. This conundrum raises a quintessential jurisprudential flaw in our legal system: We lack a unifying, overarching principle that guides the law’s relationship with minors. In a companion piece, I pose and explore such a unifying principle, which I coin as the “best interest of the minor” standard (“BIMS”). Consequently, this Article applies …

Understanding Cyber Risk: Unpacking And Responding To Cyber Threats Facing The Public And Private Sectors, Lawrence J. Trautman, Scott Shackelford, Brian Elzweig, Peter Ormerod

University of Miami Law Review

Cyberattacks, data breaches, and ransomware continue to pose major threats to businesses, governments, and health and educational institutions worldwide. Ongoing successful instances of cybercrime involve sophisticated attacks from diverse sources such as organized crime syndicates, actors engaged in industrial espionage, nation-states, and even lone wolf actors having relatively few resources. Technological innovation continues to outpace the ability of U.S. law to keep pace, though other jurisdictions including the European Union have been more proactive. Nation-state and international criminal group ransomware attacks continue; Sony’s systems were hacked by a ransomware group; MGM Resorts disclosed that recovery from their September 2023 hack …

Anti-Antisemitism Now, Lili Levi

University of Miami Law Review

On May 25, 2023, the Biden Administration released The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism—America’s first national strategy of this kind. In early November 2023, the White House announced the establishment of the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia. These historic commitments respond to increases in identity-based bias incidents and expression against Jews and Muslims. Antisemitic incidents, which were already rising even before the pandemic, increased by almost 400% since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The war also triggered a sharp upturn in Islamophobic incidents in the U.S., including the shooting of three college students and …

No Flash Photography Please: An Analysis Of Corporate Use Of Street Art Under Section 120(A) Of The Awcpa, Sierra Epke

University of Miami Law Review

Street art and graffiti are pervasive artforms found throughout the world and throughout history. While the artforms have been associated with crime and vandalism in the past, they have increasingly been featured in different capacities from art galleries to corporate marketing campaigns. With street art’s growing recognition and popularity, corporations have begun to use the medium to target new customer bases. In some situations, the use of artwork in marketing campaigns is unsanctioned by the artist. Therefore, courts have now begun to examine the balance between copyright protection for street artists and the corporate use of street art. Section 120(a) …

Considering Caretakers: An Explicit Argument For Downward Departures During Federal Sentencing Mitigation For Caretakers Of Children, Danielle Sparber Bukacheski

University of Miami Law Review

The sentencing stage of the federal legal system provides defendants with an opportunity to articulate why the sentencing judge is justified in imposing less severe sentences. Yet, under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, sentencing judges have been restricted in the characteristics and background information that can be utilized when imposing a downward departure from the recommended Guidelines sentence. More specifically, there is great variability regarding the extent to which family-related circumstances can be utilized as justification for a downward departure due to the Sentencing Commission’s ambiguous language. Considering the damaging effects of incarceration on children when a caretaker is physically removed …

Law School News: 2024 Rbg Essay & Art Contest Winners Recognized At Women In Law Leadership Lecture 4-16-24, Roger Williams University School News

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Proportionalities, Youngjae Lee

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

“Proportionality” is ubiquitous. The idea that punishment should be proportional to crime is familiar in criminal law and has a lengthy history. But that is not the only place where one encounters the concept of proportionality in law and ethics. The idea of proportionality is important also in the self-defense context, where the right to defend oneself with force is limited by the principle of proportionality. Proportionality plays a role in the context of war, especially in the idea that the military advantage one side may draw from an attack must not be excessive in relation to the loss of …

Acs Selects Allyson Mcbride As Next Generation Leader, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The American Constitution Society has named Indiana University Maurer School of Law second-year student Allyson McBride a Next Generation Leader—one of 34 across the United States—the organization announced April 11.

She is the third Indiana Law student in as many years to earn the prestigious recognition.

A Restatement Of Democracy, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Partisanship Creep, Katherine Shaw

Northwestern University Law Review

It was once well settled and uncontroversial—reflected in legislative enactments, Executive Branch practice, judicial doctrine, and the broader constitutional culture—that the Constitution imposed limits on government partisanship. This principle was one instantiation of a broader set of rule of law principles: that law is not merely an instrument of political power; that government resources should not be used to further partisan interests, or to damage partisan adversaries.

For at least a century, each branch of the federal government has participated in the development and articulation of this nonpartisanship principle. In the legislative realm, federal statutes beginning with the 1883 Pendleton …

The Impossibility Of Corporate Political Ideology: Upholding Sec Climate Disclosures Against Compelled Commercial Speech Challenges, Erin Murphy

Northwestern University Law Review

To address the increasingly dire climate crisis, the SEC will require public companies to reveal their business’s environmental impact to the market through climate disclosures. Businesses and states challenged the required disclosures as compelled, politically motivated speech that risks putting First Amendment doctrine into further jeopardy. In the past five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated an increased propensity to hear compelled speech cases and rule in favor of litigants claiming First Amendment protection from disclosing information that they disagree with or believe to be a politically charged topic. Dissenting liberal Justices have decried these practices as “weaponizing the …

The Promise And Perils Of Tech Whistleblowing, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Northwestern University Law Review

Whistleblowers and leakers wield significant influence in technology law and policy. On topics ranging from cybersecurity to free speech, tech whistleblowers spur congressional hearings, motivate the introduction of legislation, and animate critical press coverage of tech firms. But while scholars and policymakers have long called for transparency and accountability in the tech sector, they have overlooked the significance of individual disclosures by industry insiders—workers, employees, and volunteers—who leak information that firms would prefer to keep private.

This Article offers an account of the rise and influence of tech whistleblowing. Radical information asymmetries pervade tech law and policy. Firms exercise near-complete …

Preliminary Injunctions Prevail Through The Winter Of Buckhannon, Kaitlan Donahue

Northwestern University Law Review

The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976 allows courts to award attorneys’ fees to the “prevailing party” in any “action or proceeding” enforcing several civil rights-related statutes. Yet, this statute fails to define the term “prevailing party,” leaving the courts to define it over time. The Supreme Court’s piecemeal, vague definitions of “prevailing party” have only complicated the legal landscape and caused more uncertainty for potential plaintiffs and their prospective attorneys. Without the relief offered by recovery of attorneys’ fees, private litigants may be dissuaded from pursuing meritorious litigation due to overwhelming costs of representation, and attorneys may …

Toward Accessing Hiv-Preventative Medication In Prisons, Scott Shimizu

Northwestern University Law Review

The Eighth Amendment is meant to protect incarcerated individuals against harm from the state, including state inaction in the face of a known risk of harm. While the Eighth Amendment’s protection prohibits certain prison disciplinary measures and conditions of confinement, the constitutional ambit should arguably encompass protection from the serious risk of harm of sexual assault, as well as a corollary to sexual violence: the likelihood of contracting a deadly sexually transmitted infection like HIV. Yet Eighth Amendment scholars frequently question the degree to which the constitutional provision actually protects incarcerated individuals.

This Note draws on previous scholarship on cruel …

Racial Targets, Atinuke O. Adediran

Northwestern University Law Review

It is common scholarly and popular wisdom that racial quotas are illegal. However, the reality is that since 2020’s racial reckoning, many of the largest companies have been touting specific, albeit voluntary, goals to hire or promote people of color, which this Article refers to as “racial targets.” The Article addresses this phenomenon and shows that companies can defend racial targets as distinct from racial quotas, which involve a rigid number or proportion of opportunities reserved exclusively for minority groups. The political implications of the legal defensibility of racial targets are significant in this moment in American history, where race …

Silent Today, Conversant Tomorrow: Education Adequacy As A Political Question, Yeju Hwang

Northwestern University Law Review

When the Supreme Court declined to recognize the right to education as one fundamental to liberty, and thus unprotected by the U.S. Constitution, state courts took on the mantle as the next best fora for those yearning for judicial review of inequities present in American public schools. The explicit inclusion of the right to education in each state’s constitution carried the torch of optimism into the late twentieth century. Despite half a century of litigation in the states, the condition of the nation’s public school system remains troubling and perhaps increasingly falls short of expectations. Less competitive on an international …

2024 Academy Of Law Alumni Fellows Induction Ceremony Program, Maurer School Of Law - Indiana University

Academy of Law Alumni Fellows

The Academy of Law Alumni Fellows was established in 1985 to recognize alumni whose careers are defined by exceptional personal achievement and dedication to the highest standards of the profession.

Academy Fellows are part of an elite group that includes US senators, federal judges, successful business leaders, and distinguished practitioners. A committee of anonymous alumni selects each year’s Fellows from among many deserving candidates. To be named an Academy of Law Alumni Fellow is to receive the very highest honor that the Maurer School of Law can bestow.

This year, we are honored to recognize four alumni whose remarkable contributions …

The Americans With Disabilities Act: Website Accessibility And A Foreign Solution To A Domestic Problem, James Toye

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.