Other Law Commons^™

Law School Exams During A Pandemic: One Law School’S Experience, Beth Parker

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

In 2020, toward the end of the spring semester, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life across the globe. Institutions, including law schools, felt the widespread effects of this public health crisis. Law schools were forced to move entire curriculums online in record time and consider how they were going to administer final exams. There is no precedent or manual for how to do this successfully. Law school exams are inherently stressful events in a law student’s career because their performance on the exam inordinately influences their grades and class rankings. Typically, law students are already on edge during final exams without …

Tragedy Of The Energy Commons: How Government Regulation Can Help Mitigate The Environmental And Public Health Consequences Of Cryptocurrency Mining, Jeff Thomson

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The use of cryptocurrencies in daily life has continued to rise over the last decade and shows no signs of slowing down. Although cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, provide numerous tangible benefits to society, the process of mining these cryptocurrencies is extremely energy intensive. Accordingly, a tragedy of the energy commons has resulted whereby the monetary incentive to mine cryptocurrencies has distorted our collective ability to care for our shared energy resources. The current system allows for industrious individuals to set up cryptocurrency mines in regions that have access to plentiful and cheap energy sources, utilize this energy to power their …

The New Decade Of Construction Contracts: Technological And Climate Considerations For Owners, Designers, And Builders, Geoffrey F. Palachuk

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

In the next decade, the construction industry faces two intertwined risks: implementation of new technologies and the impacts of climate change. Those overlapping risks will present both practical and legal issues for design professionals, developers, builders, legislators, and the public at large. Although the average participant in the construction industry may not think twice about the emergence or adoption of new technologies, or the effect of climate change on the completed project, those issues present nuanced legal implications. Construction projects and their contracts must adapt. While companies seek to implement new technologies, provide sustainable products, optimize project systems, and maximize …

Functional Statehood In Contemporary International Law, William Thomas Worster

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The international community lacks a form of territorial-based, international legal personality distinct from statehood, and yet, non-state, territorial entities of varying degrees of autonomy or independence need to function within the international community in some form. Some of these entities cannot be recognized as states because their creation violates jus cogens norms, though others are not recognized based on an assessment that they may not fully qualify as a state or that there are political reasons to refuse recognition. However, existing states still need to engage with these territorial quasi-states through the only paradigm the international community has—statehood. For example, …

Directors’ Duty Of Care In Times Of Financial Distress Following The Global Epidemic Crisis, Leon Yehuda Anidjar

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The global COVID-19 pandemic is causing the large-scale end of life and severe human suffering globally. This massive public health crisis created a significant economic crisis and is reflected in a recession of global production and the collapse of confidence in the functions of markets. Corporations and boards of directors around the world are required to design specific strategies to tackle the negative consequences of the crisis. This is especially true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that suffered tremendous economic loss, and their continued existence as ongoing concern is under considerable risk. Given these uncertain financial times, this Article …

Red Scare Or Red Herring: How The “China Initiative” Strategy For Non-Traditional Collectors Is Stifling Innovation In The United States, Bianca Tillman

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the “China Initiative” in response to the growing economic and national security threat posed by China. The China Initiative is a sweeping federal plan designed, in part, to protect the United States’ status as a leader in global innovation and scientific discourse. The U.S. is justified in its concern over China’s unfair practices to achieve military, technological, and economic prominence. While U.S. and Chinese intelligence agencies have spied on each other for decades, China has increased both the scope and the sophistication of its efforts to steal secrets from the U.S. in …

The “Green Patent Paradox” And Fair Use: The Intellectual Property Solution To Fight Climate Change, Samuel Cayton

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

As the climate crisis consistently worsens, the United States’ response to the crisis has proven inconsistent. Even with the United States likely to recommit to the Paris Climate Agreement, political tensions will likely further delay a climate response. The polarized characterization of the Green New Deal, the inaction of scientifically misguided conservatives, and the incessant proposal for middle ground approaches lacking the urgency needed to change course all contribute to this delay. While swift action from the federal government is needed, looking to the private sector to transition to sustainability is equally important. Specifically, patent protection is a strong intellectual …

Seeing And Responding: How Students Perceive School Personnel To Fail To Respond To Bullying, Ethan M. Higgins, Benjamin W. Fisher, Maury Nation

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Although research has shown that students and school personnel believe that adults respond to bullying at different rates, it is unclear why these differences occur. Using open-ended survey responses from 189 students, this study investigates why students perceive that school personnel fail to respond to bullying. Students articulated a variety of reasons for school personnel’s lack of response, including ways in which they could fail to see, notice, or respond to the bullying. In turn, students used their agency to understand and counteract school personnel’s lack of response. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed."

Disparity In Context: Judges’ Perspectives On Disparities In A Sentencing Guideline System, Justin M. Smith

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Unwarranted disparity in sentencing continues to be a problem in criminal courts. Sentencing, a final step in the multi-stage process of criminal justice, is seen as such an important component of ensuring consistency that legislative policy has created guidelines to control judicial decision-making. Nonetheless, research shows that disparity under sentencing guidelines persists due to influences external to the law - referred to as substantive rationality. Sentencing research overwhelmingly utilizes quantitative analysis of official court data to produce its conclusions about the influences of disparity. The current study builds upon past research by using qualitative analysis of interviews with 20 judges …

Social Exchange And The Formation Of Prison Visitation Communities, Adam Trahan, Douglas Evans

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Family members and significant others of incarcerated individuals suffer when their loved ones are incarcerated. The loss of a parent, sibling, child, spouse, or partner to incarceration can be painful. If they wish to stay physically connected to an incarcerated individual, visitation is their only recourse. Visiting a prison can be costly in terms of the amount of time it takes to travel to the facility, the total expenses incurred during travel, and the socio-emotional effects of limited contact. On top of these costs, visitation can be an intricate process to navigate due to the multitude of facility rules and …

Perceptions Of Rehabilitative Change Among Incarcerated Persons Enrolled In A Prison-Equine Program (Pep), Joyce A. Arditti, Amy A. Morgan, Sara Spiers, Virginia Buechner-Maxwell, Vicky Shivy

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Guided by a grounded theory methodology, the authors propose a theory of rehabilitation for incarcerated persons within a prison equine program (PEP). Interviews with ten incarcerated men yielded a grounded theory of rehabilitative change centered around the importance of relationships with program staff and horses, and the uniqueness of the barn-equine environment in promoting safe attachments and positive views of self. Special emphasis is placed on the development of secure reparative attachments between men and their horses grounded in acceptance and mutual empathy, as well as the development of redemptive identities whereby participants viewed themselves as having purpose and value …

The Clean Air Act: How It Can Be Localized To Promote Both Environmental And Social Justice, Tate Kirk

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

Legislators attempt to achieve intended goals by enacting laws that provide for regulatory enforcement. However, many times laws are unable to achieve their stated goals and in some ways may create new or exacerbate existing issues. Luckily, upon review, many of these issues can be fixed with quick modifications to either their implementation or enforcement mechanisms. In its current form, the Clean Air Act does not effectively account for differences in regional climate patterns, and, moreover, it perpetuates environmental injustice. If local governments were given more autonomy to enforce the Clean Air Act, they could shape its enforcement to more …

Fault Lines: An Empirical Legal Study Of California Secession, Bill Tomlinson, Andrew W. Torrance

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

Over the last decade, multiple initiatives have proposed that California should secede from the United States. This article examines the legal aspects of California secession and integrates that analysis with findings from an empirical study of public perceptions of such secession. There is no provision in the United States Constitution allowing states, or other political or geographical units, to secede unilaterally. The Civil War was fought to uphold this principle, and the United States Supreme Court confirmed it in its 1869 Texas v. White decision. Nevertheless, numerous instances of secession, both legal and extralegal, have occurred across human history, and …

E-Museletter: December 2020, William Taylor Muse Law Library

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Director's Message

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Just for Fun

New Materials

From Loyalty To Justice, Andrew S. Gold

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Governing Wicked Problems, Jb Ruhl, James Salzman

Vanderbilt Law Review

"Wicked problems." It just says it all. Persistent social problems-poverty, food insecurity, climate change, drug addiction, pollution, and the list goes on-seem aptly condemned as wicked. But what makes them wicked, and what are we to do about them?

The concept of wicked problems as something more than a generic description has its origins in the late 1960s. Professor Horst Rittel of the University of California, Berkeley, Architecture Department posed the term in a seminar to describe "that class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with …

Holiday 2020

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Tiffany Leung, Madison Ranta

Graphic Design & Layout: Alexandra Fox

Etched In Stone: Historic Preservation Law And Confederate Monuments, Jess R. Phelps, Jessica Owley

Florida Law Review

This Article examines the current controversy regarding Confederate monuments. While many have focused on the removal of these commemorative objects, the legal framework regarding their protection has not been fully explored. This Article provides an in-depth understanding of the application of historic preservation laws to monument removal efforts and examines the impact of these federal, state, and local laws. The examination raises significant questions about the permanency of preservation laws generally. This Article considers how historic significance is evaluated and valued, noting the lack of flexibility and absence of mechanisms for reevaluating past protection decisions. This Article uses the Confederate …

E-Museletter: November 2020, William Taylor Muse Law Library

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This Issue:

Director's Message

News You Can Use

Featured Resources

New Materials

Divorce Muta’A Between Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) And The Personal Status Laws (Presentation And Criticism), Abed Alhameed Kurdi Banyfadel

Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

The aim of this research is to clarify a fact stated in The Holy Qura'an. This fact is mainly about a right for people. Allah wisely mentioned several times in The Holy Qura'an that the divorcee must be awarded Muta'a (the amount of money that the man gives to the woman when the divorce occurs). However, some family laws did not address this right. Furthermore, people's rights which have been stated by Allah in the Holy Qura'an cannot be a subject to opinions. As it is widely known, no opinion can be accepted when there is a provision. In addition, …

Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) will add a new dispute settlement system to the plethora of judicial mechanisms designed to resolve trade disputes in Africa. Against the discontent of Member States and limited impact the existing highly legalized trade dispute settlement mechanisms have had on regional economic integration in Africa, this paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of the AfCFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM). In particular, the paper situates the AfCFTA-DSM in the overall discontent and unsupportive practices of African States with highly legalized dispute settlement systems and similar WTO-Styled DSMs among other shortcomings. Notwithstanding the transplantation of …

Court-Packing In 2021: Pathways To Democratic Legitimacy, Richard Mailey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article asks whether the openness to court-packing expressed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., Pete Buttigieg) is democratically defensible. More specifically, it asks whether it is possible to break the apparent link between demagogic populism and court-packing, and it examines three possible ways of doing this via Bruce Ackerman’s dualist theory of constitutional moments—a theory which offers the possibility of legitimating problematic pathways to constitutional change on democratic but non-populist grounds. In the end, the Article suggests that an Ackermanian perspective offers just one, extremely limited pathway to democratically legitimate court-packing in 2021: namely, where a Democratic …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Preservation Requests And The Fourth Amendment, Armin Tadayon

Seattle University Law Review

Every day, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, ridesharing companies, and numerous other service providers copy users’ account information upon receiving a preservation request from the government. These requests are authorized under a relatively obscure subsection of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). The SCA is the federal statute that governs the disclosure of communications stored by third party service providers. Section 2703(f) of this statute authorizes the use of “f” or “preservation” letters, which enable the government to request that a service provider “take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession” while investigators seek valid legal process. …

E-Museletter: October 2020, William Taylor Muse Law Library

Museletter

This Issue:

Director's Message

Library Hours and Access Policy

Tech Tips

Legal News

Featured Resources

New Materials Update

Warranty, Product Liability And Transaction Structure: The Problem Of Amazon, Aaron D. Twerski, Edward J. Janger

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How To Fix Legal Scholarmush, Adam J. Kolber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Fall 2020

The Weldon Times

A student-run publication from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Co-Editors in Chief: Tiffany Leung, Madison Ranta

Graphic Design & Layout: Alexandra Fox

Participants Of Executive Production: Theoretical Rules And Analytical Results, Zamira Esanova

Review of law sciences

The article is devoted to the correspondence of civil procedural law and enforcement proceedings, to persons participating in enforcement proceedings, their powers, particulars of the execution stage, some problems in the field of enforcement of court documents and opinions on their decision, and the comparative analysis of national and foreign takes place in the article experience.

Terms Of Presentation Of Judicial Documents For Execution, Interruption Of The Period Of Presentation And Consequence Of Its Pass, Davlatjon Khabibullaev

Review of law sciences

This article analyzes the deadlines for presenting executive documents for execution, a break in the deadline for presentation, and the consequences of missing the deadline for presenting for execution. In particular, a comparative legal analysis of the laws of our country and foreign countries regarding the timing of the presentation of executive documents for execution has been carried out. In this regard, gaps in national legislation, inconsistencies in the legislation arising upon presentation of executive documents for execution, as well as ways to address them are highlighted. The article also provides recommendations and suggestions for improving the deadlines for presenting …