Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

The Gdpr: It Came, We Saw, But Did It Conquer?, Leila Javanshir

Seattle University Law Review

On February 1, 2019, the Seattle University Law Review held its annual symposium at the Seattle University School of Law. Each year, the Law Review hosts its symposium on a topic that is timely and meaningful. This year, privacy and data security professionals from around the globe gathered to discuss the current and future effects of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was implemented on May 25, 2018. The articles and essays that follow this Foreword are the product of this year’s symposium.

Regulating The Gdpr: Perspectives From The United Kingdom, Hannah Mccausland

Seattle University Law Review

Hannah McCausland leads the international group at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO’s International Engagement functions as the gateway to other data protection and privacy authorities on international matters. She’s involved in the work of the EU European Data Protection Board advising the commissioner and the deputy commissioner on international positioning of the ICO, and she has played a key role over the past six years in the ICO’s strategy on navigating the EU’s data protection framework. Hannah has also played a major role at the global level and advancing the practical tools that data protection and privacy …

Privacy, Freedom, And Technology—Or “How Did We Get Into This Mess?”, Alex Alben

Seattle University Law Review

Can we live in a free society without personal privacy? The question is worth pondering, not only in light of the ongoing debate about government surveillance of private communications, but also because new technologies continue to erode the boundaries of our personal space. This Article examines our loss of freedom in a variety of disparate contexts, all connected by the thread of erosion of personal privacy. In the scenarios explored here, privacy reducing activities vary from government surveillance, personal stalking conducted by individuals, and profiling by data-driven corporations, to political actors manipulating social media platforms. In each case, new technologies …

Confiding In Con Men: U.S. Privacy Law, The Gdpr, And Information Fiduciaries, Lindsey Barrett

Seattle University Law Review

In scope, ambition, and animating philosophy, U.S. privacy law and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation are almost diametric opposites. The GDPR’s ambitious individual rights, significant prohibitions, substantive enforcement regime, and broad applicability contrast vividly with a scattershot U.S. regime that generally prioritizes facilitating commerce over protecting individuals, and which has created perverse incentives for industry through anemic enforcement of the few meaningful limitations that do exist. A privacy law that characterizes data collectors as information fiduciaries could coalesce with the commercial focus of U.S. law, while emulating the GDPR’s laudable normative objectives and fortifying U.S. consumer privacy law with a …

General Data Protection Regulation (Gdpr): Prioritizing Resources, Jennifer Dumas

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will discuss and analyze the years of preparation for the GDPR and provide recommendations for dealing with the GDPR forevermore. It will assess whether the preparation and panic were worth it. In other words, was the time, expense, and distraction my peers and I expended and experienced over the past years proportionate to the requirements and impact of the GDPR? Further, was the high level of preparation and panic many legal departments in countless companies undertook and experienced appropriate now that we have had a chance to see the initial impact of the GDPR?

Privacy Statements Under The Gdpr, Mike Hintze

Seattle University Law Review

The need to include specific types of information in a privacy statement is a GDPR compliance obligation that does not get as much attention as some other GDPR requirements. Perhaps that is because privacy statements have been much maligned in recent years. They are too long and full of legalese. Nobody reads them. They are part of a notice and consent approach to privacy that puts an unrealistic burden on consumers to make informed choices. But despite these well-known criticisms, the GDPR doubles down on privacy statements. In fact, gauging by the roughly fourfold increase in privacy statement requirements compared …

Requiem For Cyberspace: The Effect Of The European General Privacy Regulation On The Global Internet, Steven Tapia

Seattle University Law Review

The dream of a perpetual, limitless, non-dimensional space is an idea that has transfixed clergy, philosophers, and poets for ages. Whether it is called “heaven,” “the afterlife,” “nirvana,” or another linguistic stand-in, the dream of a dimension beyond the bounds of time, space, and the laws of nature seems as universal as any concept ever. From its initial development in the 1970s (as a military, academic, and governmental experiment in creating a wholly alternative means of communication capable of surviving catastrophic failures of any parts of the communications conduits) until essentially now, the Internet seemed to be the closest incarnate …

Footprints: Privacy For Enterprises, Processors, And Custodians…Oh My!, Blair Witzel, Carrie Mount

Seattle University Law Review

Americans’ interest in privacy—as evidenced by increasing news coverage, online searches, and new legislation—has grown over the past decade. After the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), technologists and legal professionals have focused on primary collectors of data—known under various legal regimes as the “controller” or “custodian.” Thanks to advances in computing, many of these data collectors offload the processing of data to third parties providing data-related cloud services like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. In addition to the data they have already collected about the data subjects themselves, these companies now “hold” that data on behalf of …

Non-Autonomous Artificial Intelligence Programs And Products Liability: How New Ai Products Challenge Existing Liability Models And Pose New Financial Burdens, Greg Swanson

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that the unique relationship between manufacturers, consumers, and their reinforcement learning AI systems challenges existing products liability law models. These traditional models inform how to identify and apportion liability between manufacturers and consumers while exposing litigants to low-dollar tort remedies with inherently high-dollar litigation costs.11 Rather than waiting for AI autonomy, the political and legal communities should be proactive and generate a liability model that recognizes how new AI programs have already redefined the relationship between manufacturer, consumer, and product while challenging the legal and financial burden of prospective consumer-plaintiffs and manufacturer-defendants.

Gdpr Compliance—It Takes A Village, Susy Mendoza

Seattle University Law Review

When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May of 2018, many legal departments were confronted with the gravity of just how they were going to comply with such a wide-reaching law. If you have international customers (both direct to consumer or business to business), it is not hard to convince your general counsel that compliance with the GDPR is a must. You may even be able to get the chief technical officer (CTO) or chief operating officer (COO) onboard just by mentioning the steep fines—two to four percent of worldwide gross revenue. But how does the …

2018 Symposium Lecture: The Range Of Remedies And Responses In The #Metoo Movement, Jennifer Robbennolt

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

2018 Symposium Lecture: #Metoo And Procedural Justice, Lesley Wexler

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

2018 Symposium Lecture: Working With Victims In The Era Of #Metoo, Megan Zwisohn

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

System Accountability And Sexual Assault: The Past And Future Of The Criminal Justice System, Alta Viscomi

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The #MeToo Movement and the rise in the public consciousness of the impact of sexual violence has made abundantly clear that the legal rape reform movement that began in the 1970s was largely unsuccessful in stemming the tide of sexual violence. That movement was directed at the procedures in criminal justice system that make rape prosecutions easier for the state, but it failed to address the state’s role in enabling and perpetuating sexual violence. By failing to address those issues and by actively turning to carceral feminism, the state implemented a system in which sexual violence reporting remains low while …

Prefatory Matter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editor, Maryann Grover

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

2018 Symposium Keynote Address, Sharyn Tejani

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

2018 Symposium Panel Discussion: Sexual Harassment In The Workplace In The #Metoo Era, Kevin Woodson, Janice Craft, Kati Dean, Patty Gill, Rebecca Royals

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Changes Needed To Strengthen The #Metoo Movement, Sarah David Heydemann, Sharyn Tejani

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The rise of the #MeToo Movement highlights the inadequacies of Title VII, the federal law that protects against employment discrimination, including sex harassment. Title VII, in its current form, does not adequately address the needs of workers, especially low-wage workers, who already face considerable obstacles to reporting their harassment. While states have made significant strides in this area, the work of advocates for change and for survivors, like the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund and the National Women’s Law Center, is necessary so that the federal government follows suit to ensure Title VII works for all workers. In this article, …

Vicarious Trauma In Public Service Lawyering: How Chronic Exposure To Trauma Affects The Brain And Body, Megan Zwisohn, Wayne Handley, Danielle Winters, Alyssa Reiter

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Each day, attorneys and other service providers are subject to trauma. By the nature of the profession, they work with victims of crime, victims of poverty, and victims of discrimination. While attorneys do not personally experience this victimization, they do often internalize it and revisit it in case preparation. As a result, attorneys, particularly those in public interest roles, regularly experience, burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. These factors can negatively impact attorneys neurological and physiological functioning, causing them harm and potentially causing harm to their client or their client’s case. For these reasons, it is critically important for attorneys …

They Still Just Don’T Get It: The Lessons Of The #Metoo Movement Through The Lens Of Supreme Court Nominations, Maryann Grover

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Many have hailed the #MeToo Movement as a turning point in the way this country discusses sexual assault and sexual harassment, but when looking at the #MeToo Movement through the lens of Supreme Court nominations, it is unclear whether the impact of the Movement will be as farreaching as some imagine. The hearing of Anita Hill, which came before the #MeToo Movement, and the hearing of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, which came after the #MeToo Movement, perhaps demonstrate that the #MeToo Movement has reached its limit culturally and now institutional change must be the focus in order for the goals …

To The Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse- Whenever You’Re Ready: Eliminating The Criminal Statute Of Limitations On Childhood Sexual Assault Crimes In Light Of Pennsylvania’S Catholic Dioceses Grand Jury Investigation, Rebecca Schultz

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

It is exceptionally difficult for many survivors of sexual assault to come forward to tell their story. This is particularly the case where the perpetrator is someone in a position of power who the survivor trusted. The statute of limitations for cases of childhood sexual abuse can serve as another barrier preventing survivors from coming forward because it prevents any semblance of justice for those individuals. This is currently most evident in states like Pennsylvania that still impose a statute of limitations on crimes of sexually assaulting children. Pennsylvania is reeling from its most recent Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal, …

Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Volumes I And Ii (Redacted Version Of April 18, 2019), Robert S. Mueller Iii

United States Department of Justice: Publications

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME I

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN

The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation–a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Priozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin [redacted]

In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions [redacted]

The IRA later used social media accounts and interest …

Reputation As A Disciplinarian Of International Organizations, Kristina Daugirdas

Articles

As a disciplinarian of international organizations, reputation has serious shortcomings. Even though international organizations have strong incentives to maintain a good reputation, reputational concerns will sometimes fail to spur preventive or corrective action. Organizations have multiple audiences, so efforts to preserve a “good” reputation may pull organizations in many different directions, and steps taken to preserve a good reputation will not always be salutary. Recent incidents of sexual violence by UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic illustrate these points.

The Resurgence Of Executive Primacy In The Age Of Populism: Introduction To The Symposium, Peter Cane

Washington International Law Journal

The articles in this issue, devoted to legal and constitutional issues around executive primacy and populism, were first presented at an Advanced Workshop on the Resurgence of Executive Primacy in the Age of Populism, organised by Professor Cheng-Yi Huang and held at the Institutum Jurisprudentiae of the Academica Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan on June 21 and 22, 2018. Scholarly interest in populism has grown over the past thirty years to the point where it could recently be the subject of The Oxford Handbook of Populism, published late in 2017. According to the editors of that volume, the bulk of …

Executive Primacy, Populism, And Public Law, Peter Cane

Washington International Law Journal

As the articles in this Symposium suggest, populism and authoritarianism present ongoing challenges not only to liberal democracy but also to its legal underpinnings. Manipulation, avoidance, evasion, and outright rejection of the constitutional and legal frameworks of liberal democracy are features of populist authoritarianism. The basic argument of this article is that liberal-democratic public law and legal theory no longer satisfy human needs and desires because they were conceived in worlds that no longer exist, when the main pre-occupation was to secure liberty, not equality. The aim of the article is to explain the inherited structure of our public law …

Breaking The Equilibrium: From Distrust Of Representative Government To An Authoritarian Executive, Gábor Attila Tóth

Washington International Law Journal

Although contemporary populist authoritarians have not entirely abandoned the aims and methods of their ancestors, authoritarianism has been undergoing a reinvention in recent years. Behind a façade of constitutionalism, new authoritarianism claims to abide by democratic principles. Populist authoritarians legitimize themselves through popular elections and maintain the entire set of formal institutions associated with constitutional democracy, using them as both an appearance of representation and a tool of authoritarian imposition. The article focuses on the concepts of trust and distrust of representative government to afford a better understanding of populist authoritarianism. The paper describes two rival theoretical conceptions of government, …

The Changing Nature Of Bureaucracy And Governing Structure In Japan, Mayu Terada

Washington International Law Journal

This paper analyzes and criticizes changes in the relationship between politics and the bureaucracy, in Japan up to the present from the viewpoint of administrative organizations and related public law system. Drastic changes in the legal system, or legal reform, may sometimes undermine the true intention of the policy and its implementation. Thus, bringing political leadership in administrative decision-making bodies cannot be easily concluded as better or worse than the complete separation of administration and government. To analyze this matter in detail, this paper looks at the following points: 1) Analysis of the operation of the limited political appointment system …

States Empowering Plaintiff Cities, Eli Savit

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Across the country, cities are becoming major players in plaintiff’s-side litigation. With increasing frequency, cities, counties, and other municipalities are filing lawsuits to vindicate the public interest. Cities’ aggressive use of lawsuits, however, has been met with some skepticism from both scholars and states. At times, states have taken action—both legislative and via litigation—to preempt city-initiated suits.

This Article contends that states should welcome city-initiated public-interest lawsuits. Such litigation, this Article demonstrates, vindicates the principles of local control that cities exist to facilitate. What is more, a motivated plaintiff city can accomplish public-policy goals that are important not just to …

International Law And Political Philosophy: Uncovering New Linkages, Steven R. Ratner

Articles

The legal regime regulating cross-border investment gives key rights to foreign investors and places significant duties on states hosting that investment. It also raises distinctive moral questions due to its potential to constrain a state’s ability to manage its economy and protect its people. Yet international investment law remains virtually untouched as a subject of philosophical inquiry. The questions of international political morality surrounding investment rules can be mapped through the lens of two critiques of the law – that it systemically takes advantage of the global South and that it constrains the policy choices of states hosting investment. Each …