International Law Commons^™

Opening Remarks, Gideon Taylor

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remarks, Ellen Germain

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Seeing The Humanity In Each Object: Finding Justice Amid The Law, Gideon Taylor, Ruth J. Weinberger

Fordham Law Review

The restitution of Nazi-looted cultural and religious property remains an important aspect of providing a measure of justice for Holocaust victims and their heirs. The United States has played a leading role, from early postwar restitution efforts to shaping international principles, such as the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (the “Washington Conference Principles”), the Terezin Declaration, and the recent Best Practices for the Washington Conference Principles. Yet restitution within the United States continues to rely largely on litigation, with varying outcomes and limited provenance research compared to some European countries. The following Essay examines America’s contributions and challenges and …

Child-Taking Justice And The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

The focus of this article is the 2022–2024 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative undertaken the U.S. Executive Branch. The article chronicles this three-year process, which included sessions with survivors and their descendants, and which resulted in a two-volume report, in an apology by President Joe Biden, and in designation of a national memorial at one of the most notorious school sites. This article examines the initiative as an example of “child-taking justice”; that is, as a process of what is called “transitional justice”, done in an effort to redress the takings of children from their community, followed by efforts to …

Living Property, Joseph William Singer

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court has increasingly defined property rights that are per se exempt from regulation in the absence of compensation, most recently in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) and Tyler v. Hennepin County (2023). The Court claims that it can identify property rights that are categorically protected from regulation by reference to history, tradition, and precedent. Yet this approach is oddly ahistorical; it is inconsistent with the fact that property law changed dramatically over U.S. history, as well as varying tremendously among the states. It is also inconsistent with the historical context of the Founding era. At that time, …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Roots Of Credit Inequality, Andrea Freeman

Seattle University Law Review

Debt oppression began before the United States became a country. Settlers enslaved Africans and Indigenous people, treating them as property that they could buy and sell for their economic and personal benefit. When enslavement became illegal, new economic systems and laws that included sharecropping, Black Codes, and Jim Crow kept Black people in servitude. Laws that prohibited enslaved people from owning property or selling goods to white people evolved into restrictions on Black people’s occupations and market participation, both formal and informal. When Black entrepreneurs overcame these obstacles and built wealth within Black business enclaves, white people enforced their racist …

“A Plain Denial”: Reclaiming Equal Protection In American Juvenile Law, Addie C. Rolnick, David S. Tanenhaus, Justin Iverson, Danielle L. Silvestri

Seattle University Law Review

Juvenile courts are based on the premise that children are different from adults and should therefore be treated differently. Children may be treated more informally by courts, punished for different purposes, and brought before the court for different behaviors. Since In re Gault, the Supreme Court has been clear that there are limits to how different juvenile courts can be. Juveniles are entitled to many of the same procedural protections as adult criminal defendants, although the Court has preserved some procedural differences where it has determined that their benefit is outweighed by the need to preserve the informality, flexibility, …

Mandating Fluoride: A Constitutional Exercise Of Police Power, Anita Jahangiri

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses the ongoing debate over fluoridation: the regulation of fluoride levels in public water systems. Extensive research indicates fluoridation, when regulated at the recommended concentration, is both safe and highly effective in preventing dental caries. Better known as cavities, dental caries is a preventable yet widespread health issue that disproportionately affects low-income populations. Reducing dental health disparities among economic classes is a pressing public health issue. Fluoridation is not merely a policy option, but a critical, proven tool to address such disparities and uphold the collective welfare of Washingtonians. This Note focuses on fluoridation as a public health …

Neurodiversity In The Courtroom: Expanding Jury Service Accessibility Beyond Physical Disability, Samantha L. Mabe

Seattle University Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act has required equal access to jury service for decades; however, efforts to accommodate jurors with disabilities have been slow to develop beyond some minor accommodations for physical disabilities. While neurodivergent people frequently struggle to navigate a world catered toward neurotypical people, jury service remains inaccessible for many neurodivergent people who need accommodations to attend trial and engage in jury deliberations. If courts and advocates do not consider how to develop accommodations to secure the service of neurodivergent jurors, they will miss out on the unique skillsets that neurodivergent people can bring to resolving disputes.

Disabled …

Redefining Section 230 Immunity, Lucas Dini

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet's growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform's …

Overcrowding The System: Rethinking Juvenile Justice In Washington State, Mckenna White

Seattle University Law Review

The recent crisis at Green Hill School highlights the detrimental consequences of severe overcrowding in Washington State’s Juvenile Rehabilitation system—a problem exacerbated by the implementation of the JR to 25 legislation. This Note argues that the juvenile rehabilitation system, which is currently struggling to manage a wide age range of offenders, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of juvenile justice practices. By examining neurological research indicating continued brain development into the mid-twenties, along with the high prevalence of trauma among justice-involved youth, this Note proposes the creation of a dedicated third system of care within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families …

Addressing The Root Of Housing Insecurity: Washington Should Divest From “Crime-Free” Housing Programs, Sarah Cerdena

Seattle University Law Review

Crime-Free Rental Housing Properties (CFRHPs) have proven to be an ineffective and inequitable approach to public safety. Often, tenants in these properties are evicted—at times, extrajudicially—as a result of conduct that does not rise to violations of their lease provisions, much less criminal behavior. By placing extraordinary power in the hands of local law enforcement to carry out these ordinances, CFRHPs predictably pose significant harm to Black and Latinx communities, survivors of domestic violence, disabled tenants, and low-income tenants generally. Recently, the Washington State Supreme Court grappled with the tensions arising between CFRHPs and the enforcement of Washington landlord-tenant law. …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Esg Investing Breaches Erisa Fiduciary Duties? A Closer Look At Spence V. American Airlines, Inc., Eric Chin-Ru Chang

Seattle University Law Review

In Spence v. American Airlines, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found that American Airlines breached its fiduciary duties due to BlackRock’s ESG investing practices. Contrary to some reports suggesting that the ruling prohibits ESG investing under ERISA, a closer look at the ruling shows that the court only targeted American Airlines’ failure to manage conflicts of interest appropriately, rather than the legality of ESG investing itself. In light of the intensifying ESG backlash in the United States, this Article cautions against further restrictive measures on ESG investing. Such measures would exacerbate the widening …

Authoritarian Transfers, Günter Frankenberg, Fernanda G. Nicola

University of Miami Law Review

The rapid proliferation of foreign agent laws globally has become a hallmark of rising authoritarianism, with these laws weaponized to suppress dissent and stifle civil society. While the post-World War II study of legal transplants focused on liberal legal orders, the rise of authoritarian regimes has introduced a new dimension: the transnational movement and adaptation of authoritarian legal frameworks, or authoritarian transfers. This Article fills a critical gap by developing an analytical framework to distinguish authoritarian transfers from democratic ones, using transfer theory, a central theme in comparative law that explores how laws travel, adapt, and transform within new social …

Bandung And The Future Of Africa’S Pasts, Rabiat Akande, Olufemi Elias

Articles & Book Chapters

The idea of decolonization that animated the spirit of the 1955 Bandung Conference continues to power imaginations of an alternative to the world Bandung inhabited. In this essay, we look upon Africa from Bandung, and simultaneously from Africa to Bandung, to recover an “otherwise”—a seeing of the future from Africa’s pasts. In the future envisioned in Bandung and beyond, flag independence was regarded as the first stop in the project of decolonization.1 The conference was to provide both “guidance to mankind … [on] the way which it must take to attain safety and peace” and “evidence that Asia and Africa …

Iran And Its Proxies: Attribution And State Responsibility, Jennifer Maddocks

International Law Studies

Iran has invested heavily in proxy militias since the regime's founding in 1979. In the decades that followed, groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shi'a militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen have projected Iran's influence across the region. Today, Iran's proxy network is considerably weakened due to Israel's military actions following October 7, 2023, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Yet the Houthis' attacks on Israel and against Red Sea shipping demonstrate how Iran's support to these groups continues to facilitate their conduct in violation of international law. This article examines Iran's potential …

Statutory Copy-Pasting In The Law Of Sovereign Immunity, Chimène I. Keitner

William & Mary Law Review

Congress sometimes copy-pastes language from one statute into another statute. While this can serve the goals of consistency and efficiency, copy-pasting can cause problems when done across disparate legal regimes, such as different sovereign immunity doctrines. When Congress enacted the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of 1976, it borrowed language from the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) of 1946 that exempts the exercise of “discretionary functions” from tort jurisdiction. Both statutes allow private damages claims against governmental entities in defined circumstances. Despite this superficial similarity, the statutes were enacted in very different contexts and serve fundamentally different purposes. Nonetheless, courts …

Unsafe At Any Speed: "Safe Third Country Agreements" - Offshoring And Eroding Legal Protections Owed To Refugees And Asylum Seekers, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article analyzes third country agreements and refugee transfer practices of the United States and the European Union. Part II demonstrates that, under international law, all countries are obligated to protect refugees and are prohibited from directly or indirectly sending them to a country where there is a substantial basis for believing that their life or freedom would be threatened. Part II will likewise show that the notion of "safe third country" transfer agreements and practices is often a fallacy, an oxymoron. Instead of keeping refugees safe, such agreements and practices seriously erode the fundamental non-refoulment obligation …