Litigation Commons^™

Criminalization Of Community-Based Ecotourism (Cbet) In Indonesia: The Cases Of Pari Island, Kepulauan Seribu, Janthi Dharma Shanty, Bono Budi Priambodo

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

Pari islanders have revamped their island into cultural ecotourism destination since 2010. It has been successful because the activities have diverted the islanders’ dependence on the hard-pressed local coastal and fisheries resources and supplemented their income. This is a win-win situation the Indonesian government seeks to create with the 2007 Coastal Zone and Small Islands Management Law where natural conservation benefits local populace economically. The Law stipulates, among others, that community participation is one of the integrated coastal zone management principles. The Law also prioritizes coastal zones for conservation and tourism activities. Pari islanders thus have already implemented the imperatives …

Prioritizing Regional Wildlife Conservation By Rejuvenating The Western Hemisphere Convention On Nature Protection, Shade Streeter, David Hunter, William Snape Iii

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Last year, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”), representing nearly every nation, signed a milestone agreement committing, among other things, to conserve thirty percent of Earth’s lands and oceans to stave off the rapid diminution of the planet’s biodiversity. Implementing these global commitments will require not only strong domestic measures, but also enhanced regional cooperation targeting the conservation of the region’s migratory wildlife and shared resources. Although the United States is the sole major holdout from the CBD, it can still reassert its leadership in regional wildlife conservation by rejuvenating the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation …

Unclos, Undrip & Tartupaluk: The Grim Tale Of Hans Isle And Graense, Christopher Mark Macneill

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

“Inuit have lived in the Arctic from time immemorial.” The Arctic, in the face of climate change, has become a hot spot for exploration, resource extraction, and increased shipping and scientific activity. “[The] Inuit . . . have had a common and shared use of the sea area and the adjacent coasts” among their own communities, and contemporaneously with the world. This vast circumpolar Inuit Arctic region includes land, sea, and ice stretching from eastern Russia (Chukotka region) across the Berring Strait, to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and Greenland, representing an Inuit homeland known as Nunaat. Hans Isle, a small …

The Great Climate Migration: A Critique Of Global Legal Standards Of Climate-Change Caused Harm, Mariah Stephens

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Approximately 2.4 billion people, or about forty percent of the global population, live within sixty miles (one hundred kilometers) of a coastline. The United Nations (“U.N.”) determined that “a sea level rise of half a meter could displace 1.2 million people from low-lying islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with that number almost doubling if the sea level rises by two metres.” The U.N. also reports that “sudden weather-related hazards” have internally displaced an annual average of 21.5 million people since 2008. Within the next few decades, this number is likely to continue to increase. …

The Future Of Crypto-Asset Mining: The Inflation Reduction Act And The Need For Uniform Federal Regulation, Liz Guinan

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

Crypto-asset mining is energy-intensive and environmentally harmful, presenting challenges and opportunities for federal, state and local governments, regulators, and society as a whole. As of December 2021, the United States has thirty-eight percent of the global crypto network hash rate, which is the total amount of computational power used to mine and process crypto transactions, making the United States the world’s largest crypto-asset mining industry. The total electricity consumption of crypto-asset mining in the United States is estimated to be around 121.36 terawatt-hours (“TWh”) per year, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of approximately 10.9 million households in the …

Editors' Note, Rachel Keylon, Meghen Sullivan

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

For more than two decades, the Sustainable Development Law and Policy Brief (“SDLP”) has published works analyzing emerging legal and policy issues within the fields of environmental, energy, sustainable development, and natural resources law. SDLP has also prioritized making space for law students in the conversation. We are honored to continue this tradition in Volume XXIII.

The Internet, Personal Jurisdiction, And Daos, Matthew R. Mcguire

Washington and Lee Law Review

Global connectivity is at an all-time high, and sovereign state law has not fully caught up with the technological innovations enabling that connectivity. TCP/IP—the communications protocol allowing computers on different networks to speak with each other—wasn’t adopted by ARPANET and the Defense Data Network until January 1983. That’s only forty years ago. And the World Wide Web wasn’t released to the general public until August 1991, less than thirty-five years ago. The first Bitcoin block was mined on January 3, 2009, less than fifteen years ago.

Legal doctrine doesn’t develop that fast, especially in legal systems heavily based around judicial …

Plaintiffs' Process: Civil Procedure, Mdl, And A Day In Court, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Abbe R. Gluck

Scholarly Works

The article focuses on the concept of "plaintiffs process" within the field of civil procedure. It discusses how civil procedure doctrine has traditionally been defendant-centric, focusing on the rights and protections of defendants in legal cases. It examines the role of multidistrict litigation (MDL) in this context and how it impacts plaintiffs rights and access to the courts.

Some Thoughts On Reply Briefs, Brian Wolfman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay provides suggestions for writing reply briefs. It begins with a quick review of the well-understood ways in which an appellate advocate should acquire and review the information needed to write a comprehensive and powerful reply brief.

The essay then turns to the more difficult challenges of crafting the brief, making three key points:

First, don't just go tit-for-tat in responding to one point after another advanced by the appellee. That can be boring and ponderous and often requires you to argue the case on your opponent's terms. Rather, re-frame the case on your client's terms, taking the case …

Problems In The Copyright Industry: Making The Case For A Corrected Case Act, Megan Grantham

Et Cetera

In 2020, Congress passed the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, which established a small claims court system within the United States Copyright Office, called the Copyright Claims Board. This new board hears cases of copyright violations involving damages of $30,000 or less. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on December 27, 2020, and the board officially began hearing claims in June 2022. This was meant to benefit smaller creators who do not have the means to pursue their copyright claims in costly federal court. While small or independent creators should indeed have access to a means of …

On Your Mark, Get Set, Sue: The Fourth Circuit Considers When Citizen Suits Under The Clean Water Act Properly Commence In Naturaland Trust V. Dakota Finance Llc, Sarah A. Moynihan

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Change We Can Believe In: The Seventh Circuit's Exposure Of Inadequate Environmental Review In Protect Our Parks V. Buttigieg, P. Nicholas Greco

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

On The Fence About Immigration And Overpopulation: "Environmentalists" Challenge Dhs Policies On Nepa Basis In Whitewater Draw Natural Resource Conservation District V. Mayorkas, Maya J. Williams

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Game, Set, …Tie? The Eleventh Circuit Gives Courts Discretion To Refrain From Choosing A Prevailing Party, Tessa Sizemore

Mercer Law Review

During the National Football League’s (NFL) 2022 opening week, the Houston Texans game versus the Indianapolis Colts ended in a tie after an impressive fourth-quarter comeback by the Colts. This is only the nineteenth opening week tie in NFL history. Much like that Texans-Colts game, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit hosted a legal dispute which ended in a tie this year. While the American legal system is no game, it is certainly a surprise when our adversarial system produces a legal result with no winner.

Per Curiam Signals In The Supreme Court's Shadow Docket, Zina Makar

Washington Law Review

Lower courts and litigants depend a great deal on the Supreme Court to articulate and communicate signals regarding how to interpret existing doctrine. Signals are at their strongest and most reliable when they originate from the Court’s merits docket. More recently, the Court has been increasingly relying on its orders docket—colloquially referred to as its “shadow docket”—to communicate with lower courts by summarily reversing and correcting errors in interpretation without briefing or oral argument.

Over the past decade the Roberts Court has granted certiorari to summarily reverse a growing number of qualified immunity cases, issuing over a dozen unsigned per …

Class Action, Thomas M. Byrne, Stacey Mcgavin Mohr

Mercer Law Review

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit worked its way through a varied menu of class-action issues during 2022, including the multifaceted problem of uninjured class members—which the court has decided to consider en banc—as well as several class-action jurisdictional issues. The court also declined to rehear en banc its controversial 2020 decision prohibiting class-representative incentive awards, a decision that the Supreme Court recently declined to review as well.

For Whom The Church Bells Toll: The Supreme Court Of Georgia Resolves The Issue Of Whether Fraud Can Toll The Statute Of Limitations For Sexual Abuse Claims, Sydney Thompson

Mercer Law Review

In January of 2002, the Boston Globe published an article detailing widespread allegations of child sexual abuse by serial pedophiles and a sophisticated coverup that implicated high ranking clergy members. In the aftermath of the article, thousands of men and women from across the United States came forward with their own allegations, which revealed patterns of abuse and deception in dioceses around the country. The wave of litigation that followed raised compelling questions about statutes of limitations, discovery rules, and the long term effects of childhood sexual abuse.

Twenty years after the Globe’s article, the Supreme Court of Georgia decided …

Trial Practice And Procedure, John O'Shea Sullivan, Leesa M. Guarnotta, Grace B. Callanan

Mercer Law Review

The 2022 Survey period yielded decisions involving issues of first impression relating to federal trial practice and procedure in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. This Article analyzes recent trial practice developments in the Eleventh Circuit, including significant rulings in the areas of consumer debt collections, arbitration, copyrights, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54, and a rule change regarding party disclosures.

When Patent Litigators Become Neurosurgeons, Katie Chang

Washington Law Review Online

Patent law is where the law meets the most cutting-edge and innovative technology of its time. Usually, subject matter experts, with the help of lawyers, are the ones applying for patents. But when it comes to granting and enforcing patent rights, the job falls onto lawyers and judges, who, for the most part, are likely not experts in the relevant technical field. Bridging the gap between technological expertise and legal expertise has been a pain point in patent litigation, one that Congress has tried to rectify for many years. This Comment primarily examines one of Congress’s solutions—the Patent Pilot Program—and …

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a plaintiff and the organization to which she belonged had standing, based on her claimed injury to her aesthetic well-being, to bring a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit against a developer who had allegedly filled a wetland in violation of its permit, even though the plaintiff had never visited the wetland and even though the wetland was on private property not accessible to the plaintiff. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama concluded that acid mine leachate from a refuse pile …