Showing posts with label scholarship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scholarship. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Pop culture scholars invite Chicago program proposals

The American Culture Association and Popular Culture Association will meet for the ACA/PCA national conference in Chicago on March 27-30, 2024, and a call for proposals (CFP), including law papers in particular, is open now to November 30.

ACA/PCA is multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary, and its Law Area has issued this CFP:

LAW AREA

Call for Proposals: Sessions, Panels, Papers for ACA/PCA National Conference in Chicago – March 27-30, 2024

We invite papers and presentations on all aspects of law and American culture and law and popular culture, including but not limited to: representations of the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and current cases and controversies; pop culture depictions of civil and criminal law, attorneys, and the judicial process; cinematic representations of law and justice; papers that comparatively examine the way different literary texts, musical genres or works in art history depict law and outlaws; historic preservation law. We welcome submissions on all historical, interdisciplinary, and contemporary topics related to the justice system and legal practice. Submit your paper or presentation proposal to: https://pcaaca.org/page/nationalconference.

The proposal should include an abstract of more than 250 words, and complete contact information (name, presenter’s institutional affiliation, and e-mail address). Proposals must be submitted through the PCA website. Only current, paid members can submit proposals. The submission deadline is November 30.

Area Chair: Patricia Peknik, ppeknik@berklee.edu

The PCA website further articulates submission guidelines.  PCA membership starts at $50 and includes a digital journal subscription. The PCA conference site indicates that there will be sessions dedicated to undergraduate research.

I'm pleased to share this CFP on behalf of my colleague Professor Peknik at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Journal of Civic Information seeks associate editor

If you're a transparency scholar looking for a side hustle, check out the posting by the Journal of Civic Information seeking an associate editor.

Present editor and FOI advocate extraordinaire David Cuillier has moved into the leadership role at Florida's Brechner Center, so he needs someone new at the helm of the journal. The associate editorship is a three-year gig with a $2,500 annual stipend.

I serve on the Journal's Editorial Board. So you know it's a worthy cause.

The deadline for application is October 1, 2023.

Monday, May 15, 2023

Comparative law class explores death, migration, more

Publicdomainvectors.org

Law students in my comparative law class examined a range of compelling issues this spring, including medical aid in dying, immigration reform, sexual assault and violence against women, and restorative justice in Islamic law; and we benefited from Zoom guests, who joined from Afghanistan, Belgium, Poland, and America.

Teaching comparative law is a distinctive joy, as I have opined previously, because always there is more to learn. The subject gives students with wide-ranging passions an opportunity to explore previously untapped veins of research. Everyone in the class, including me, shares in the riches that are surfaced.

I owe gratitude to special guests who joined our class via Zoom to enrich our understanding and skills.

  • Sylvia Lissens, a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant in comparative law, joined from KU Leuven in Belgium to talk about EU law-making and share a European legal perspective.
  • Ugo S. Stornaiolo Silva, an Ecuadorean lawyer and LL.M. candidate, joined from Jagiellonian University in Poland, to talk about Ecuadorean constitutional law and share a Latin American legal perspective.
  • A Dutch friend (whose name I withhold for his security), a humanitarian aid worker, joined from Kabul, Afghanistan, to talk about aid delivery within domestic legal constraints in the Middle East.
  • Misty Peltz-Steele, a law librarian (and my generous wife), joined from Roger Williams University Law School in Rhode Island to orient students on foreign, comparative, and international legal research.

Next year, I'll be on a break from teaching comparative law, as I tackle two sections of 1L torts. Fortunately, to tide me over, I have a raft of ambitious and thoughtfully developed student research projects on which to ruminate, including the following. I thank our guests and especially thank my students for a rewarding semester.

Sarah Barnes, Dignified Death: A Comparative Analysis of Medical Aid in Dying Between the United States and the Netherlands.  Medical aid in dying (MAID), also known as physician assisted suicide, has been a growing concept globally for several decades. The ethical, moral, and legal issues surrounding the practice have caused some jurisdictions to proceed with caution and others to abandon it completely. While creating processes and procedures around MAID can be complicated and daunting, a few countries have managed to successfully implement a system in which their citizens can participate. The following compares and analyzes two jurisdictions, the United States and the Netherlands, that have managed to provide this practice and allow those who are eligible a way to die with dignity.

Morgan Dunham, Implementing Change: A Call for a Point-Based Immigration System in the United States. As the United States attempts to compete on a global scale with other economic powers, the ability of countries to attract foreign workers to their shores permanently is placed under a microscope. While immigration is a controversial issue across the globe, it is also a growing reality. This paper examines the U.S. employment-based immigration system in comparison with the employment-based hybrid system of the Commonwealth of Australia, focusing on its use of a point-based merit system in screening applicants. In addition, this paper examines attempts by legislators in each country to incorporate elements of the other system to improve efficiency. Through an overview of each country’s paths to legal permanent residency, zones of convergence are analyzed to better highlight the benefits and limitations of each system. 

Jordan Lambdin, "Call Them by Their True Names": Comparing the United States Violence Against Women Act to Chile's Femicide Laws. Violence against women is linked to legal and social institutions, as well as cultural value systems. This project compares the legal systems and codes relating to violence against women in the United States (U.S.) and Chile. The objective of this project is to compare the similarities and differences between the U.S. approach to criminalize domestic violence and Chile’s femicide criminalizing code, namely the lack of a femicide/intimate partner homicide definition or criminalizing statute. This project aims to explain the different U.S. and Chilean cultural and legal responses to criminalizing violence against women. Both systems are part of a global culture of violence against women that aims to physically and culturally destroy women as a group. The result is the repeated destruction and death of many thousands of women.

Sara Zaman, What is a Sexual Offense?: A Legal Comparison Between Pakistan and the United States. Sexual offenses are fairly defined in the same manner across countries. The passage of Pakistan’s Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act of 2006 played a key role in defining sexual assault against women after the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 received severe criticism from the Pakistani population and human rights groups. Likewise, in the United States, the Model Penal Code draft of 1962 also provided a definition of sexual assault. The two documents have striking similarities despite the fact that they were written thousands of miles apart by very distinct cultures. However, the differences are still noted. The laws of both Pakistan and the United States can be improved by comparing and contrasting these two documents and incorporating the necessary and important provisions that they may lack.

[Name withheld for political sensitivity,] Restorative Justice Theory: Iran and USA.  This paper explores the forms of punishment and mitigation related to criminal acts in Iranian and American criminal law, with a predominant focus on the restorative justice theory. The purpose of this paper is to form a comparative analysis between the Restorative Justice theory in Iran and the United States. This paper will touch on subjects such as, why Iran and the United States moved towards to restorative justice theory, how their criminal courts framework function, a comparative analysis of the act of excusing the guilty party in criminal cases between the lawful frameworks and the comparison of Qisas in Iran and restorative justice theory in the U.S. Finally, I will highlight the similarities and differences between the restorative justice theory in Iran and the United States. This paper hopes to clarify the United States construct of justice lacks the critical components of mercy and compassion which are essential towards the attainment of a fair and equitable justice system.  As a guidance for progressing, the U.S. should look at the Iranian criminal justice system as an example of how to provide a fair and just system.

Flags from Flagpedia.net.

Monday, March 20, 2023

Expert explains Ecuadorean constitutional law

Ugo Stornaiolo Silva
(via Mises Institute)
An Ecuadorean lawyer and LL.M. candidate, Ugo Stornaiolo Silva thinks deeply about constitutional law and social and economic organization. Today he'll speak to my Comparative Law class.

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador has been garnering headlines in recent years with landmark rulings in areas such as indigenous rights, animal rights, and the rights of nature. I wrote here last summer about the successful habeas petition of a woolly monkey. That case followed a decision in which the court compelled the government to hear from indigenous people in the Amazon before authorizing extraction projects (before decision).

Last year Stornaiolo wrote a piece for The Libertarian Catholic (other work there) comparing the U.S. Supreme Court with the Constitutional Court of Ecuador. While the Ecuadorean court often appears to the world as a monolithic bastion of progressivism, the court in fact has an ideological divide that is analogous to, though different from, the conservative-liberal divide of the U.S. Supreme Court, Stornaiolo explained. He wrote,

[f]or instance, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court textualist faction would be composed by President Salgado, and judges Nuques, Herrería Bonnet, Corral, with both Salgado and Corral filling in for Clarence Thomas position as the often-dissenting originalist in the Court, and Herrería Bonnet as more moderate, and its so-called "garantist" and "progressive" faction would consist of judges Grijalva, Ávila, Lozada, Salazar and Andrade, with Ávila and  Salazar filling in for Sonia Sotomayor’s position as the most activist judges, considering they have drafted some of the most controversial majority opinions of the Court in cases such that ruled on the constitutionality of cannabis recreational use, same-sex marriage, abortion and the criminality of teenage consensual sexual relations.

Stornaiolo's other work has examined comparative constitutional interpretation and the public-private divide. In the United States, Stornaiolo has been an academy fellow for the Heritage Foundation and a research fellow for the libertarian Mises Institute. I was fortunate to have Stornaiolo as a student in my American Tort Law class in fall 2022 at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, where he is studying for his LL.M. in a joint program with The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, March 20, Stornaiolo will join my Comparative Law class via Zoom to talk about the Constitutional Court of Ecuador and comparative constitutionalism in Latin America more broadly.

With fascinating developments in constitutional law afoot in Latin America and the Ecuador Constitutional Court driving the trends, Stornaiolo is a lawyer to watch.

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

'Behind Bars': Petroff article explains how secrecy shields private prison labor from public scrutiny

Alyssa Petroff, a judicial law clerk at the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, has published Behind Bars: Secrecy in Arizona’s Private Prisons’ Labor Pool in the new volume 4, number 2, of The Journal of Civic Information.

In a foreword, Journal Editor David Cuillier, professor of journalism at the University of Arizona, wrote,

Alyssa Petroff educated me on the exploitative private for-profit prison complex in my home state of Arizona—shrouded in secrecy because of a public records law interpreted in favor of corporations. I was astounded by her research findings.... She has a great career ahead of her, based on the eye-popping revelations in Behind Bars....

An Arizona native and 2022 law school graduate, Petroff started work on the article with a paper in my Freedom of Information Law class. Her finished work won the 2021-2022 student writing competition of The Journal of Civic Information, an honor co-sponsored by the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information and accompanied by a $2,000 cash prize.

Here is the abstract:

Prisons run by private corporations in the United States have at hand a pool of individuals who are, by law, required to work while they are incarcerated. This article examines the secrecy behind the use of inmate labor, including on-the-job injuries  sustained by prisoners, focusing on the state of Arizona as a case study. Ultimately, the  article recommends that states create oversight boards of private prison systems or allow private prison records to be accessible through already existing public records laws.

Attorney Petroff was a student also in my Comparative Law class. So I benefited immensely and from her presence and participation, ceaselessly inquisitive and gracious, in law school. I share Professor Cuillier's enthusiasm for her budding career as she cuts her teeth in judicial writing at the Maine high court.

The article, again, is Alyssa Petroff, Behind Bars: Secrecy in Arizona’s Private Prisons’ Labor Pool, 4:2 J. Civic Info. 1 (2022).

Friday, July 8, 2022

Student comparative law research spans sport, schools, drugs, recidivism, regs, copyright, crypto


He who learns teaches.

widely cited as an Ethiopian or African proverb, the statement has parallels in other cultures and is sometimes paired with the Latin "qui docet discit," "he who teaches learns"


Image by Gordon Johnson via Pixabay

Because we are reasonable people, we can all agree that Torts is the most important course in law school.

Comparative Law, however, takes the cake as the best course to teach. That's because one can teach it without exhaustive knowledge of the doctrinal subject matter. For no one knows the law of every jurisdiction in the world.

Thus, for me and my co-teacher, a supremely skilled embedded librarian, Comparative Law is a never-ending opportunity to learn from our students. And our students in spring 2022, as in past semesters, had plenty to teach us.

This is a selection of the ambitious paper topics that our Comparative Law students tackled in the spring.

United States, Vietnam. Firaas Z. Akbar, Free Enterprise Versus Freedom to Enterprise: A Comparative Analysis of Entrepreneurship Rights in the United States and Vietnam. Despite pronounced cultural and ideological differences between the republics of the United States and Vietnam, one of the goals shared by both societies is promoting entrepreneurship among their citizens. While not explicitly provided by the U.S. Constitution, free enterprise has impliedly been read into its language through a series of judicial decisions since the nation's founding, within a legal system where courts are bound to follow precedent. Vietnam enshrined a broad right to entrepreneurship into its constitution as part of an effort to transition to a more market-friendly economy. Yet constitutionalism under Vietnam's civil law system works differently, where rights require legislative substantiation to take effect. This analysis explores how Vietnam gives effect to this right and compares this model of promoting entrepreneurship to the U.S. approach.

United Kingdom (pre-/post- Brexit), Switzerland. Alessandro Balbo Forero, The Impact of Brexit on Football. There has been much debate and discussion regarding the UK exit from the European Union in 2020. Brexit had an impact on the sports industry as a whole, leading to debate and discussion by legal sport scholars on football, in particular, the English Premier League (EPL), and whether Brexit is good or bad. The unrestricted movement of players across the European Union is the catalyst for competition and player power. Prior to Brexit, players enjoyed the freedom of movement between EU Member States when their contracts expired. The current Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) requirements established after Brexit restrict player movement, and, thus, players are no longer able to sign with teams in the UK without first satisfying specific requirements that are tied to their respective countries' FIFA rankings. Although players are able to appeal to an exception panel, it is still not guaranteed to be granted a GBE. The Swiss model of player immigration would provide the UK with the best of both worlds. Brexit would still be in place, thus enjoying the benefits along with it, like unrestricted EU broadcasting regulations, and players would enjoy the freedom of movement once granted by the European Court of Justice in the Bosman ruling. The Swiss model satisfies both the FA and EPL, because highly qualified, homegrown players would continue to be produced while maintaining the multicultural, global product that is the EPL.

United States, England. Elizabeth Cabral-Townson, Using a Comparative Analysis of Special Education Disputes in the United States and England to Develop a Model that Better Serves Schools and Families.  Every country with a formal public education system has a responsibility to meet the needs of all enrolled students, including those with disabilities. Many countries have developed laws or regulations that describe their special education processes and procedures. In some instances, parents and school districts disagree about what a student with a disability requires to make progress in school. In these instances, there are several different dispute resolution techniques that can be an efficient way to resolve issues. Both the United States and England have developed laws and regulations specifically related to special education disputes. There are both similarities and differences to how the United States and England handle special education disputes, and elements from each country may be used to develop a more universal model. A preferred approach may be a consistently used three-tiered system that ensures the timely resolution of special education disputes using no-cost or low-cost options.

United States, Norway. Emma Clune, Prison Education as Means to Reduce Recidivism: A Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Prison Education Programs and Principles of Punishment in Norway and the United States. Access to prison education programs differs greatly between the United States and Norway. In the United States, prison education programs are not widely accessible due to issues such as lack of funding and resources. The programs that are available do not often prepare incarcerated persons for workplace environments after release. In Norway, where education is viewed as a fundamental right, all inmates are eligible to participate in education programs, and every prison facility provides access to academic and vocational programming. Norwegian prison education programs operate based on the "principle of normality," the idea that life inside prison should emulate life after release.  Research confirms that participation in educational programming while incarcerated reduces an offender's likelihood of recidivating by improving the offender's mental health and increasing the likelihood of employment after release. Emulating Norway's prison education programs and adopting the principles of Norway's penal system could be a means to reduce high recidivism rates and ultimately decrease the rapidly growing prison population in the United States.

United States, Canada. Judith Patricia Cruz Caballero, A Comparative Analysis of Refugee Law in the United States and Canada. The United States and Canada are world-leading nations for their international law policies. Refugees are a group of the population displaced from their home country due to war, discrimination, or violence. The United Nations created the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees to create a better humanitarian world. However, as the refugee crisis continue to increase over the next few years, the refugee policies of host nations will impact the support refugees receive. This paper examines refugees' procedures, immigration processes, and funding structures provided to refugees in both countries. In addition, the paper aims to compare each
nation's method of handling refugees in a time of international crisis. Finally, after analyzing each nation's policy areas, the paper provides recommendations to help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of refugee response in the United States and Canada.

Netherlands, Colorado. Ryan Gulley, Comparing the Legalization of Drugs in the Netherlands and Colorado: Recommendations for the Future. This paper compares the similarities and differences between the recent implementation of changes regarding drug use within the legal systems of the country of the Netherlands and the state of Colorado. The paper begins with a brief introduction to both systems. Following the introduction is a brief history of the criminalization of drugs within the two systems, as well as the reason for the changes that have been made in response. The current landscape of the legal systems will then be laid out, including where society stands today. I then examine the effects of those changes. The paper concludes by providing recommendations based on the lessons learned from the changes that were made in both areas.

United States, European Union. Austin Gutierrez, SOPA & PIPA vs. Article 17 "Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market." This paper compares the failed U.S. legislation, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), to the currently enacted Directive (EU) 2019/790, Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, with a focus on Article 17. This paper goes through the history and then the past and current critiques of each legislation. This paper then creates a hypothetical bill using methodologies from both legislations. This paper has discovered that the current critics of U.S. online piracy protection believe that the U.S. should legislate in favor of website blocking. The EU critics believe that the authorization requirement establishes a mandatory requirement of general monitoring, which may be too much of a request from the website owners. In conclusion, this paper decides that it is in the best interest of the United States to let other nations develop and test online piracy protection while protecting current copyright holders through the use of website blocking for piracy focused websites. 

United States, China, Germany. Christopher Hampton, Comparative Analysis of Crypto Assets/Blockchain Regulation Between PRC & Germany to Form a Spectrum Based Guide for Impending U.S. Regulations. Crypto-assets and blockchain technology have created an array of regulatory responses globally, most of which address the risks associated with illicit activities, consumer protection, and financial stability. The choice of fitting crypto into traditional frameworks, modifying existing regimes, or forming bespoke regulations to address these risks inherently creates strategic variations across the board. However, this range of approaches creates a guiding spectrum for late movers, namely the United States, to survey during impending crypto-asset deliberations. By synthesizing Germany's and China's leading, yet antithetical, approaches to the same priorities, this paper reveals both sides of the spectrum (i.e., acceptance v. full ban), details how the respective strategies address the given concerns, and weighs perceived strengths and weaknesses of their enactments. Further, upon consideration of the United States' current regulatory uncertainty and objectives, recommendations are proffered in promotion of sustainable growth and innovation for the industry. Although the collective knowledge necessary for proper regulations is not solely within this analysis, adequate and sustainable decisions can only be made through considerations as equally expansive and flexible as the emerging industry of focus. Similarly limited, policymakers would be prudent to include market participants in their deliberations and promote international teamwork. Ultimately, regulatory clarity is necessary in any regard for the industry to truly evolve, though the path of evolution depends heavily on U.S. decisions. 

Germany, Russia.  Nicholas Hansen, A Comparative Examination of Environmental Regulatory Policy Models in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation. Regulation of the economic activities of any sovereign nation can be foundational in determinations of status, power, and recognition in modern geopolitics. In modern environmental regulation theory, two primary characterizations of economic regulations are found. This analysis compares the use of "process-integrated" environmental policy, to the use of "end-of-pipe" environmental policy, and their relative benefits and hindrances. Process-integrated regulatory policy involves a more direct intervention in production processes and business action, whereas end-of-pipe regulatory policy involves the establishment of penalties for businesses that exceed their allotted carbon output, and violate industrial or automotive emission laws.  These policies have disparate impacts on the economic health of the sovereignties in which they are employed, differing levels of legal security for businesses operating in these sovereignties, and these impacts have been modeled and cataloged in this article.

This author posits that the time-frame around which either model is implemented, and the substantive form of these model regulations have an indirect impact on the long-term economic growth and propensity for foreign investment.  This hypothesis is most principally demonstrated by a comparative examination of the "process-integrated" model presently in use by the Federal Republic of Germany, and the "end-of-pipe" model presently in use by the Russian Federation. This article seeks to explain the characterization of the German and Russian regulatory models as an "end-of-pipe" or "process integrated" model and the statistical and legal evidence that supports this conclusion. In addition, Explanations of the German and Russian environmental regulation and their relative impact on the economic health and growth of their respective sovereignties are given.

Israel, Palestine. Rachel Kilgallen, The Unique Legal Systems of Israeli Settlements. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip reaching 55 years. Within Israeli settlements, where Israelis and Palestinians must coexist, an abounding number of controversies have arisen. One such controversy revolves around the legal system adopted within these settlements. Upon Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (along with the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights) in June 1967, the Israeli military immediately established military courts in both territories in order to try offenses harming security and public order. Technically speaking, Israeli military and civilian courts hold "concurrent" jurisdiction to try Israelis for offenses related to security. The policy for the last four decades, however, has been to refrain from prosecuting Israeli civilians in the military system, despite critiques that doing so constitutes partial annexation of occupied territory. The result is that Israeli and Palestinian neighbors accused of committing the very same crimes in the very same territory are arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced in drastically different systems—each featuring staggeringly disparate levels of due process protections. The International community seems to be in concurrence that Israel's actions regarding its settlements violate international law on many levels. At this point in time, all measures taken against Israel, in consequence, have been in vain. The longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine endures.

United States, Germany. Samantha Rapping, The Psychological Toll of Being Prosecuted as an Adult: A Comparative Analysis of Juvenile Prosecution and Incarceration in the United States and Germany. The United States has one of the most complex criminal justice systems, which significantly differs from other systems in the world, specifically Germany. One prominent difference between these two countries is how they handle juvenile offenders. The United States focuses merely on punishment and incapacitation, whereas Germany focuses on education and rehabilitation. As a result of the harsh treatment that juvenile offenders endure, such as frequent sexual and physical abuse, their mental health severely plummets. Juveniles are at a higher risk for suicide, depression, and anxiety. As a consequence, juvenile offenders are likely to re-offend post-release. Germany’s recidivism rates are extremely low as a result of the educational approaches and opportunities that are available to juvenile inmates such as therapy, metalworking, farming, etc. The positive reinforcement that occurs while juveniles are incarcerated leads to an increase in a juvenile inmates overall attitude and positive outlook for the future. The United States should adopt Germany's educational approach to its juvenile offenders.


Students: If you spy any errors here, don't hesitate to contact me for correction. If you were in this class and I failed to include you here, that's because I don't have an abstract from you. Please send one, and I'll be happy to add it.

Publishers and employers: Contact me if I can help put you in touch with any of these promising law students, some of whom are now recent grads!

Flags from Flagpedia.net.

Friday, May 14, 2021

Comparative law papers examine fin reg, human rights, environment, labor, piracy, sovereignty, and more

Image by Gordon Johnson via Pixabay
Lately, I've been part of interviewing faculty candidates.  In that awkward part of the interview when the interviewee gets to ask questions, and the interviewee really wants to know, "What are you going to pay me?, because we could put an end to this charade right now if you're not serious," but doesn't ask that for fear she will look like it's only about the money, and really, why fear that? would you work for free? I wouldn't; there's a word for that, but the interviewee asks instead some dopey question to make the interviewer feel good, along the lines, "How can it be that you are so fabulous?," the subtext of which is not, but should be, "you, who really doesn't come off as bright or spirited enough to have pulled off fabulous," I'm wearing a hoodie after all, even if we are on Zoom, an interviewee recently asked me, "What do you like most about your job?"

Well, you asked, so I answer:  I never tire of seeing the ingenuity, inventiveness, and range of interests and life experience that law students bring to the table.  And a seminar as wide-ranging as Comparative Law gives the most ingenious and inventive a chance to shine.  This spring it's been my privilege to be informed, educated, and thought-provoked by a range of papers, and I am eager to share here a selection of abstracts, with authors' permission.  These students have outdone themselves in a challenging course, despite an ogre of a professor and limited access to resources during the pandemic.  Filled with (I hope, authentic) pride, I congratulate each and every one.

Laura Z. Copland, Understanding Human Trafficking: A Comparative Analysis of the Prosecution, Protection, and Prevention Laws in the United States and Honduras.  Human trafficking is a high-profile global issue, generating billions of dollars at the expense of millions of victims. Trafficking occurs to minors and adults in urban and rural communities. Victims have diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, varied levels of education, and can be documented or undocumented. Traffickers target victims using tailored recruitment methods they find effective in compelling individuals to fall into exploitation. In recent years, both the United States and Honduras have attempted to provide legal redress to the lack of focus placed upon the effects of human trafficking in legal scholarship. Anti-human trafficking legislation in these jurisdictions has differed in their specific approaches. Still, both have sought to implement prosecutorial guidelines to support the execution of the three main pillars of the fight against human trafficking. These three pillars are prosecution, protection, and prevention.  This note compares the similarities and differences in the attainment of the three pillars by both jurisdictions. Moreover, this note illustrates that despite trafficking’s tremendous impact, most people in positions of authority in both the United States and Honduras still need to learn about what human trafficking is, how to identify it, and how to combat it effectively.

Dolapo D. Emmanuel, The Inadequacy of the Insanity Defense in the United States and England.  According to Our World Data, as of 2018, nearly one billion individuals globally suffer from a mental health condition. Conversely, media portrayals of mental health conditions are both comparatively rare and largely inaccurate. Though insanity is a legal concept rather than a clinical condition, the preceding statement applies. Dramatizations of legal insanity have both obfuscated and marginalized the concept such that even individuals with academic or professional legal footing are confused about its place in criminal law. This confusion in turn fosters perceptions that may not be accurate. One of the most popular claims about the insanity defense is that it is a powerful tool criminal defendants employ to escape the legal consequences of their criminal conduct. To determine the extent of this alleged power, this paper aims to discern the adequacy of the insanity defense in the United States and England based on three factors: the congruency between the medical and legal perspective of mental illness, the utility of required expert testimony, and the stability of the defense’s place in criminal law. As such, it seems, despite the facts that there has been more evolution in the insanity defense’s standard in the United States, and that the standard is more difficult to satisfy in England, the insanity defense is more effective in England than it is in the United States. However, this paper identifies continuing inadequacies in both countries.

Sydney Anne Goldstein, The Force of Discipline: Laws of Good Order and Discipline of the Armed Forces of the United States and the Russian Federation.  From the primordial beginnings of combat to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, factions of humanity continue to assemble and take up arms to defend their way of being or vindicate their honor. Of course, there is strength in numbers along with the breadth and depth of their capabilities, but the real magnitude of military power comes from the discipline and conduct of those serving. Out of the countries currently grasping for global influence, the United States and the Russian Federation have climbed to the highest echelons of military power on the international stage. But with this elevated stature comes the pressure to maintain diplomacy coupled with the indelible friction of conflict.  In this paper, I survey the historical development of military jurisprudence of the United States and Russia to compare their legal institutions' impact on military power.

Richard Grace, The Modern Myth of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. The turn of the century wave of innovative technology companies, colloquially “FAANG” (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google), set in motion a revolution of the global economy.  Trade is more efficient than at any point in human history, as are the global financial markets.  Technology has expanded the reach of the instrumentalities of global finance to previously incomprehensible levels, allowing anyone with a smartphone to connect to stock, currency, bond, and commodities markets, and to execute trades anywhere you have a cell signal.  This realm, previously restricted to professional brokerages and traders, has been opened to the everyday individuals.  These individuals have come to be known as “retail,” or non-professional investors.  In response to these changing market conditions, large institutional brokerages have begun to market to retail investors, and numerous smaller brokerages have been formed with the sole purpose of providing the “little guy” access to the world’s markets.  The school of minnows can now play in uncharted territory, in the deep end alongside the whales.  This article aims to explore the impacts of the expanding role of retail investors on the global financial market.  Unsurprisingly, the changing market has resulted in many changes in the law.  The focal points of interest will be the responses in the law to the surge in retail trading in the United States and the United Kingdom.  As both jurisdictions have operated under the same common law tradition, the comparative value of juxtaposition of the present responses should provide useful comparisons as to the efficacy of certain laws, rules, and regulations passed to precipitate issues perceived by the global market.  I will first consider the frameworks under which retail investors operate; the regulations and laws that make up the rules of the game.  These rules include the "Pattern Day Trader Rule," and the trading of security derivatives in the form of option contracts.  Second, I will evaluate changes in monetization of retail trading at the brokerage level, most notably, the "Payment for Order Flow" system, originally devised by the infamous Bernie Madoff.  The financial market is inherently global, and therefore, changes in the law and in regulations within the United States impact all retail investors, regardless of their country of origin.  The result of this global system is that a routine practice in the U.S. markets may be completely prohibited within the U.K.’s, and vice versa; the same securities are being traded with two different sets of rules governing the transactions.

Brooke Loneker, Designer or Dupe? Assessing the Development of the United States: A Comparative Analysis Between Single-Use Plastic Recycling Laws Established in the United States and PerúIn what millennials might describe as a “Freaky Friday” scenario, this paper explores the notion of a "first world" country following in the steps of a "third world" country’s national legislation banning single-use plastics. In December of 2018, the nation of Perú passed and quickly enforced Law No. 30884, speaking directly to the prohibition of unnecessary or non-recyclable single-use plastics, which, under the civil law system, made the law applicable to all provinces, regions, and the Province of Lima. The United States, in contrast, with a federal legal system, does not have a national legislation that regards single-use plastics. California, a leading state among the United States in environmental regulation, has passed state laws regarding single-use plastic bans. This paper compares Perú’s Law No. 30884 and California’s Senate Bill No. 54, as amended in 2020. This paper focuses on the cost of enacting this legislation, the revenue opportunities provided through enacting this legislation, and the similarities of Perú's and California’s laws. In understanding these comparisons, this paper argues that implementing a structure that is successful in a country such as Perú would be cost efficient, promising to the state/federal budget, and would promote the health and general welfare of the U.S. population.

Ryan Manning, Counter-Piracy: A Comparative Analysis on Two Multinational Organizations’ Fight Against Piracy.  As piracy spiked around the horn of Africa, several organizations and countries sought to combat it. Although a prominent actor in counter-piracy efforts, NATO was not the only organization making strides to deter this maritime threat. Although initially reluctant, member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), specifically China, made efforts to alleviate a dangerous situation. By addressing two different responses to the threat of pirates surrounding the horn of Africa, this paper compares NATO’s anti-piracy operations with China’s through the SCO. The paper first introduces what drove the pirates to start hijacking merchant vessels and the evolution of their tactics, causing them to become a threat to maritime security. Following that, NATO is analyzed, describing how it became involved in counter-piracy; then, the SCO’s lack of response as an alliance and China’s efforts to protect Chinese vessels from hijackings. Last, the missions of NATO and the SCO are analyzed. NATO’s integration of outside forces and cooperation has proved to be a beneficial tactic in counter-piracy operations, and the SCO was reluctant to involve itself in the operations. Disagreements among member states of the SCO prevented organizational cooperation, in turn, causing China to handle the threats on imports and exports unilaterally. Whereas NATO had extensive maritime experience, China used counter-piracy operations to develop its capabilities and provide support for vessels not of Chinese origin. Further, where NATO freely cooperated with organizations and states outside of its members, China was initially reluctant to provide support and struggled to allow other members to work alongside.  Yet as declines in pirate attacks have been related to multinational cooperation, China’s participation with NATO and other operations has become a crucial contribution to further deterrence of piracy.

Brett Mueller, Animal DiplomacyIn a time when common ground between the United States and China seems to be eroding, one area of shared goals could provide fertile ground to help ease tension: wildlife. While both countries seek to preserve naturally occurring creatures, historic practices and differing viewpoints on just how to achieve that goal have left the picture of wildlife protection looking vastly different in each. While the approaches may be different, different is not synonymous with ineffectual (or wrong), and it is important to understand the underlying complexities that exist in each society in order to chart a reasonable path forward. Of course, the relationship between natural creatures and mankind has developed over many centuries, and will continue its indefinite transformation as time goes on. Instead of casting judgment from afar, the United States and China would be wise to learn from each other’s successes and failures. Regardless of other sources of disagreement, when it comes to wildlife preservation it is time for the two world superpowers to put on a unified front to set a strong example for the rest of the world.

Sara O'Brien, A Comparative View of Irish and Israel Citizenship Laws as Products of Settler-ColonialismIrish and Israeli citizenship laws are compared by activists because of their seeming similarity; they both provide citizenship to those born abroad under certain conditions or circumstances. However, their approaches to citizenship are not as similar as they seem. Each nation has imposed certain restrictions on claiming citizenship, and as we see, those restrictions and limitations effectuate particular purposes.  The purpose of this paper is to explore how the laws differ, and how they work to accomplish particular political goals. The respective approaches appear to be motivated either in moving beyond a settler-colonial regime, as in Ireland, or continuing one, as in Israel. By examining the Israeli Citizenship Act (1952) and Law of Return closely, a stark difference in how people of different religion are treated becomes clear. In practice, the laws make it easier for foreign nationals of the Jewish faith to immigrate to Israel, while making it difficult for Palestinians to gain citizenship as both a practical and political manner. In Ireland, the post-settler-colonial citizenship scheme is visible in the relative religious and ethnic neutrality of the laws. Ireland allows for descendent citizenship provided the applicant meets a handful of requirements, and acquisition is structured in a manner that does not consider religion, race, or national origin, and does so explicitly to make Ireland more inclusive after the Good Friday Agreement was ratified.  Together, they provide examples of how active settler-colonialism can manifest in citizenship laws, as well as how citizenship laws can be used to uphold the ideals of post-colonial governments.

Spencer K. Schneider, The Necessary Evil of Environmental Federalism in the U.S. and Brazil.  Brazil and the United States are respectively the fifth and third largest countries on earth. As a result, both countries are composed of many diverse environments, from forests to waterways, and these environments require careful management and conservation. But both countries suffer from inconsistent environmental regulation that is primarily due to the frameworks of federalism that shape the relationships among each country’s national, state, and local governments. These frameworks of shared power are crucial to effective environmental regulation and protection, but, these frameworks are also at the root of some of environmental policy’s largest problems today. Understanding how federalism functions in environmental policy is crucial to solving some of the biggest problems in environmental regulation that exist today.

Ricardo J. Serrano R., Jíbaro Nation: Las Crónicas de la No Incorporación (Jíbaro Nation: The Chronicles of Non-incorporation).  Puerto Rico en los últimos quinientos años ha tenido una compleja existencia colonial que todavía se ve plasmada en el presente. En este estudio investigamos más profundamente el efecto de la Carta Autonómica en el estatus colonial de Puerto Rico bajo España, sus limitaciones, y existencia de una noción de soberanía introducida por los líderes nacionalistas de Puerto Rico. También, luego del 1898 examinamos la integración de Puerto Rico como territorio no incorporado a los Estados Unidos y como este proceso de integración ha afectado a Puerto Rico y su estatus colonial. Al mismo tiempo, se hace un contraste entre el Puerto Rico bajo la Carta Autonómica de 1897 y el Puerto rico bajo los Casos Insulares y el Acta Foraker para comparar los derechos legitimados por cada sistema. Por último, se establece un esquema que comprende el trato de Puerto Rico desde el 1898 hasta la ratificación de la asamblea constituyente de 1951.  (Author's translation: Puerto Rico in the last five hundred years has had a complex colonial existence that is still embodied in the present. In this study we investigate more deeply the effect of the autonomic charter on Puerto Rico's colonial status under Spain, its limitations, and the existence of a notion of sovereignty introduced by Puerto Rico's nationalist leaders. Also, we examine the integration of Puerto Rico, after 1898, as a territory not incorporated into the United States and how this non-integration has affected Puerto Rico and its colonial status. At the same time, a contrast is made between Puerto Rico under the 1897 Autonomy Charter and under the Insular Cases and the Foraker Act to compare the rights legitimized by each system.  Finally, a scheme is established comprising Puerto Rico’s treatment from 1898 until the ratification of the 1951 Constituent Assembly.)

Matthew R. Stevens, Collectivism, Individualism, and Their Respective Costs of Human Life During the Covid-19 Pandemic.  On the final day of 2019, December 31, the World Health Organization discovered a media statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission describing new cases of “viral pneumonia” in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China. One year later, this viral pneumonia would claim the lives of two million souls. While almost every country and human on the planet has experienced the COVID-19 Pandemic in one way or another, disparate impacts have arisen throughout the globe. One curiosity inducing dichotomy is that of South Korean and the United States, suffering 1,700 deaths and 551,000 deaths, respectively. This paper dives into a comparative study of the COVID-19 responses of South Korea and the United States through the scope of collectivism and individualism. This paper explores whether the respective responses have direct ties to the country’s individualistic or collectivist culture, and if any connection can be drawn to the relative success of one cultural response over the other.

Jhoanna Sylio, Reexamining the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and Possible Improvements Based on the Administration of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers ProgramTemporary agricultural foreign workers are admitted to the United States and Canada through guest worker programs to perform low-skill seasonal or temporary agricultural labor.  Foreign workers fill jobs that farmers are otherwise unable to fill with a local workforce despite availability of jobs and requirement of very little formal education. In the United States, employers are able to bring in foreign workers from 80 countries to fill temporary agricultural work under the H-2A program.  In Canada, employers are able to source seasonal workers from Mexico and 11 participating Caribbean countries under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (“SAWP”). The paper examines the legal framework of the H-2A program in the United States and the administration of the H-2A program in North Carolina, specifically. This examination serves as a basis of comparison with the administration of SAWP in Canada, focusing on Ontario. The paper overviews the guest worker programs in the American and Canadian contexts, and  the important role migrant agricultural workers play in ensuring food security in these labor-destination countries. The paper concludes by identifying measures that could be adopted in Ontario to effectively increase protections and  improve conditions experienced by migrant agricultural workers under the SAWP.

Thomas D. Aaron Wazlavek, The Pond Separates Cultures But Not Values: A Comparative Look At the French Codification of Right to Withdrawal of Labor and the American Concept of At-Will Employment.  The differences and similarities of the United States common law concept of “right to work” and the modern development in France of the right to withdraw labor, after the “yellow vest” movement in 2018, demonstrate a parallel diminution of workers’ rights. These changes are motivated by the same values inherent within capitalism that are superimposed through the law. This article analyzes the social and legal context in both countries that demonstrates that the superimposition of these values through law is a continuing modern western trend. The key difference is that, while the French model is designed to decrease the pressure for strike actions by workers, it also serves as a protection to workers, as compared with the American model, which largely exists merely as a tool to remove workplace protections by substantially altering the terms and conditions of employment. Further, this article demonstrates that these concepts are both divergent and convergent in terms of core shared values and the peripheral aspect of laws setting cultural norms.  This article then concludes through comparative analysis that while the French right to withdraw labor is a product of legislative supremacy, and the American view within the common law is that at-will employment is the standard, the French model is a product of generations of social negotiations. The American model is a product of the easily swayed influences within the common law that allow a new legal theory with little to no precedential value at the time of its proposal to be adopted in sweeping fashion with very little civil discourse.

National and U.S. state flags courtesy of Flagpedia.net.  Puerto Rico historical flags from Welcome to Puerto Rico.  Ontario flag from Britannica.com.  NATO and SCO seals from Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, January 29, 2021

New England poli sci group announces virtual meeting, extends CFP deadline for faculty, grad students

NEPSA art
The New England Political Science Association (NEPSA) has decided that its spring 2021 annual conference will be all virtual.

The call for proposals (CFP) deadline has been extended to February 19, 2021. NEPSA will convene on April 23 and 24, 2021.  The CFP is open to faculty and graduate students.  I have tremendously enjoyed this conference in past years and found it to be a collegial, inclusive, and supportive environment for scholars both junior and senior, and both political science and interdisciplinary, including law students. 

NEPSA subject-matter sections are: American Politics, Comparative and Canadian Politics, International Relations, Political Theory, Politics and History, Public Law, Public Policy, and Technology and Politics.

Monday, October 26, 2020

Legal scholars overlook scholarship about state FOIA, but dedicated academics toil for state transparency

Professor Robert Steinbuch and I aim to draw attention to the undersung work of state-law transparency  scholars through our recent publication in the Rutgers Law Record.  Here is the introductory paragraph.

We have read with interest Christina Koningisor’s publication, Transparency Deserts. While there is much to be lauded in the work – all access advocates would like to see more scholarship and publicity about the importance of transparency and accountability – we are disheartened by the article’s failure to recognize the extant vibrant body of scholarship and activism in state freedom of information law.

[¶] We, moreover, find this omission characteristic of a broader ignorance in legal academia of the sweat and toil of legal scholars, scholar-practitioners, and interdisciplinary academics who analyze and advocate for state transparency laws. This blind spot particularly manifests, unfortunately, among those at elite (typically coastal) law schools, who generally contribute vitally to the literature of the undoubtedly important federal transparency regime. These federal freedom-of-information scholars too often neglect the critical importance of state transparency laws – as well as state-transparency legal academics.

[¶] Quite in contrast, state-law access advocates generally acknowledge the value of federal statutory analogs, often referencing federal norms and practices comparatively, while, nonetheless, working upon the apt assumption that state access laws, en masse, have a greater day-to-day impact in improving Americans’ lives and in enhancing democratic accountability in America than does the federal Freedom of Information Act. Koningisor’s article evidences this disappointing tension. 

The publication is Transparency Blind Spot: A Response to Transparency Deserts, 48 Rutgers L. Rec. 1 (2020).  The publication is available for download from SSRN.  

Christina Koningisor, author of the referenced Transparency Deserts, kindly responded on the FOI listserv and gave me permission to share her thoughts.  Included is a link to her ongoing work.  Professor Steinbuch and I could not be happier to engage in a dialog that educates scholars and the public on the importance of state FOIA.

[T]hank you to Rick and Rob for taking the time to so thoughtfully respond to my piece. I sincerely appreciate it. And I take your points of criticism. The article certainly could have benefited from drawing more upon the excellent state-level scholarship that you cite in your response to my piece. I will also be sure, moving forward, to draw more heavily from the accomplished work being done by communications and journalism scholars. The point that I meant to make in my article, and which I should have stated more clearly, is that there is less overarching scholarship on public records laws across the fifty states. Of course, there are excellent state-by-state studies and critiques, some of which I cite in my piece, and many of which I do not, and which you have helpfully flagged in your response. But I was more interested in the work that has been done looking at the state of these laws as a whole. At this level, we can begin to make generalizations about what is working and what is not that are more difficult to observe when focusing solely on a single state. Rick and Rob's response seems to suggest that such surveys are inherently flawed, because they will inevitably be underinclusive and cannot possibly account for the variation across the fifty state legal regimes and the hundreds of thousands of state and local government entities. I agree—I explicitly make this point, and acknowledge the limitations of tackling such a diverse array of laws and government entities in my article's methodology section. But I believe it is nonetheless important to take stock of how these laws operate nationwide, so long as we are forthright and honest about the limitations of any fifty-state survey. I think there is value in and space in the literature for both state-by-state deep-dives and overarching cross-state examinations. Rick and Rob do highlight, in their appendix, some of the broader cross-state scholarship on state public records law that I failed to cite, most of which are published in communications and journalism journals. Again, I concede this point and agree that I should become more familiar with this interdisciplinary work.

I also want to note briefly that my Article reaches a somewhat more nuanced conclusion than transparency is simply worse at the state and local level. I do stress the significant advantages that many state public records laws have over FOIA, including the more rapid response times, the absence of a national security apparatus and classification process impeding access, and, often, the greater accessibility of state and local records officers, among other advantages. I also note that many of these state laws suffer drawbacks when compared to FOIA: many do not have easy and relatively cheap administrative-level appeal options, for example, and the costs of records production at the state and local level can often be prohibitive. Further, although there is no national security secrecy apparatus at the state and local level, it is often exceptionally difficult to obtain records from state and local law enforcement agencies. The piece was in fact inspired by my experiences working as a lawyer at The New York Times, where, in the process of assisting reporters with their federal, state, and local records requests across the country (not just in the coastal states!), I noticed that local police departments were often the most difficult agencies to obtain records from, in some ways even more secretive and difficult to work with than even the federal intelligence agencies. But more critically, the article emphasizes that when these state laws do fail—and I think we can all agree that they sometimes do—there are fewer alternative routes for information to come to light. These transparency failures are exacerbated by broader structural features of state and local government, including reduced external checks from local media and civil society organizations, and reduced intra-governmental checks between the various branches of government. This is of course not to say that every law fails in every instance, or that there aren't many excellent civil society organizations in many places doing critical work on government transparency and oversight. Of course there are abundant examples of such laudable advocacy efforts. But there are also many places across the country where local media institutions have disappeared, civil society organizations are in dire financial straits, and intra-governmental checks are muted. The nation's access laws are remarkably diverse, and contain myriad examples of both transparency failures and successes.

Once again, I very much appreciate these thoughtful and incisive responses to my piece, and I hope to continue this conversation moving forward. I have a new state transparency law-related article, [Secrecy Creep,] forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. It is still quite early in the editing process, so I would love to hear any feedback and suggestions ....

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Communication education makes people better

Preparing for my Trump Litigation Seminar next week, I just re-read the final chapter of James Zirin's Plaintiff in Chief.  Variously attributed, Zirin catalogs the vocabulary of our truth-challenged culture, discussing "post-truth" (Oxford Word of the Year 2016), "truth [that] isn't truth," (Rudy Giuliani), "truth decay" (RAND), and "alternative facts" (Kellyanne Conway).  And, of course, who could forget the great Stephen Colbert's groundbreaking "truthiness" (The Wørd, and a real word).  Along with Trevor Noah, I've wondered at the breakdown in distinction between fact and opinion.  More than once, my wife, in slack-jawed witness of the news on TV, has declared the need for media literacy education in our K12 schools (and perhaps, I add, in our senior centers). 

Dr. Sherry Morreale (UCCS)
It turns out that media literacy is just one piece in the puzzle of what might be missing in our society today. Communication Professor Sherwyn P. Morreale has co-authored a series of scholarly articles on Why Communication Education Is Important.  Her third installment, co-authored with Joseph M. Valenzano and Janessa A. Bauer, has just won the 2020 Distinguished Article Award in the Basic Course Division of the National Communication Association (NCA).  The abstract speaks to the range of life skills that are bolstered by communication education (my highlighting).

The results of this study argue that communication, and specifically oral communication education, is critical to students’ future personal and professional success. Similar to two earlier studies, thematic analysis of 679 documents in academic and popular press publications, published from 2008 to 2015, provide support for the centrality of the communication discipline’s content and pedagogy. These results reinforce the importance of communication to enhancing organizational processes and organizational life; promoting health communication; enriching the educational enterprise; understanding crisis, safety, risk, and security; improving interpersonal communication and relationships; influencing diplomacy and government relations; being a responsible participant in the world, socially and culturally; developing as a whole person; and succeeding as an individual in one’s career and in business. The kinds of communication addressed as important in each of these nine general themes are outlined, and the results are compared with those in the first two iterations of the study.

This conclusion might seem self-evident to the academic outsider (technical term, "real people") but it readily escapes the grasp of the bean counters who run today's STEM-obsessed universities, where faculty in the social sciences (law included) are tormented with demands that their departments generate revenue to justify their existence.  Because that's why we educate people, for the money.

The current study is titled, Why communication education is important: a third study on the centrality of the discipline’s content and pedagogy, and appears at 66:4 J. Communication Educ. 402 (2017).  Dr. Morreale previously published, with co-author Judy C. Pearson, Why Communication Education is Important: The Centrality of the Discipline in the 21st Century, 57:2 J. Communication Educ. 224 (2008); and, with co-authors Pearson and Michael M. Osborn, Why communication is important: A rationale for the centrality of the study of communication, 29:1 J. Ass'n Communication Admin. 1 (2000).

Full disclosure: Dr. Morreale is my aunt.  She always was the cool aunt.  So her parents are probably to blame for my academic nature, and she, in part, for the nurture.