Recent irvine_law items

The Problematic Rhetoric of a "Rules-Based International Order" and Selective Support for Proceedings Before International Courts

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Problematic Rhetoric of a "Rules-Based International Order" and Selective Support for Proceedings Before International Courts

The New Alternative to a Narrowing Alien Tort Statute: Torts Based on Foreign Law

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The New Alternative to a Narrowing Alien Tort Statute: Torts Based on Foreign Law

Is International Human Rights Law Accessible and Effective for American Civil Society? Insights from NGO Participation in the 2023 Human Rights Committee Review

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This research assesses the access and effectiveness of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) use by U.S. civil society, particularly in light of the 2023 Human Rights Committee review. Recognizing the pivotal role of civil society in leveraging IHRL to influence domestic laws and policies, the study shifts focus from the current limitations of IHRL on domestic policy influence in the United States to the actual and potential use of IHRL by the American civil society.

Through a combination of desk research and semi-structured interviews with 20 representatives from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) and law school clinicians who participated in the 2023 Human Rights Committee’s review of the United States, the study identifies key factors influencing access and effectiveness. While the research confirms that overall appreciation of IHRL among interviewees, the findings reveal awareness gaps regarding IHRL’s utility for the U.S. civil society as a whole. Resource...

Trauma-Informed Lawyering Leads to Movement Lawyering in International Human Rights Work

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Trauma-Informed Lawyering Leads to Movement Lawyering in International Human Rights Work

Can International Law Thrive In the United States: Questions on the Use of Force

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Today’s symposium asks whether international law can thrive in the United States. The question is intriguing but also ambiguous, and it is not immediately clear what it would mean for international law to “thrive” within a state. One might look to a range of possible indicators, including the extent to which international law is internalized in U.S. domestic law, its participation in treaty regimes, its willingness to submit disputes to international adjudication, or the prominence of international law issues in public discourse and government decision-making on important foreign policy matters. For purposes of this presentation, however, I focus on one concrete indicator: the extent to which the United States complies with international legal obligations in the especially difficult context of the rules governing the use of force—an area in which the stakes are unusually high and the incentives to depart from legal constraints can be particularly strong for a militarily...

Edition and Articles

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Edition and Articles

Can International Law Survive? A Foreword.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Can International Law Survive? A Foreword.

Human Rights Incorporation Through Impact Assessments at Federal, State, and Local Levels

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The United States is obligated to respect and protect human rights by customary international law and international human rights treaties. Currently, no governmental agency is responsible for ensuring these obligations are met, and the government has not yet adopted a comprehensive framework to assess the impact of federal policies and programs on human rights. While various U.S. agencies conduct regular impact assessments in areas including social, economic, and environmental contexts, a similar Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) framework could be valuable. If applied systematically, HRIAs would enable the government to evaluate the human rights implications of current and proposed policies. This article provides an introduction to HRIAs and examples of their use at sub-national, national, and international levels, with the hope that these models will support federal, state, and local government officials in fulfilling their human rights obligations.

A Glass Half Full: Can Local Human Rights Commissions Save International Law in the United States?

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Glass Half Full: Can Local Human Rights Commissions Save International Law in the United States?

Corrigendum to “Fingerprint evidence in exoneration cases” [Forensic Science International: Synergy 12 (2026) 100675]

Thu, 4 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.fsisyn.2026.100675.].

Fluid Powered Vehicle Challenge: Zotdraulics

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Executive Summary: The National Fluid Power Association hosts the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge, a competition that challenges students to create a vehicle powered by hydraulic components. The competition consists of 4 events, which respectively test the speed, endurance, efficiency, and regenerative braking capabilities of the vehicle. Zotdraulics is creating a tricycle that translates human input into hydraulic power, focusing on speed and endurance. Objectives Our primary aim is to build a trike with an integrated hydraulic system which can operate in three states (Direct drive, Charging and Regenerative Braking). We also seek to build a foundational understanding which future UCI Teams may build upon.

HyperXite 9

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The overall objective for HyperXite 9 was to design and build a more robust, and reliable pod, capable of proving the feasibility of a high-speed transportation system. We are working to improve a linear induction motor as the pod's propulsion system. We are also designing and implementing a thermal cooling system to actively dissipate the heat generated by this propulsion system. Our team is comprised of the following 7 subteams: Static Structures, Braking & Pneumatics, Dynamic Structures, Propulsion, Power Systems, Control Systems, and Outreach.

Climate Last Resorts

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The United States faces a climate crisis, an affordable housing crisis, and, linking them both, an insurance crisis. At the intersection of these concurrent predicaments lie a set of little-known but surprisingly impactful policies: state Insurer of Last Resort (ILR) programs. ILRs are state policies that provide property insurance when private insurance is unavailable, such as when private insurers determine that climate hazards are too risky to underwrite.

This Article argues that long-overlooked ILR programs are quickly becoming lynchpins for addressing some of today’s most pressing concerns around climate, housing, and insurance. Accordingly, ILRs bear urgent attention and reevaluation. In short, ILR progr ams are likely the most important policies that you’ve never heard of.

Building on this observation, the Article makes three main contributions. First, it identifies the power of ILR programs as intersectional policy responses to the concurrent insurance,...

Regulating Tech Titans

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In 2025, regulating tech giants like Google and Amazon has emerged as a key issue on the U.S. government’s agenda, with antitrust law returning to the forefront. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Europe has introduced a new law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which regulates large online platforms, identified as “gatekeepers”. The DMA requires gatekeepers to adhere to specific obligations and prohibitions, typically subject to antitrust case-by-case scrutiny, to ensure fairness and contestability in digital markets. The European historical intellectual framework underpins the core features of the DMA, including its legal framework, approach, scope, and purpose. Since 2021, several antitrust bills have proposed a U.S. version of the DMA, aiming to reform antitrust law by adopting a similar legal framework, approach, scope, and purpose. However, this raises critical questions: Does the U.S. antitrust historical intellectual framework support the adoption of the DMA? Would a DMA...

Immigration Law’s Internal Dimension

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Immigration law is typically conceived as a body of law governing when noncitizens may enter the United States from abroad. But as revealed by recent controversies over migrants bused from Texas to cities like New York and Chicago, immigration law is not only concerned with who may cross the country’s borders, but also where people go within those borders. Immigration law, broadly understood, is not limited to questions of admission and deportation. It also shapes the geographic dispersal of refugees and immigrant workers throughout the United States.

This Article contends that a complete account of immigration law requires understanding the ways in which it regulates the internal migration of noncitizens. This account involves grappling with immigration law both within the federal statutory scheme, and across numerous state and local regulations of undocumented immigrants. Recognizing this internal dimension of immigration law today also reveals a much longer...

The Military’s Abortion Crisis in the Aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Women in the military have not had access to abortion care since 1978, when Congress introduced an amendment to a Department of Defense (DoD) appropriations bill, later codified under 10 U.S.C. § 1093, that prohibited the use of DoD funds for abortions. While women have endured this second-class health care for over four decades, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has created new problems for servicewomen and the military writ large. Now military women must travel off-base and, in some instances, out-of-state or out-of-country, to seek an abortion. While women in and out of uniform share this burden, servicewomen must comply with military constraints that exacerbate their situation, including following orders that require them to be stationed in states that criminalize abortion, reporting their pregnancy up their chain of command, following leave protocols that require their commander’s approval when traveling for abortion...

Abolitionist Community Economic Development: Dismantling Racial Capital and Forging Black Autonomous Futures

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This Note explores Abolitionist Community Economic Development (ACED) as a potential model for radical reform aimed at addressing entrenched racial and economic injustices in Black communities. This Note argues that traditional Community Economic Development (CED) projects often fall short of addressing the root causes of social and economic injustice in Black communities, as they tend to rely on external investment, risk triggering gentrification, and lack focus on redistributing power and rectifying historical injustices. In contrast, ACED emphasizes community ownership, long-term resilience, and direct control over resources, providing a more sustainable and empowering approach to tackling systemic inequalities. Using the framework established by Mabre Stahly-Butts and Amna Akbar in Reforms for Radicals? An Abolitionist Framework, this Note examines ACED initiatives like Cooperation Jackson and The Guild to assess their alignment with criteria for genuine radical...

Patenting Video Gameplay

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gameplay is the core of video games, a two-hundred-billion-dollar business larger than the film and music industries combined. For years, commentators and public interest groups have claimed that video gameplay patents are stifling innovation—concerns that have garnered little attention from scholars or courts. That may soon change. Recent literature speculates that gameplay patents are rare and that challenges in acquiring them have forced companies to prioritize “copy-resistant” game elements such as high-definition graphics and sprawling open worlds. But advances in artificial intelligence are making such elements increasingly easy to recreate, prompting a renewed interest in gameplay innovation and a growing urgency to assess the merits of gameplay patents. This Article provides the empirical and analytical foundation for understanding the existence and merits of video gameplay patents. It trains a naive Bayes classifier to provide novel insight into gameplay patenting...

Cover

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cover

Mission Statement

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Mission Statement

The Social Costs of Health Care

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine you had to choose between your health and your freedom. Many Americans do. Choices to work, marry, retire, move, cohabitate—all are influenced by health care finance laws. Access to health insurance is not guaranteed, and eligibility comes with social costs. For the publicly insured, recipients forgo work, marriage, and security in old age to meet strict income and asset tests. People with disabilities, their medical needs pigeon-holed into public programs, are denied equal opportunity in this way. Employer-sponsored insurance presents its own costs, limiting the range of jobs people take, when they can retire, and whether to marry and divorce. Medicaid expansion and premium tax credits mitigate these harms by degrees but are diminished under the current presidential administration.

Research is conclusive that social conditions shape our health. The inverse is also true, that the health care system shapes social conditions. This undermines goals of a health care...

From Proposition 209 to SFFA v. Harvard: Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Affirmative action is an active effort through policies aiming to provide opportunities for populations who have been historically underrepresented by allowing them to gain access to education, employment, and business contracting by using race as a factor. In California, the passage of Proposition 209 during the 1996 California ballot initiative created the end to affirmative action programs within the state. With the end of affirmative action programs in California, this Note explores the impact Proposition 209 left for underrepresented racial groups within higher education, specifically in the University of California (U.C.) system. Moreover, this Note addresses misconceptions created by opponents of affirmative action, such as the “mismatch theory” and harm towards the Asian American population. In 2023, the United States Supreme Court held in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that race-based affirmative action programs would be unconstitutional. With the...

Masthead

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Masthead

Institutionalizing Bias: The Death Penalty, Federal Drug Prosecutions, and Mechanisms of Disparate Punishment

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Institutionalizing Bias: The Death Penalty, Federal Drug Prosecutions, and Mechanisms of Disparate Punishment

Trawling for minnows on the high seas: Criminal law's coercive capacities and the U.S. Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) was passed in 1986 by the U.S. Congress at the height of the American drug war frenzy, further empowering the U.S. government to arrest and prosecute suspected drug traffickers nearly anywhere in the world when transporting drugs by sea. In this article, we use a case study of MDLEA prosecutions in the District of Puerto Rico to identify and delineate five distinct characteristics of criminal law's coercive capacity: (1) jurisdictional capacity; (2) defendant pool capacity; (3) charging capacity; (4) evidentiary capacity; and (5) punishment capacity. While some aspects of the MDLEA are unique, many of these capacious features are inherent to contemporary U.S. criminal law more broadly. Using data from interviews with legal actors, we show how criminal law's capacities work together to ensure convictions and long prison sentences even in the face of formal legal roadblocks. We conclude by suggesting that without scaling back the capacity...

Police talk in the jury room: the production of race-conscious reasonable doubt among racially diverse jury groups

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract A central goal of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is to deconstruct the “jurisprudence of color-blindness” that is infused with the language of equality while operating to maintain racial hierarchies. Color-blind ideology extends to the procedures governing criminal juries, ensuring they are disproportionately white while constraining diversity of perspectives, especially regarding policing issues. In this paper, we merge CRT insights about color-blindness and race-consciousness in the criminal jury context and in the Fourth Amendment law governing policing, to advance empirical socio-legal scholarship on race and jury decision-making. We analyze deliberations data from mock jury groups that decided on verdict in a federal drug conspiracy trial, focusing on how groups talked about law enforcement testimony. We find that negative discussions of the law enforcement testimony is associated with shifts toward acquittal, there are more skeptical discussions about this testimony...

The history of an idea: The misinformation effect

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract When people are exposed to misleading information after an event has occurred, they frequently fall sway to its influence and report the misinformation as their own memory. This phenomenon, known as The Misinformation Effect, has been intensively studied for half a century. Here, we report on where the idea came from and what aspects of the phenomenon have been explored by scientists over this period of time. These explorations have addressed many questions, such as (1) What are the conditions under which people are more or less susceptible to misinformation? (2) Are there certain types of people who are especially susceptible to misinformation? (3) Can warnings about misinformation reduce its influence? and (4) Just how far can you go in terms of planting false ideas into people's minds? We also review work that examines the interplay between modern technology and misinformation. The Misinformation Effect teaches us about the malleability of memory, but it also has important...

The Price of Disinformation

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The general public is misinformed on a broad range of vitally important topics, such as what the true crime rates are, whether the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a conspiracy to control the population, and who won the last presidential election. There are myriad factors contributing to this epistemic crisis wherein large segments of the public form false belief on these and other major issues. One factor is the vast amount of intentionally false speech disseminated to mislead the public, often termed “disinformation.” Leaders in politics, industry, and the media spread disinformation for their own self-serving purposes. These purposes include turning a profit, growing an audience, and getting elected to office. Although the law prohibits “fraud,” the legal definition of that term—that determines to a great extent the scope of which deceptions are actionable and which are protected speech—is narrowly focused on personal fraud. Schemes to defraud that are aimed at the public at...

Algorithmic Personalization Features and Democratic Values: What Regulation Initiatives Are Missing

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

2024 was poised to be the largest election year in history, with pivotal elections in Asia, Europe, and the Americas encompassing regional, legislative, and presidential contests, capturing the attention of half the globe. In an era dominated by social media, these elections were influenced by information dissemination through digital platforms.

Over the last two decades, the landscape of public discourse in matters of civic concern has undergone a transformative shift, moving from traditional media to personalized digital social media outlets. Algorithmic features now selectively match content to users, fostering engagement but also giving rise to issues such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, and sensationalized content. While much attention has been devoted to the challenges posed by personalized discourse, this paper sheds light on a critical aspect that has been overlooked in regulatory paradigms: the erosion of an open, public sphere for discourse due to individualized...

Investor Coalitions Through an Antitrust Lens

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This Article offers a novel—antitrust—perspective on a growing phenomenon in capital markets: institutional investor coalitions. In recent years, a large group of powerful institutional investors, who collectively own significant equity stakes in most public companies, have created alliances on various corporate governance issues. Traditionally, corporate law has encouraged investor cooperation on these issues, regarding it as the solution to the well-known collective-action problem facing shareholders in public companies. As this Article shows, however, the prevailing positive view underscores a crucial point: members of the coalition are not only co-owners of companies but also competitors in capital markets. In the primary markets, institutional investors are competing buyers of shares, vying for share allocation. In the secondary market, they compete as asset managers, using their portfolio performances to attract retail investors and sponsors. The concern raised in this...

Reevaluating Felon-in-Possession Laws After Bruen and the War on Drugs

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The legal landscape surrounding firearm possession is evolving rapidly. In 2022, the Supreme Court accelerated its expansion of the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment in New York Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen. Since Bruen, courts around the country have struck down nearly all types of firearm regulations, with a notable exception: felon-in-possession laws. This Article examines the implications of a legal landscape where those who have prior felony convictions, and especially prior drug convictions, are punished harshly for the same behavior—possession of a firearm—that is constitutionally protected for nearly everyone else.

I argue that as the Second Amendment expands to protect more and more firearm possession, a dichotomy has arisen in which those who live in the communities most heavily targeted by the War on Drugs of the 1980s and 1990s are increasingly becoming virtually the only Americans for whom firearm possession is illegal. I examine...

Patient Autonomy, Public Safety, and Drivers with Cognitive Decline

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With a growing elderly population, cognitive decline in drivers has become a significant public safety concern. Currently, over thirty-two million individuals who are seventy or older have driver’s licenses, and that number is growing quickly. In addition, almost 10 percent of seniors in the United States (those sixty-five and older) have dementia, and an additional twenty-two percent have mild cognitive impairment. Between a quarter and a half of individuals with mild to moderate dementia still drive. As cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and decision-making skills deteriorate, a driver’s ability to operate a vehicle safely can be compromised. This not only puts the driver at risk but also endangers passengers, other motorists, and pedestrians. As the population ages, the number of drivers experiencing cognitive decline is increasing, escalating the risk of accidents.

For many older adults, however, driving is a key aspect of independence and mobility. Losing...

Ethical Horizons: Navigating the Complexities of Team-Based Legal Representation in Large Corporate Firms

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The legal profession requires the best of its members, asking them to act in ways that respect and prioritize the needs of clients, so long as those needs are ethical and legal. However, when an attorney works within a large law firm, they are faced with not only requirements from their clients, but also from their peers, supervisors, and client representatives. This Note focuses on (1) the origins and history of the large law firm structure that is so common today, (2) the ethics of practicing law in large law firms and how it impacts the individual, and (3) how to overcome ethical pitfalls common within the organizational structure. It concludes with a review of the literature that is most likely to find solutions to resolve these ethical dilemmas.

Rehabilitating the Nonprofit Arts Sector: Healthy Board Governance as a Condition to Federal Tax Exemption

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Americans celebrate the arts and how they increase our economic and collective well-being. Nonprofit arts and culture organizations are the primary vehicle by which individuals create art, attend events, and support millions of jobs in the industry. This has led to a perception that arts organizations have an effective framework for productivity and efficiency. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered tumultuous relationships between artists, staff, Board members, and executive leadership within several nonprofit arts organizations.

Although Americans regularly celebrate, support, and engage with the arts, the nonprofit arts industry is fraught with disconnected leaders, disgruntled staff and artists, and ineffective work environments. This Note explores why those issues persist and what can be done. First, I argue that the failures of nonprofit arts organizations’ Boards of Directors to uphold their responsibilities and manage stakeholder relationships are a key cause...

Patent Semiotics

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Patent Semiotics

Foreword - Remembering Professor Dan L. Burk

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Foreword - Remembering Professor Dan L. Burk

The Democratic Value of Transnational Campaign Finance

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Democratic decision-making in the United States does not solely affect U.S. citizens. Indeed, many such decisions impact people living in other countries, as well as noncitizens residing within the United States. Decisions on U.S. policies regarding climate change, immigration, trade, and military aid—to name a few—can have major implications for the lives of many non-Americans. Yet, in being noncitizens, such people effectively have zero representation within the democratic process that results in these decisions. This phenomenon illustrates what has become known as the problem of “democratic externalities.”

Theorists have proffered multiple democratic frameworks to resolve this problem—e.g., democratic cosmopolitanism, deliberative democracy, and epistemic aggregative democracy. Ultimately, though, none have managed to adequately mitigate the issue of underrepresentation that democratic externalities produce. Accordingly, this Article considers an alternative, albeit...

Unpatenting Product Hops

Fri, 5 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On July 9, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 14036 (“Promoting Competition in the American Economy”), which directed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to collaborate on new approaches to increasing competition and lowering prices in the pharmaceutical marketplace. In response, the USPTO outlined several new initiatives, among them an intent to improve the robustness and reliability of issued patents.

A major impetus for the Executive Order was the pervasive nature of pharmaceutical product hopping, which occurs when manufacturers introduce new follow-on versions of lucrative pharmaceutical products to the market, versions of low added commercial value like extended-release forms of drugs, or modifications to device components of combination therapeutics. Product hops are usually intended to mitigate lost market share due to generic competition or thwart generic competition entirely....

Cover

Tue, 2 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Cover

Tue, 2 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Table of Contents

Mission Statement

Tue, 2 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mission Statement

Masthead

Tue, 2 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Masthead

The Disparate Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on People of Color and the Efficacy of Race-Based Health Policies

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The coronavirus pandemic was, for all intents and purposes, a national emergency that highlighted the lack of quality healthcare for people of color and the overall lack of trust that communities of color, in general, have for medical professionals. In particular, Blacks, Latino/x, and Native Americans experienced higher hospitalization and death rates than White people. Part of the reason is because Black and Latino/x communities were overrepresented in essential service jobs during the pandemic, and these jobs did not allow for the ability to work from home. Other reasons stem from a lack of trust due to a history of discrimination in the medical field, lack of health insurance, and the quality of healthcare facilities in areas with diverse populations. Given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on people of color, states like Utah, Minnesota, and New York, implemented race-based health policies to decrease the hospitalization and mortality rate among people of color, effectively...

Reliance and Reliability

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As we move toward full electrification for household uses, we will need to change the perspective of how we look at reliability and the reliance we have on our utilities. Current measures of reliability are utility-centric, focus on averages and may exclude large-scale events which cause widespread and long-duration outages. Averages are not good enough now (if they ever were). Excluding large events from reliability metrics drives specific utility behavior: restoring densely populated areas quickly to keep averages down, even if some customers in other areas or customers in pockets of more densely populated areas are left without service for days or weeks; discounting compounding harms from long-duration outages; and claiming that reliability is improving when the customer experience clearly is not. To adequately measure customer impact as we electrify everything, the perspective that we measure reliability from should not be that of the utility or of the regulator—but rather...

An Erie Taking: Tyler v. Hennepin County and the General Common Law Revival

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County seemed unsurprising. But the Court’s opinion unabashedly adopted an approach to claims under the Takings Clause that looks to a general law of property, even when there was an available resolution resting on state law. This Article aims to elucidate the ways in which the Court’s opinion in Tyler effects a sea change in takings law. It also poses portentous questions about the effect the decision will have on the scope of the Takings Clause, the source of property law, and the viability of the general common law as a basis for rights claims in other areas of the Court’s jurisprudence.

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Table of Contents

Judicial Relief Isn’t Enough: How Federal Protection of Native American Cultural Landscapes Limit Religious Freedoms

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.” — Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr.

Cover

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Cover

Vice Capital

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Academic and market interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing has grown markedly in recent years. Although less prominent, a substantial literature also explores whether “sin pays” in the public capital markets. This literature’s underlying theory is that social norms discourage the funding of businesses that promote vice. According to this theory, some investors—particularly institutions sensitive to social norms, such as pension funds and foundations—will shun vice investments. A consequence of this aversion is a “vice premium” for those investors who will invest in such companies. Largely unexplored, however, is what industries or business models qualify as “vice,” how this definition is constructed and changes, how vice aversion affects startup corporate governance and finance, and what consequences vice aversion holds for the real economy. We address these gaps through a series of interviews with startup founders, venturecapital (VC) and angel investors,...

AI Artists on the Stand: Bias Against Artificial Intelligence-Generated Works in Copyright Law

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the creation of art, literature, and music—challenging the boundaries of intellectual property law. To date, scholars have primarily focused on AI’s authorship/entity status and the regulation of its use, overshadowing a critical issue: how AI’s involvement in creative processes influences legal judgments in copyright disputes. Our empirical research reveals systemic bias against AI-generated works in such legal matters. In our studies, participants read about a company that had hired either a human designer (condition one) or a generative AI art system (condition two) to produce works of art, and those works of art arguably infringed an existing copyright. Everything except for the identity of the hired creator (human vs. AI) was held constant, including the works of art: Participants saw identical works. The results showed that, when the works were produced by the AI (vs. the human), participants’ perception and behavior...

Masthead

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Masthead

Redressing the Harm of Accelerated Approval

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The accelerated approval pathway of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enables drugs to come to market more quickly than would be possible under a traditional FDA approval pathway. Accelerated approval is based upon the agency’s determination that changes in a surrogate or intermediate clinical endpoint are “reasonably likely” to predict a clinical benefit meaningful for patients. In essence, the pathway affords sick patients earlier access to potentially beneficial drugs while trials to confirm clinical benefit continue. Accelerated approval has been likened to a social compromise in which promising drugs enter the market sooner in exchange for a sponsor’s promise to undertake so-called confirmatory trials—that is, postmarketing trials to “verify and describe” the predicted clinical benefit. This Article argues that patients, too, are expected to engage in a compromise when they take drugs approved under the pathway: patients must accept the risk that a drug...

Mission Statement

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Mission Statement

A Road Map for Law Schools: Changing Problematic Faculty Compensation Practices that Perpetuate the Gender Pay Gap

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A Road Map for Law Schools: Changing Problematic Faculty Compensation Practices that Perpetuate the Gender Pay Gap

A response to EA-4/23 INF:2025 “The Assessment and Accreditation of Opinions and Interpretations using ISO/IEC 17025:2017”

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A response to EA-4/23 INF:2025 “The Assessment and Accreditation of Opinions and Interpretations using ISO/IEC 17025:2017”

Cognitive loopholes of crime: Mapping the Codevelopment of moral disengagement within perceptions of risks and rewards

Sat, 2 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Prior research has examined individuals' perceptions of punishments (PP) and rewards (PR) for crime, as well as their use of moral disengagement (MD), to understand why adolescents and young adults commit crimes. However, the joint development of these cognitions as a broader risk-perception mechanism remains understudied. This paper explores the independent and relational development of these processes in justice-involved youth. Data from 1,170 male participants (42.1% Black, 34.0% Hispanic, 19.2% White, 4.6% Other) in the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed using a three-variable autoregressive latent trajectory model. MD, PP, and PR were measured across 11 waves and 7 years, allowing for the simultaneous examination of individual trajectories and their bidirectional relationships from adolescence to young adulthood. Although PP increased and MD and PR decreased across adolescence, all three exhibited decelerations in their change prior to young adulthood. Moreover, bidirectional...

RIDING THE RAILS OF MOBILE PAYMENTS Financial Inclusion, Mobile Phones, and Infrastructure

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With the increase of digital and networked media in everyday life, researchers have increasingly turned their gaze to the symbolic and cultural elements of technologies. From studying online game communities, locative and social media to YouTube and mobile media, ethnographic approaches to digital and networked media have helped to elucidate the dynamic cultural and social dimensions of media practice. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography provides an authoritative, up-to-date, intellectually broad, and conceptually cutting-edge guide to this emergent and diverse area. Features include: a comprehensive history of computers and digitization in anthropology; exploration of various ethnographic methods in the context of digital tools and network relations; consideration of social networking and communication technologies on a local and global scale; in-depth analyses of different interfaces in ethnography, from mobile technologies to digital archives.

Getting boxed in: How race and gang labeling shape solitary confinement use

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Restrictive housing imposes isolation in austere conditions on people who commit serious rule violations or are too dangerous (or endangered) to house in the general prison population. We contribute to a growing body of scholarship analyzing restrictive housing placements, asking how gang membership, race/ethnicity, and misconduct interact to predict placement and lengths of stay. We integrate analysis of qualitative interviews with a random sample of 106 people in long-term solitary confinement in 2017 with analysis of 15 years of administrative data, both from Washington state prisons. We find that official gang labels “stick” to people, amplifying their risk of solitary confinement placement. Being labeled a gang member doubles the odds of being placed in solitary confinement and significantly increases the duration of those stays, even controlling for criminal history characteristics and in-prison behavior. We find differences in the effect of gang membership on solitary confinement...

Arctic Law: Even More Sustainable? Roles of the US and EU

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Arctic Law: Even More Sustainable? Roles of the US and EU

ROUGH JUSTICE: THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IN A WORLD OF POWER POLITICS

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

ROUGH JUSTICE: THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IN A WORLD OF POWER POLITICS

The Limits of Supply-Side Internet Freedom

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Limits of Supply-Side Internet Freedom

Separation of Powers and the Judiciary Act of 1925

Wed, 4 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Separation of Powers and the Judiciary Act of 1925

The Ideational Dimension of Judicial Power

Wed, 4 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Ideational Dimension of Judicial Power

First impressions matter: Mundane obstacles to a forensic device for probabilistic reporting in fingerprint analysis

Sun, 25 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article investigates why statistical reasoning has had little impact on the practice of friction ridge (or 'fingerprint') examination, despite both interest and some modest scientific progress toward this goal. Previous research has attributed this lack of results to practitioner resistance and legal apathy. This article seeks to complement those explanations through interviews with experts with a variety of perspectives on contemporary fingerprint practice about practical and mundane obstacles to the belated statistical revolution in fingerprinting. Based on these interviews, we argue that a 'forensic device' is required to incorporate statistical reasoning into fingerprint practice. This device would consist of a robust statistical model fronted by accessible, usable software. These components, in turn, require other components, such as large research data sets, markets, early adopters, government clients, education, and training. We conclude that the statistical revolution...

The securitization of research ethics: Navigating the ethics of engaging criminalized voices

Wed, 7 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We ask what ethical regulations govern criminal legal system research that is not “biomedical and behavioral research”—including oral history and archival projects, legal work and research, journalistic projects, big data, and multidisciplinary projects—but nonetheless takes place inside the academy? We examine ethical frameworks for research in the social sciences, as well as participatory action, oral history, archival, and data use, attending to how these academic ethical frameworks define risk and how these definitions shape resulting research, in intentional and unintentional ways. Through analysis of examples from each of these frameworks, we argue that efforts to eliminate risk often create other harms, while distracting from more fundamental ethical questions about the well-being of research subjects and data contributors in the criminal legal system. We identify an alternative to risk elimination: risk metabolization, a more collaborative and iterative approach to managing...

The International Persistence and Resilience of Solitary Confinement

Wed, 9 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Drawing on a combination of legal analysis and fieldwork conducted with prisoners and administrators in both Denmark and the United States, this article interrogates how solitary confinement has been defined and constrained – or not – in the context of U.S., European, and international law over time. Solitary confinement has existed consistently in prisons across the world, since the first prisons opened. Solitary has been surprisingly predictable over its long history: resilient to criticism, subject to ongoing debates about just how detrimental it is, and repeatedly producing instances of extreme and de-humanizing brutality. This consistency and predictability suggests substantial limitations inherent in the newest barrage of critiques leveled by courts, scholars, international human rights bodies, and professional associations against the practice of solitary confinement. Indeed, this reveals that many critiques of solitary confinement have failed because they have promoted...

Law's Infamy Ashker v. Governor of California and the Failures of Solitary Confinement Reform

Wed, 9 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Law's Infamy Ashker v. Governor of California and the Failures of Solitary Confinement Reform

Mobile Money: Communication, Consumption and Change in the Payments Space

Thu, 3 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article explores the emerging field of 'mobile money': mobile phone-enabled systems for value transfer and storage, primarily in the developing world, which are heralded as signal interventions in the effort to broaden financial inclusion and bank the 'unbanked.' Focusing on the stories that circulate in the emergent network of expertise that is calling 'mobile money' into being, it discusses how economic techniques and social narratives about markets - specifically, narratives about the opportunities for profit and financial inclusion in the 'payments space' - format a consumer market for mobile money. Furthermore, it asks whether end-users' repurposing of mobile money - and the use of airtime as currency - heralds a new means of exchange or store of value, potentially remaking money in the process. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Domains of policy: Law and society perspectives on punishment and social control

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Domains of policy: Law and society perspectives on punishment and social control

Still Lost in the Mall—False Memories Happen and That's What Matters

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For more than 25 years, psychologists have explored how people can develop rich false memories. Murphy et al. (2023) replicated the original “lost in the mall” study (Loftus and Pickrell 1995), demonstrating that 35% of participants developed false beliefs or memories. Andrews and Brewin (in press) reanalyzed Murphy et al.'s data, concluding that participants who developed false memories reported 25% of the suggested details and 50% of their reports were potentially real memories. Based on this, Andrews and Brewin posited that only 4% of Murphy et al.'s participants developed false memories. We take issue with Andrews and Brewin's conclusions. Given human memory is reconstructive, we should expect participants' reports to contain remnants of accurate memories, self or schematic knowledge, or speculation. Moreover, even low false memory rates can be practically important. What matters is that suggestive influences can lead to substantial memory distortions and even...

Near-Roadway Pollution in South Central Fresno, California

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Racial and economic disparities in exposure to near-roadway air and noise pollution remain stubbornly persistent due to structural inequalities embedded in the built environment. Although governmental agencies have compiled guidance on reducing near-roadway exposures, we unfortunately know little about the implementation of these strategies in practice and whether state-sanctioned, place-based programs to advance environmental justice can effectively mitigate near-roadway hazards for historically marginalized communities. We address this gap through a case study of how residents and community leaders in South Central Fresno, California participated in the steering committees of three place-based initiatives to advance four strategies to mitigate near-roadway impacts: transforming roadways and land use, rerouting trucks from sensitive receptors (i.e., residences, schools), installing protective vegetative barriers, and limiting freeway and warehouse expansion. We examine how residents...

Life after life: Recidivism among individuals formerly sentenced to mandatory juvenile life without parole

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Supreme Court abolished mandatory juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences and subsequently decided that the ruling applied retroactively (Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016), effectively rendering thousands of inmates eligible for resentencing and potential release from prison. In its decisions, the Court cited developmental science, noting that youth, by virtue of their transient immaturity, are less culpable and more amenable to rehabilitation relative to their adult counterparts. Specifically, the Court notes adolescents' propensity for impulsive action, sensitivity to social influence, and difficulty understanding long-term consequences. Even so, these rulings raised concerns regarding the consequences of releasing prisoners who had committed heinous crimes as juveniles. Several years after the Court's decision, preliminary data are now available to shed light on rates of recidivism among those released. The current paper comprises three...

Animal Science Products, Inc. v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (U.S. Sup. Ct.)

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Domestic courts frequently apply foreign law. For example, the forum's choice-of-law rules may require a court to apply foreign law, or a party may expressly base a claim or defense on foreign law. Private international law (or “conflict of laws”) provides principles governing many aspects of the way courts should identify and interpret foreign law.

Harmonization of Civil Procedure: Is the United States a Model for the European Union?

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Harmonization of Civil Procedure: Is the United States a Model for the European Union?

Labor Strife and Peace