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Intellectual Property Through a Non-Western Lens: Patents in Islamic Law
Get PDFThe intersection of secular, Western intellectual property law and Islamic law is undertheorized in legal scholarship. Yet the nascent and developing non-Western law of one form of intellectual property—patents—in Islamic legal systems is profoundly important for transformational innovation and economic development initiatives of Muslim-majority countries that comprise nearly one-fifth of the world’s population.
Recent scholarship highlights the tensions of intellectual property in Islamic law because religious considerations in an Islamic society do not fully align with Western notions of patents. As Islamic legal systems have begun to embrace patents in recent decades, theories of patents have presented conceptual and theological debates under classical Islamic law, creating an undefined scope of patent protection under international agreements. On the one hand, patents are not mentioned in sources of Islamic law, which, unlike Western systems, gives a religious guide to Muslim societies, and which some Muslim scholars argue create impermissible monopolistic effects. On the other hand, patents should be implicitly derived based on human reasoning of a divine law with theoretically and theologically sound commercial justifications.
This Article’s thesis is that patents are permissible in an Islamic legal system. It develops a positive, normative framework and justifications for the construct of a theory of patents within Islamic law, provides normative implications within a commercial lens, and provides prescriptions for patentable subject matter and public interest considerations in a modern Islamic legal system. Recognizing the role and need of patents in Islamic legal systems is a pressing issue for innovation policy and requires articulation of conceptual, theological, and theoretical principles
Book Review, Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, From the Revolution to Reconstruction
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Children and Disasters: The Essential Role of Children\u27s Rights Law
No full textAlthough children constitute approximately one-third of the world’s population, they remain marginalized when it comes to law and policy discourses and actions. Disasters do not change this dynamic. Despite being the face of media portrayals in the aftermath of disasters, children often are relegated to the margins and not adequately accounted for in disaster response initiatives. Moreover, children continue to receive insufficient attention in research on disasters and their impact, even though in disaster settings, they are among the most vulnerable and hard-hit populations.This chapter discusses the various ways disasters affect children and the international law frameworks relevant to children and disasters (notably IDRL and children’s rights law). It then examines how the international community and national governments must reframe their approach to children in the context of disasters so that they are no longer overlooked, urging a mainstreaming of both children’s views and children’s rights in the prevention of and responses to disasters
The New Redeemers
No full textThis Article is about the long arc of a Second Redemption. A new life to the politics of racial grievance surfaced in the wake of a diversifying polity, a decline of rural power, and a Black man’s rise to the American presidency. And that reinvigorated force was the linchpin of Donald Trump’s ascendency to power. Trump was a part of a broader conservative governing coalition, which held its center of gravity in rural, white America. Leading members of that coalition feverishly eroded democratic norms to entrench minoritarian power. They justified their pernicious work by claiming to be the true heirs to the American project and constructed a vision of citizenship closely tethered to whiteness. To claim their inheritance, conservative coalition leaders availed themselves of every opportunity to delegitimize Black engagement in participatory democracy—from voting rights to self-governance to public demonstrations. This campaign was singularly focused on standing athwart the United States’ coming of age as a truly multiracial democracy.
The “New Redeemers” is a fitting namesake considering that the common denominator between their worldview and the Redeemers of old is that white political power is a good unto itself. It is a mistake to view the Capitol insurrection or the repudiation of the 2020 presidential election results as isolated affairs. Instead, they were outgrowths of a sustained effort that long predated November 2020. This Article examines the march toward upending democracy and argues that the insurrection on January 6 was the encapsulation of a lengthy crusade against multiracial democracy
Regulatory Reactivity: FDA and the Response to COVID-19
No full textThe immense pressures created by the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed ingrained shortcomings in the regulatory and administrative apparatus for addressing public health crises, shortcomings that are particularly salient in the context of FDA\u27s emergency response. Political and public pressure, along with more subtle pressures exerted by private sector stakeholders, have combined with the sheer urgency to respond quickly to push agencies like FDA into emergency modes of decision-making that are at odds with long-held scientific and professional standards that have been the bedrock of their work. In this Article, we provide a novel way of understanding emerging modes of decision-making at FDA in the context of highly disruptive public health crises such as COVID-19. We develop and apply the concept of “regulatory reactivity” to capture the ways in which agencies--specifically FDA--have departed from evidence-based decision-making frameworks in response to external pressures. We illustrate regulatory reactivity at work through the use of two examples drawn from FDA\u27s response to COVID-19: the adoption of emergency use authorizations (EUAs) and the evolution of the Coronavirus Treatment Action Plan (CTAP), an emergency program for accelerating the development of therapeutics for COVID-19. These examples illustrate how reactive modes of decision-making at FDA fail to meet both the short-term and the long-term public health mission of the agency
Modern Day Eugenics and Reproductive Injustice: Discussion of Emmy Award Winning Film Belly of the Beast
No full textCoerced sterilizations in U.S. women’s prisons have been banned for nearly 40 years. However, these unethical practices have continued in some facilities, sometimes shielded by the very officials and doctors charged with protecting the health of those who are incarcerated. These practices echo past advocates of eugenics who believed they could improve future generations by restricting reproduction of people they believed to be unfit: the poor, uneducated, mentally or physically disabled, minority, allegedly criminal, or otherwise undesirable. This session will feature clips from the Emmy Award winning film Belly of the Beast, which follows a woman involuntarily sterilized while in a California prison and a human rights lawyer who fought to expose this reproductive injustice. Professor Paul Lombardo, an expert who consulted on the film, will explore themes of this modern-day eugenics, the role of systemic racism, and the fight for rights and reparations for victims. Immigration attorney Sarah Owings will discuss recent similar atrocities against immigrants held at a south Georgia detention center, now closed after a whistle-blower brought these practices to light
Movement Lawyering and HIV Decriminalization: A Panel Discussion
No full textThe United States aims to reduce HIV infections by 90% nationwide by 2030. However, the enforcement of HIV-related laws often thwarts progress toward reducing significant HIV-related disparities. Currently, 35 states have HIV criminalization laws. These laws, many of which were drafted before HIV was fully understood and when effective treatment options were unknown, are outdated and do not align with current science. Some states criminalize conduct that poses a negligible risk of HIV transmission. Others discourage individuals from learning their own HIV status or alerting past sexual partners of potential exposure, limiting the opportunity for early treatment. This panel will examine critical lessons learned nationally and recommend a path forward for ending HIV criminalization and promoting social justice in Georgia. The panel will explore the role lawyers play as advocates and policymakers through the lens of the HIV decriminalization movement and identify ways that students, lawyers, and public health practitioners can become involved in advocacy work
