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Evolving from Dominion to Communion: How Legal Rights for Nature Can Exist in Balance with Individual Property Rights in a Global Commons
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When The Evil Day Comes, Will Title VII\u27s Disparate Impact Provision be Narrowly Tailored to Survive an Equal Protection Clause Challenge?
Get PDFThe road to hell is paved with good intentions. Employers must be careful about the intentional and unintentional effect of their employment practices, even when acting with good motive. Title VII’s disparate impact provision holds employers liable for employment practices that cause an adverse impact on racial groups, even when the employment practice applies equally to all groups and was not implemented to disadvantage a particular group. A prima facie case of disparate impact can arise solely based on numbers - a comparison between the rate at which one racial group passes a test or is selected for hiring or promotion as compared to rate of other racial groups. The disparate impact provision raises an Equal Protection Clause issue because it encourages employers to make race-conscious employment decisions to avoid disparate impact liability. This Article takes on the difficult question that the Supreme Court avoided in Ricci v. DeStefano: Does the provision violate the Equal Protection Clause? Evaluating the disparate impact provision under the rigors of strict scrutiny, this Article examines if the provision is narrowly tailored to achieve the possible compelling interests of remedying past discrimination, smoking out discrimination, increasing diversity, providing role models, meeting an operational need, or removing barriers to equal employment opportunities. After considering whether the disparate impact provision operates as a rigid quota, affords flexibility or individualized decisions, is narrow in scope and duration, applies to white males, and has available race-neutral alternatives, this Article concludes that the provision fails narrow tailoring and is likely unconstitutional
Attribution of Criminal Liability A Critical Comparison of The US Doctrine of Conspiracy and The ICTY Doctrine of Joint Criminal Enterprise from an American Perspective
Get PDFThe Wilderness Myth: How the Failure of the American National Park Model Threatens the Survival of the Iyaelima Tribe and the Bonobo Chimpanzee
Get PDFThe Wilderness Myth
Abstract by Mark Hopson
Contrary to popular opinion, and the vast majority of legal scholarship on the subject, the traditional American model for a national park is scientifically and logically unsound. Further, this model has been adopted at a terrible social cost to the indigenous tribes who lived on the land that became national parks. Every government that has chosen to implement the American national park model has done so at the expense of indigenous people.
This article chronicles the creation of the world’s first national parks, Yosemite and Yellowstone, and the legal battles involved. The article then shifts to explain how this model was exported, without any modifications for culture, history or ecology, across the continent of Africa with disastrous results. The final focus is on the use of this model to save great apes, like the bonobo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a failed state that is still recovering from what many refer to as “Africa’s World War.” The bonobo is found exclusively within a few areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and mostly within a single national park where the Iyaelima people, an indigenous tribe, also resides. Like the indigenous tribes of America before them, these traditional peoples now face destruction in the name of conservation. Ultimately, the author proposes a democratic and inclusive process where indigenous populations craft their own harmonious protective measures
Virtual Child Pornography Laws and the Constraints Imposed by the First Amendment
Get PDFThis article seeks to navigate through the complexities involved with the uncertain future of virtual child pornography laws. First, this article sets forth a brief history of the legislative actions and court rulings regarding unprotected speech and virtual child pornography, and discusses the current standing of child pornography laws. Entailed in this discussion will be a vigorous inspection of the current statutes and how they simultaneously affect law enforcement, prosecutors, and defendants. Finally, the potential future of laws regarding virtual child pornography is analyzed, including addressing the issues of how the application and interpretation of the laws are changing and how the Supreme Court might react to the criticisms of current legislation and case law
Earth Jurisprudence and Lockean Theory: Rethinking the American Perception of Private Property
Get PDFEarth Jurisprudence and Lockean Theory
Abstract by Traci Lynne Timmons
Thomas Berry, father of the Earth Jurisprudence movement, called for re-examining human-Earth relations. Earth Jurisprudence aspires to promote a greater respect for nature and all living things on Earth, aiming to intertwine Earth’s natural law with the body of law that governs humanity. This paper explores Earth Jurisprudence as an alternative to the property regime in the United States. It examines the fundamental principles of property ownership, frequently attributed to the philosophy of John Locke, but digs deeper into these “Lockean” roots to reveal important caveats to Locke’s general principles which have been overlooked in modern times. This paper also applies the influential philosophy of Locke to the budding legal field of Earth Jurisprudence, and to the ever-expanding science that is the study of the Earth and its being.
Specifically, this paper addresses the philosophy of John Locke and how it has contributed to our overly anthropocentric (human-centered) views of nature as a commodity or resource for human use. When the Founding Fathers contemplated the values for which the United States would stand, an important part of Locke’s theory was ignored—the Framers ignored the proviso that one must leave “enough and as good for others.” Once Locke’s theories are more fully understood and thoughtfully applied, they are actually consistent with the principles of Earth Jurisprudence. This paper takes a fresh look at Lockean theory, and uncovers a more symbiotic or mutualistic relationship for humans and nature in the human-Earth balance
