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Harmful Connections: How Tort Law Can Address Algorithmic Account Recommendation Harms and Protect Youth Social Media Users
Full text linkIn 2023, the United States Surgeon General published an advisory to bring an urgent public health issue affecting America’s youth to the nation’s attention. The urgent public health issue was the ongoing negative impact of social media on children and adolescents. The report revealed that ninety-five percent of youths aged thirteen to seventeen use social media. Exposure to harmful content poses a risk to their mental health, including body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, depression, and, in extreme cases, death. Their mental health is also harmed by predatory behaviors and interactions with malicious adults that target and exploit minors on internet platforms. Six in ten girls aged eleven through fifteen have been contacted by strangers on social media platforms in an inappropriate manner. Certain social media features, such as Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature, exacerbate unwanted contact by suggesting friends of friends, exposing youth users to strangers and predators
Third-Party Funding in Treaty-Based Arbitration: Towards a More Transparent and Responsible System?
No full textThird-Party Funding (“TPF”) has become the “new kid on the block” of long-established stakeholders in international arbitration. However, despite the increasing use of TPF, few countries have undertaken the task of regulating the intervention of funders. Even in countries where the practice of TPF is regulated, it is generally in codes of conduct or non-binding instruments
Kionka, Abrams, and Porter\u27s Black Letter Outline on Torts, 6th
No full textBlack Letter Outlines are designed to help law students and novice lawyers state clear legal rules, describe underlying tort principles, and apply those rules and principles to client representations and other real-world scenarios. Readers can use Black Letter Outlines as a study aid when preparing for classes, as a subject-matter review when studying for course or bar examinations, and as a convenient and easily-navigable refresher for the novice lawyer. Black Letter Outlines are written by experienced law school professors who are recognized national authorities in their subject area. New authors Abrams and Porter bring a niche expertise that combines their years of tort law practice experience with their classroom teaching experience and their added lenses of bar exam readiness instruction and inclusive pedagogy expertise. This Torts Outline particularly helps students see the major tort causes of action, developments and trajectory shifts in the field, and representative practice problems. It is a useful tool in helping aspiring Torts mavens at once see the big picture of Torts while also refining their precision in stating its rules and validating their knowledge by measuring content acquisition
The Danger in Designations: U.S. Terrorism Designation Lists in Gaza and Beyond
Full text linkWhat is “terrorism”? The term has surged in U.S. political discourse following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s subsequent onslaught of Gaza, and escalating violence in the region involving Iran and similarly aligned groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis. U.S. politicians and thought leaders have characterized U.S. support for Israel’s bombardment as a fight against “terror,” described the violence conducted by Palestinians and their backers as “terrorism,” and accused pro-Palestinian U.S. protestors of “supporting terrorism.”
More than mere political rhetoric, “terrorism” is a term that carries big legal consequences. This is in large part because the U.S. government holds enormous power to officially designate individuals, groups, and governments as terrorists or supporters thereof and enact severe penalties on them as a result. This Article examines the primary mechanisms by which the executive branch compiles lists of terrorists and discusses the legal consequences of these designations, including economic sanctions, immigration prohibitions, criminal consequences, and private litigation. Further, this Article explores the subjective factors undergirding the very concept of “terrorism” in American law and policy, including U.S. geopolitical aspirations and race. Finally, this Article utilizes the ongoing crisis in Gaza as a case study to demonstrate how the practical impacts of terrorist designation lists suppress speech and dissent, prolong suffering, and prevent peaceful conflict resolution. Consequently, this Article proposes abandoning list-based counterterrorism altogether
In Violation of Diplomatic Treaties: A Look Into Ecuador\u27s Forced Extraction
Full text linkIn December 2023, former Vice-President of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, sought political asylum in the Mexican Embassy located in Quito, Ecuador. On April 5, 2024, following a week of political discourse between the Ecuadorian and Mexican governments, the Mexican government granted Glas political asylum. In their announcement, Mexico reminded Ecuador that the 1954 Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations protected both Glas and the employees within the Mexican embassy. On the evening of Mexico’s announcement, Ecuadorian agents operating under executive authority entered the Mexican embassy without consent, injured an employee of the Mexican embassy and forcefully removed Glas.
This Comment argues that Ecuador violated the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1954 Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum by forcefully extracting Glas from the Mexican Embassy. Additionally, it looks at Mexico’s violation of the 1954 Caracas Convention on Diplomatic Asylum. Finally, this Comment recommends that Ecuador face severe repercussions from the ICJ and the United Nations to deter other countries from similar actions
Repeal The Federal Arbitration Act\u27s Arising Out Of Requirement
Full text linkSuppose Pfizer and CVS agree to arbitrate not only any disputes that might arise out of their contract containing an arbitration agreement but also any disputes that might arise out of any of the many earlier contracts between these two large corporations. Or Apple and Samsung agree to arbitrate any patent infringement claims either has against the other for the next five years. Or FedEx and UPS agree to arbitrate any tort claims either has against the other due to any collision of their vehicles in the next ten years. Or members of the Walton (Walmart) family agree to arbitrate any dispute related to any existing or future will or trust, including its validity, over the next twenty years.
These hypothetical agreements should be enforceable, but the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), as it is currently written, may not provide such enforcement. The FAA makes predispute arbitration agreements enforceable only as to a controversy thereafter arising out of t[he] contract containing the arbitration agreement. However, some or all of the disputes covered by each of the arbitration agreements described above do not arise out of the contracts containing those agreements. These, and other enforcement-worthy arbitration agreements, are excluded by the FAA\u27s just quoted arising out of requirement
The Warrant Exception that Isn\u27t FISA Section 702, Defensive Searches, and the Fourth Amendment
Full text linkSection 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance of non-Americans who are located overseas. Although the surveillance targets foreigners, Americans’ communications are “incidentally” collected, too. Once the government has acquired Americans’ communications, court-approved rules allow it to conduct warrantless searches for and through them in its Section 702 databases. Intelligence agencies have used these rules to turn this foreign intelligence program into a domestic spying tool, conducting tens of thousands of warrantless “backdoor” searches for Americans’ private communications obtained under Section 702 every year.
Section 702 periodically sunsets; Congress most recently reauthorized it in April of 2024. As the fight over whether to reenact Section 702 heated up in 2023, the government argued—for the first time in the law’s fifteen-year history—that warrantless backdoor searches for Americans’ communications are necessary to identify victims targeted by foreign criminals and intelligence services. These “defensive” searches, the government says, account for many of its most crucial U.S. person queries.
However, as this Article argues, the Fourth Amendment has no “victim” exception. In the domestic criminal context, law enforcement officers are expected to obtain a warrant (or have some constitutionally reasonable basis for not obtaining one) prior to searching protected information to identify victims of a crime or criminal plot. That the government conducts searches of its Section 702 holdings to identify victims does not excuse its failure to obtain a warrant first. Nor do traditional exceptions to the warrant requirement apply. Accordingly, Congress should close the backdoor search loophole, including for defensive searches, and require the government to obtain a warrant prior to searching for Americans in any of its foreign intelligence holdings that were obtained without a warrant
But for Borders: The Protection Gap for Internally Displaced Persons
Full text linkInternal displacement, encapsulating the phenomenon of people who are dislocated from their homes but remain within the border of their countries of origin, was once a forced migratory occurrence interchangeable with cross-border migration. This changed after the Second World War with the promulgation of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which was premised on an insistence of making a legal line in the sand based on which side of a border displacement ultimately transpires. Internally displaced persons (IDPs)—in recent history, presently, and in the projected future—far outpace the number of people displaced outside the border of their home countries. Both rhetorical maneuverings and traditional international legal theories have prevented a robust exploration of normative frameworks that would ensure enhanced protections for the causes and experiences of internal displacement.This Article places the experiences of IDPs within the context of the politically charged project of labeling migration to inform the international governance of migration insofar as determining which populations forcibly on the move are deserving of international protection. It provides a comprehensive account of existing international, regional, and domestic displacement instruments, and highlights how international climate change and other general migration agreements fall significantly short of adequately addressing the phenomenon of ongoing and growing incidents of internal displacement. This Article offers a vision of forced movement that treats human mobility as incidents that are not static, but instead as often occurring on a continuum traversing physical nation-state borders. In doing so, it offers a re-framing of people on the move so that international legal mechanisms are germane to the critical project of extending protection to vulnerable communities regardless of which side of a border they face displacement
POISON! An Africana Legal Studies Investigation into Enslaved Africans and Their Deadly Roots
Full text linkThis article is a murder investigation.
And a strange one, as the victims might be the suspects, and the suspects might be the victims. Or, even stranger, who we are calling the victims might be the enforcers of an entirely different justice system we did not initially see.
This is a cold case: we are investigating African people enslaved in the Province of Maryland during the eighteenth century. It is really a collection of cases—all cases of poisoning. These enslaved Africans were poisoning their enslavers. The incidents are described in legal records and newspapers. But what do these poisonings really mean? It is our job in this moment to take a closer look.
According to the colonial legal system, the subjects of our investigation, the African poisoners, were criminals. But that legal characterization of the poisoners is not the only characterization. We are tasked with reexamining these cases, this time with some key methodological insights in our investigative toolbox, insights from disciplinary Africana Studies.
In one paradigm, we could think of the poisoners as murderers. And we could argue that they were using self-defense. Or, in another paradigm, we could conclude that, by poisoning, these Africans were addressing wrongdoing according to their own indigenous governance systems. By applying Africana Legal Theory, this investigation demonstrates the shift in orientation that reveals those African governance systems at work. In centering the perspectives of the Africans who used their deadly roots to poison the enslavers, our characterization of the “murderers” necessarily changes. They are criminals in one system and agents of justice in another
We Can\u27t Apply from the Grave: Why the Asylum Standard of Proof Fails Those Who Need It Most
Full text linkA woman in Florida sits in front of her TV, unsure if the sound of static is coming from shock or the screen. Her eyes reflect the fires that blaze from within her church in Alexandria, Egypt. Numbly, the pads of her fingers attempt to call family members, praying that, for once, they skipped service. She lets go of a breath she did not know she was holding. The time between now and another attack exists on a clock that she cannot see. But she knows it is ticking