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National Regulatory Framework for Autonomous Vehicles: Why the United States Must Look Abroad to Find Answers
Get PDFAutomation is in every aspect of our lives. Autonomous cars, or ‘self- driving cars,’ dominate today’s headlines. There is just one problem: the United States’ legislative infrastructure is not suited for these autonomous cars to become commonplace on the roads. The United States’ fractured system results in a maze of state laws that make it difficult for manufacturers to comply. Other countries, like Germany and Singapore, have enacted systems to make the testing and implementation of autonomous cars more efficient. This Note argues that the United States should follow Germany and Singapore’s models by modifying the definition of “driver” and implementing “regulatory sandboxes” to make the eventual introduction of autonomous cars safer
Remediation for PFAS Contamination: The Role of CERCLA Enforcement in Environmental Justice
Get PDFPFAS are a family of manufactured chemicals that are highly persistent in the environment. Most people in the U.S. have been exposed to PFAS, but different groups of people may have higher exposure due to their environments. In recent years, peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that PFAS are linked to numerous adverse human health effects. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a variety of actions to address PFAS, including proposing to designate PFOS and PFOA, two chemicals in the PFAS family, as hazardous substances under CERCLA, or Superfund. CERCLA is the primary legal mechanism in the U.S. for ensuring that hazardous chemicals are removed from the environment, and this designation would be a first step in protecting communities from ongoing exposure to legacy PFAs contamination. In the U.S., communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately bear the burden of pollution from private industry and the government, and PFAS are no exception. Environmental justice demands equal treatment in enforcement of environmental laws, which means that communities with disproportionately high pollution burdens should be prioritized for cleanups under CERCLA. At the same time that legacy PFAS contamination is being taken seriously at the federal level, the Biden Administration has committed to prioritizing action on environmental justice. This Note explores whether the hazardous substance designation, in combination with policies and guidance from the White House and EPA, will be sufficient to ensure prompt and complete PFAS remediation
Long History of Leniency? A Call for a Georgia Statutory Mitigation Factor for Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Get PDFIn Georgia, criminal sentencing marks a critical period for convicted defendants. As the final moment before the superior court fashions a punishment, the defendant faces a pivotal opportunity to introduce mitigating evidence, including evidence of mental health challenges, life circumstances, and other facts. Where such evidence is offered, the superior court can properly issue a sentence that aligns with the purposes of punishment or other state policies. But some populations, especially veterans convicted of nonviolent offenses, are exposed to unique stressors that likely affect their culpability. The existing sentencing regime, however, does not guarantee that this mitigating evidence will even be considered. This Note argues that Georgia should follow other states in creating a statutory mitigation factor for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. This factor strikes a balance between the importance of a court’s discretion and the veteran’s possibly mitigating experiences. Moreover, I argue that, because the factor aligns with the retributive and rehabilitative purposes of criminal law, adopting it would actually further Georgia’s sentencing policy
The Role of Platforms in the Collection of Consumption Taxes in the Digital Economy: Lessons from the US State Experience
No full textChapter in the book VAT in the Digital Era: Unilateral and Multilateral Options for Reform by Y. Xu (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)
Paying for Prison: Equal Protection Remedies for the United States\u27 Wealth Discrimination Problem
Get PDFThe American dream promises wealth, mobility, and security, yet daily millions of Americans live in abject poverty. What’s more, state and local policies render low-income people uniquely vulnerable to criminalization, further lessening their ability to attain this purported American dream. These effects are not incidental. Rather, they reflect a complexly interwoven system of wealth-based discrimination oftentimes promulgated and perpetuated by government actors. Yet, most constitutional anti-discrimination measures do not reach wealth-based discrimination despite the horrific everyday effects felt by low-income communities nationwide. The criminalization of poverty compounds these problems to create a never-ending cycle of discrimination and collateral consequences whose aftershocks are felt for generations to come. These problems beg solutions in the form of expanded constitutional protection for low-income people, namely, in holding government actors accountable for their anti-poor policies by creating a bright-line rule for wealth-based discrimination to be regarded at a higher level of scrutiny. Modern reality elucidates the extent to which the current body of relevant law is not only muddled, but out of touch with Americans’ every-day, and creates more questions than answers as to how to reconcile this ever-growing problem. As more and more low-income people face jail solely on account of their poverty by the day, recognizing their plight as one of discrimination highlights the systemic importance of this issue. Recognizing the criminalization of poverty as a constitutional problem rather than isolated within the criminal justice context commands the gravity of the courts that it deserves, while preserving remedies for low-income people whose rights are violated on the daily.
This Note explores how the Supreme Court’s current Equal Protection jurisprudence inadequately addresses issues of wealth-based discrimination, particularly within the criminal justice system. The Note proposes a strict scrutiny framework towards wealth-based discrimination based on the complex social, political, economic, and legal forces that render low-income people disproportionately vulnerable to criminalization. Above all, this Note advocates for a reconsideration of how legal advocates address this complex sociopolitical issue as a means of radical lawyering and holding the government accountable for its discrimination against low-income people
Panel 4: Force Majeure or the New Normal: Disaster Planning & Management
Get PDFModerator: Randy Beck, Justice Thomas O. Marshall Chair of Constitutional Law, UGA School of Law
Panelists: John Travis Marshall, Associate Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law Tom Lininger, Orlando John & Marian H. Hollis Professor, University of Oregon School of Law David B. Fountain, Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Tennessee Valley Authority
This panel will discuss the inevitability and unforeseeability of natural disasters and how to protect and mitigate against them. Professor Marshall will discuss his scholarship and research into the effects of natural disasters on rural communities and the impact of gaps in disaster planning on those communities. Professor Marshall’s research has focused on disaster planning and the effects of recent disasters caused by Hurricane Michael in South Georgia and North Florida. Professor Lininger will further discuss natural disaster planning in the near and long term and advocate for less “drastic” measures in the short term. Professor Lininger will also discuss the socio-economic considerations concerning disaster planning and how decisions may disparately impact low-income individuals and households. Mr. Fountain will provide expert insight into disaster planning from the perspective of one in a government agency. Professor Beck will moderate and pose questions to the panel to guide the discussion of disaster planning in the context of climate change
Panel 1: The Role of Clean Air and Power in Environmental Justice
Get PDFChristina H. Fuller – Associate Professor, University of Georgia College of Engineering
Mindy Goldstein – Director of Environmental and Natural Resources Law, Emory University School of Law
Cary Ritzler – Climate Advocacy Manager, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE)
Alyssa Sieja – Environmental and Natural Resources Associate, Vinson & Elkin
Peter Appel Honorary Keynote
Get PDFDaniel Blackman -- Former Region IV Director of the EPA, environmentalist, civil rights activist, and public servan
Automated Decision-Making and Review of Administrative Decisions
Get PDFThe use of automated decision-making (ADM) carries an enhanced risk of failure to meet administrative law standards. This Article identifies Australian federal statutory schemes for ADM and instances of non-statutory use of ADM, with a view to evaluating the scope for the risk to be realized. Express provisions for correction of error, internal review avenues, and external review by tribunals and courts may not deliver satisfactory solutions. Despite a promising start, review and reform of the regulation of ADM use has lagged. However, in 2023, the Report of the Royal Commission into Robodebt gave the issue renewed impetus, recommending statutory frameworks for ADM and independent monitoring. That was so notwithstanding that the damage done by Robodebt in raising overpayment debts against social security recipients, which resulted not from ADM per se, but from the encoding of an unlawful policy into the ADM system. The failure to meet administrative law standards was a deliberate and persistent product of human agency. This indicates that reform consisting of reviewing and monitoring the use of ADM needs to be capable of exposing such errors
The Israeli High Court of Justice During the COVID-19 Crisis: The Model of Continuous Judicial Review
Get PDFIn this Article, I seek to review the reaction of the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) to the social and political pressures created by the spread of the virus in Israel amidst a constitutional crisis that Israel went through during 2020- 2021. The HCJ is regarded by many as a strong and interventionist judicial institution. Often, critics argue that the degree of supervision exerted by the HCJ over both the Israeli bureaucracy and the political branches goes way beyond the traditional role of the judiciary, as envisioned by theorists of judicial review. My aim is to use this analysis of judicial review during the coronavirus times as a test case to examine if, and to what extent, this critique is valid. In addition, I examine how the coronavirus crisis influenced the tense relationship between the judiciary and the political branches in Israel. I find that, in general, the HCJ showed considerable deference regarding governmental policies during the pandemic and kept its intervention to cases in which executive decisions threatened fundamental political rights. Nevertheless, the indirect effects of the Court’s tight, routine supervision over decision-making processes by the Israeli bureaucracy remained significant