University of California Hastings College of the Law
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What\u27s The Beef With Tax Credits? Feeding California’s Animal Production Industry
No full textCalifornia’s animal production industry is a powerhouse in the United States food supply chain. In 2021, California generated 12.8 billion in gross cash income from animal production alone, ranking California’s animal production industry as #7 among the states. However, most small farms reported net losses. This paper identifies two financial issues plaguing California’s small farms in the animal production industry: monopolization, and the cost of complying with California’s heightened standard for ethical animal production.
First, the monopolization of small farms is a nationwide issue. In 2022, only four companies controlled 85% of meat packing in the United States. Large companies purchase meat and animal products through contract sales with small farms, allowing the large corporations to control the purchase price of those meat and animal products. Although antitrust laws apply to agriculture, courts have been reluctant to prevent the monopolization of small farms.
Second, in 2018, California voters passed Proposition 12, the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, to raise the standard for ethical animal production for veal, calves, chickens, and breeding sows. For breeding sows, the National Pork Producers Council estimates the cost to comply with Prop. 12 is 3,500 per sow.
California does not do enough to protect small farms from these two issues. To better aid small farms, avoid monopolization, and comply with Prop. 12, California should issue tax credits to qualifying small farms that have expenditures related to compliance with Prop. 12. The tax credit would be modeled after the proposed California Farm Bill (AB 2166, 2018) and would consider the United States Department of Agriculture’s California Census of Agriculture data and reports
Today’s Pirates: Biopiracy, biotech, and the international frameworks that are not up to the challenge.
No full textThis paper analyzes biopiracy and its effects on Indigenous populations through case studies on specific incidences of biopiracy, and an analysis of modern day agro-neocolonialism, seed piracy, and advances in biotech that are changing modern patent landscapes. This paper suggests that current international frameworks are failing to defend against widespread biopiracy due to ineffective cross-cultural application of relevant treaties and differing domestic approaches to intellectual property frameworks. This paper examines the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, The Convention on Biological Diversity, The Bonn Guidelines, and The Nagoya Protocol. This paper then makes suggestions for the international community as a whole and for the United States on how to protect against future threats of biopiracy, including technological advancements, such as Digital Sequencing Information (DNA sequencing/synthesis) and CRISPR-Cas9
Through a Glass Darkly: TPLF Viewed Through a Procedural Lens
No full textLegal responses to litigation funding could take many forms—consumer protection, regulation of interest rates and fees, perhaps even prohibition (as under the old doctrines of champerty and maintenance). In the U.S., procedural responses, often emphasizing disclosure of funding, have featured prominently. From the perspective of one directly involved in the U.S. rulemaking effort, this Article explores the challenges of designing such a rule. Among other things, it notes that litigation funding actually could support important law-implementation features of American litigation. But a host of uncertainties mean that for the present, the future of mandated disclosure of funding remains unclear, as it also does in Europe
Singing the Force of the Imagination: How to Wonder About the Emotional-Reportage in Immigration Advocacy
No full textIn the years leading up to July 4, 1776, Phillis Wheatley bid the imaginations of the American Revolutionaries to spring open by shouting: “Imagination! Who can sing thy force?” Wheatley defined the imagination as the leader of the mental train, and, according to Ciceronian principles, she demonstrated that the imagination is the singular facilitator of human action. Despite numerous calls to venerate American originalism over the past several decades, the founding concept of the imagination remains an underdeveloped topic in the legal field, even while it reigns over the decision-making processes of all U.S. legislators, administrators, and judges.
However, on September 21, 2023 the imagination properly invaded Professor Warren Binford’s multi-disciplinary symposium Advocating for Children in Migration, a part of the ongoing Testimony series at the University of Colorado, Anschutz. This event followed the publication of Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz, a children’s book featuring statements of children held in migrant detention facilities compiled by Professor Binford for Project Amplify. In addition, Project Amplify encouraged the creation of BorderX, Do You Know Where the Children Are (DYKWTCA), 365 artworks by Andra, and The Ghost of Abuelito by Kristen Grainger & True North. Still more artworks were debuted at the symposium including Fly to Heal, Soul Echoes, and Still Life Cafe.
Even while these artistic bursts of inspiration began to grow, they did not easily cross over into conversations about legal and medical advocacy. Most of the lawyers and doctors at the symposium appeared to believe that the artworks at the event were a completely separate advocacy effort, though discussion about the arts as advocacy was strongly encouraged. This is to be expected in professional circles that are still trained to rely on individual rather than common reason to make strategic decisions.
Human beings, imperfect as we are, rarely start out on key, but over time we can improve. Binford’s compilations, symposiums, and events could be a step toward the renewal of the American imagination in professional circles that may inspire us to innovate solutions to the immigration crisis. This article is dedicated to the observation of the stumbling starts of the American professional class toward their ultimate realization that they too are subject to the vivacious force of the imagination over the faultiness of Rationalism
The Origins and Future of International Data Privacy Law
No full textData privacy law varies widely across jurisdictions worldwide. Amidst sophistries and jurisdictional conflicts between lawmakers in Europe and the United States, a largely unregulated cross-border data industry emerged, prepared to exploit an unaware or overwhelmed general public. Without governmental support, privacy itself is in grave danger. The people, as true bearers of the fundamental right to privacy, must be put back in control of their data by governments that are aware of their ever-conflicting roles as protectors and aggressors. Scholars like Ari Ezra Waldman, in its book “Industry Unbound,” have criticized the common notice and consent approach to privacy as mere performance, calling for more governmental regulation instead of private enforcement. What they often overlook is the international dimension of the issue at hand, the specific and complex history of privacy as a philosophical and legal concept, and the inherent need to ultimately put people in control, not governments.
By recollecting the function and value of privacy, of data, and of corresponding legislation, lawmakers all over the world might be able to enter into a new era of privacy awareness. This article explores possible solutions from an international perspective, based on the historical and philosophical foundations of privacy itself, and a comparison between the privacy history of the United States, Germany, and the European Union