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Law School Welcomes Diverse Class of Entering First-Year Students
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Uranium 233: The Nuclear Superfuel No One is Using
Get PDFNuclear power offers more energy in less physical space than solar and wind and yields more energy per pound than fossil fuels. However different nuclear fuels yield different waste profiles and create different beneficial products. Uranium 233 (U233) resists use in nuclear weapons, yields beneficial daughter products, and produces dramatically less of the most problematic waste products than Uranium 235 (U235). U233 results from reactions with Thorium, a plentiful, ubiquitous element currently considered waste from rare earth mines. Additionally, U233 functions well in a liquid fuel reactor resulting in safer, more efficient reactors than current solid fuel U235 or Plutonium reactors. To capitalize on the benefits of U233 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) should clarify its definition of reprocessing to exclude the extraction phase of liquid fuel reactors. The NRC should also resume rulemaking to allow consolidation of nuclear waste, particularly for reactors transforming that waste into liquid fuel. The Department of Energy should support U233 reactors with its grant programs
John Locke\u27s Theory of Property, and the Dispossession of Indigenous Peoples in the Settler-Colony
Get PDFThis paper explores how John Locke’s theory of property, elaborated in chapter five of his Second Treatise of Government, provided a compelling conceptual and practical justification for the appropriation of Indigenous peoples’ territories in America by the early English settler-colonists of the 17th century. It examines how his property theory facilitated the nullification of Native American conceptions of land through the superimposition of European private property regimes in the settler colony. It further highlights briefly how indistinguishable dynamics also characterize the contemporary Israeli/Palestinian settler-colonial context, where the reverberations of Locke’s thought on property are pervasive. To do so, this paper examines two of the key components of Locke’s conceptualization of property (namely, human beings’ transition from a state of nature to political society, and the agricultural improvement argument) specifically in the context of their application in settler-colonial settings. Ultimately, this paper hopes to generate a more exhaustive appreciation of Locke’s theory of property by underlining its implications in settler-colonial enterprises and its function in abetting the expropriation of autochthonous lands
Fracturing the Rule of Capture: The Improper Application of the Rule of Capture to Subsurface Intrusions Resulting from Hydraulic Fracturing
Get PDFImagine that during the course of hydraulically fracturing a tract of land—a process used to extract gas from low-permeability rock formations —a drilling company causes fractures, as well as some of the materials necessary to the fracturing process, to cross the boundary of its property line and enter an adjoining property—that is, it makes a subsurface intrusion onto a neighbor’s property. Assume further that, because the company’s fractures have extended into the neighbor’s property, oil and gas from the neighboring land travels to the company’s wellbore, causing the neighbor to bring a tort action against the company for harms related to the draining of its minerals. Should the court find that the company’s actions constitute an actionable subsurface trespass? Instead of focusing on this question, courts that have confronted the issue to date have all spent time focused on whether the rule of capture precludes liability rather than on whether a subsurface intrusion resulting from hydraulic fracturing constitutes subsurface trespass. In Texas, the trespass issue was neglected altogether, while in Pennsylvania, the finding of a trespass lacked analysis and seems to have been based on the long-rejected doctrine of ad coelum, which means that landowners own everything above and below their land, up to the sky and down to the core of the Earth. Given the extensive use of hydraulic fracturing across the country, the question of whether a subsurface trespass has occurred will likely appear repeatedly until the law is settled in this area. To present an answer to the issue, I first address the doctrine that has taken up most of the discussion: the rule of capture. Because the rule of capture dominates the discussion surrounding subsurface intrusions, it is necessary to explore the justifications for the rule of capture and argue for its in-applicability to the subsurface trespasses resulting from hydraulic fracturing. Having shown that the rule of capture does not apply, I then proceed to argue that subsurface trespasses resulting from hydraulic fracturing should only be actionable when the plaintiff can prove a harm and when the defendant’s actions are intentional. This solution considers policy arguments raised by courts in both the Texas and Pennsylvania cases, as well as the handling of subsurface trespasses in analogous situations
K-12 Nontraditional Bargaining in a Time of COVID-19: Building Solidarity Between Movements through Shared Grievances
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When Police Discursive Violence Interacts with Intimate Partner Violence
Get PDFLinguists analyzing the practices of American-style police interrogation have revealed the discursive attributes of police interrogation that can, often unwittingly, induce false confessions from suspects. Further, psychologists have identified a number of factors that can make particular subjects of police interrogation especially vulnerable to false confessions under interrogation. This article suggests that women who have been victims of serial domestic violence may be a heretofore unrecognized class of those particularly vulnerable individuals. Because the psychodynamics of American-style police interrogation so closely parallel the psychodynamics of intimate terroristic domestic violence, victims of domestic violence may react to police interrogation with the same coping strategies – accommodation and acquiescence – that they resort to in attempting to avoid battering. In the context of police interrogation, that would potentially lead to false confessions. Collaborative research by linguists and psychologists is needed to mitigate this possibility for miscarriages of justice
