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The Harm of Nothing Burgers
Get PDFChild protective services (CPS) agencies subject a wide scope of families to investigation, and the vast majority do not lead to family separations or family court cases. A 2017 study, for instance, showing that 37% of all children and 53% of Black children are the subject of CPS investigations in their childhoods, has now been cited hundreds of times. Kelley Fong’s new book, Investigating Families, is based on the months she spent embedded with CPS investigators responding to allegations that parents abused or (more often) neglected their children, and the interviews she conducted with both investigators and the parents who were investigated over the course of multiple years (Methodological Appendix, Pp. 213-40). Fong, a sociologist, found staff with largely good intentions thrust into an adversarial posture with families by a system that is astonishingly broad, harms the families it nominally seeks to help, and intertwines social services with social control of poor families
The Chicken-and-Egg of Law and Organizing: Enacting Policy for Power Building
Get PDFIn a historical moment defined by massive economic and political inequality, legal scholars are exploring ways that law can contribute to the project of building a more equal society. Central to this effort is the attempt to design laws that enable the poor and working class to organize and build power with which they can countervail the influence of corporations and the wealthy. Previous work has identified ways in which law can, in fact, enable social-movement organizing by poor and working-class people. But there’s a problem. Enacting laws to facilitate social-movement organizing requires social movements already powerful enough to secure enactment of those laws. Hence, a chicken-and-egg dilemma plagues the relationship between law and organizing: power- building laws may be needed to facilitate social-movement growth, but social-movement growth seems a prerequisite to enactment of power- building laws. This Essay examines the chicken-and-egg puzzle and then offers three potential solutions. By engaging in disruption, shifting political jurisdictions, and shifting from one branch of government to another, organizations of poor and working-class people can enact laws to enable the construction of countervailing power
Incorporating Climate Considerations into Investment Assessment Processes: Guidance for National and Local Governments
Get PDFGlobal climate change impacts pose complex, dynamic challenges to the success of land-based investments — such as agriculture, forestry, and wind and solar energy — which can further exacerbate detrimental climate change impacts if they are not sustainably implemented. Countries outline in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) their goals and plans to reduce GHG emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. To ensure their success, governments must fully integrate their NDCs into national climate strategies, plans, and policies that drive government action and decisions. Improved land-based investment decision-making through the incorporation of climate considerations in investment assessment processes (IAPs) can help prioritize and encourage projects that contribute to these national plans.
The IAP is part of the broader investment life cycle. It comprises the full range of legal frameworks and associated processes that establish the requirements investors must meet to be allowed to operate their proposed project in the host country, starting from an initial expression of interest through to a granting of approval to operate the project.
This guide provides recommendations to national and local governments on how to incorporate climate considerations into the IAP and, to a lesser degree, prior and subsequent stages of the investment lifecycle
Recommendations to Update the FTC & DOJ’s Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors
Get PDFExisting joint agency guidance from the FTC and DOJ, “Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors” was written in 2000 and is misaligned with the agencies’ focus on market power considerations and protecting the competitive process. This white paper seeks to provide a rationale and suggestions for revising the collaboration guidelines. We look to examples in other jurisdictions, with an eye to their treatment of sustainability-related collaborations, as many were updated with these considerations in mind. Importantly, we do not recommend that updated guidelines follow international examples in creating explicit sustainability-related carve outs, safe harbors, or exemptions. Due to the complex and expansive definition of sustainability-related private sector activity, exemptions could lead to obfuscation or abuse. However, we think that updated guidance would benefit from including sustainability-related examples of permissible collaborations to better align with modern market realities and societal challenges. We provide concrete recommendations on how to approach various kinds of collaborations, including: information sharing, joint research and development initiatives, joint procurement, and standard setting. We also discuss how updated guidance should move away from efficiencies-based justifications for anti-competitive behavior, as well as consider monopsony dynamics of collaborations, presumptive thresholds, and consolidation concerns
Catalyzing Public and Private Investments to Scale Up Socio-Bioeconomy and Nature-Based Solutions
Get PDFSocio-bioeconomy presents a promising approach to sustainable development by leveraging biological and social diversity to transition away from a fossil fuel dependent economy while simultaneously creating income and employment opportunities for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Because the bioeconomy values the sustainable utilization of renewable biological resources, nature-based solutions (NbS), which are a facet of the socio-bioeconomy, gain increasing prominence. Socio-bioeconomy requires substantial investmentsfrom both public and private sectors to develop effective socio-biodiversity production systems. Socio-bioeconomy development will require improved institutional coordination, robust planning, and novel methodologies to measure trade-offs as well as promote synergies that can generate scale gains while preserving ecosystem services. This Policy Brief aims to propose a comprehensive framework for investment governance aligned with socio-bioeconomy, offering specific policy recommendations that G20 countries can adopt and help promote globally. The goal of this contribution is to foster a just development of the socio-bioeconomy by ensuring the rights of communities in accessing natural resources and participating in policymaking processes, and an investment climate that places socio-bioeconomy at the forefront of the development agenda at a global scale
The Influence of the Race of Defendant and the Race of Victim on Capital Charging and Sentencing in California
Get PDFThe California Racial Justice Act of 2020 recognized racial and ethnic discrimination as a basis for relief in capital cases, expressly permitting several types of statistical evidence to be introduced. This statewide study of the influence of race and ethnicity on the application of capital punishment contributes to this evidence. We draw on data from over 27,000 murder and manslaughter convictions in California state courts between 1978 and 2002. Using multiple methods, we found significant racial and ethnic disparities in charging and sentencing decisions. Controlling for defendant culpability and specific statutory aggravators, we show that Black and Latinx defendants and all defendants convicted of killing at least one white victim are substantially more likely to be sentenced to death. We further examined the role that race and ethnicity have in decision-making at various points in the criminal justice system. We found that prosecutors were significantly more likely to seek death against defendants who kill white victims, and that juries were significantly more likely to sentence those defendants to death. The magnitude of the race of the defendant and race of the victim effects is substantially higher than in prior studies in other states and in single-jurisdiction research. The results show an entrenched pattern of racial disparities in charging and sentencing that privileges white victim cases, as well as patterns of racial disparities in who is charged and sentenced to death in California courts that are the natural result of California\u27s capacious statutory definition of death eligibility, which permits virtually unlimited discretion for charging and sentencing decisions. This pattern of racial preferences illustrates the social costs of California\u27s failure to follow the Supreme Court\u27s directive in Furman v Georgia to narrow the application of capital punishment over 50 years ago
BU S4E1
No full textPhoto of Kareem Yusuf, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth for IBM Software.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/beyond_unprecedented_podcast/1042/thumbnail.jp
Beyond Unprecedented S4 Ep1: Business and Bots: Anticipating the Future of AI
Get PDFWith advances in artificial intelligence and the emergence of generative AI, IBM Software Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth Kareem Yusuf discusses what lies ahead — including regulatory ramifications and how the technology may affect workers and the economy.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/beyond_unprecedented_4/1001/thumbnail.jp
A Modern Approach to Evidence: Text, Problems, Transcripts, and Cases
No full textThis is the textbook that pioneered the teaching of Evidence using problems rather than appellate opinions. The text explores the Rules of Evidence and their rationales in a straightforward fashion without hiding the ball or ignoring complexities. Problems that clarify the Rules appear throughout the chapters; larger problem sets that explore the Rules in detail are found at the ends of chapters. The updated edition discusses important recent cases and introduces social science findings and recent developments in science and technology that bear on the design and operation of the Rules of Evidence, and on their rationale.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1370/thumbnail.jp
Constitutional and Administrative Innovation Through State Labor Law
Get PDFThis Essay explores recent efforts by worker organizations to transform labor policy in states, as well as countermobilizations by business and conservative groups. It focuses on two particularly promising efforts: the development of worker standards boards and pro-labor changes to state constitutional law. It shows why, as a matter of political economy, such reforms have been achievable at the state and local levels, but not the federal level, and explores the potential of state reforms to build greater economic and political power for working people, notwithstanding limits imposed by federal preemption doctrine. Ultimately, this Essay argues that these recent innovations in state labor law have the potential not only to reshape U.S. labor policy but also to serve as a model for a more democratic approach to administrative governance and constitutional law generally