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The Case for Reparations for the Color of COVID
Full text linkThis Article surveys the data demonstrating that COVID-19, far from being the great equalizer, has generated starkly skewed adverse outcomes, including grossly disproportionate deaths, among persons of color in the U.S., Brazil, and India, and in all likelihood globally. The “color of COVID” results from governmental actions and inactions that, when combined with long-standing socio-economic vulnerabilities, produce deadly results for certain groups.
Global health reformers are not addressing these injustices. Like those who resist reparations for African-Americans, for the global victims of slavery, colonialism and its legacies, or for all of the current pandemic’s victims, those seeking to reform the WHO resist state responsibility or accountability for COVID.
This Article argues that since, under international law, states owe a duty to provide remedies to persons within their jurisdiction who are denied fundamental rights because of de facto or de jure discrimination, there will be a substantial number of COVID-related claims presented in national courts and international venues, such as human rights courts and treaty bodies. States will face a choice between allowing judges to respond to actions or anticipating the most serious of them by establishing reparations mechanisms or commissions to address the color of COVID. As students of transitional justice can attest, there are advantages to doing both: allowing tort-like claims to proceed in judicial fora while establishing, at the national and possibly sub-national levels, mechanisms to enable contextually sensitive responses—from government apologies to forms of recompense. Intrastate reparations are more politically viable than interstate claims seeking to establish blame for the spread of COVID. National efforts to provide a measure of restorative justice to those harmed within each country by discriminatory practices are justified morally, legally, and from a utilitarian perspective. Bringing out the facts of the color of COVID and making states accountable may deter discriminatory actions (and inactions) that have furthered COVID-19 and its variants. Enabling accountability for the color of COVID can help mitigate the impact of future pandemics. Reparations would also advance the idea that all persons, irrespective of color of skin, have a basic right to life and health
Climate Change, WTO Law, and China
Full text linkCombating climate change is one of the most important areas for international cooperation and negotiation. The urgency of the climate crisis requires countries, especially large carbon emitters such as China, to be more active in taking climate actions. This Note mainly focuses on the two most important trade-related climate policies for reducing carbon emissions: border carbon adjustment and low-carbon subsidies. Both policies have or would likely raise legal challenges under the existing WTO legal framework. This Note introduces the two policies, analyzes why they are disputed among WTO Members, discusses China’s viewpoints, and suggests the possible actions that China can take in helping to mitigate trade policy conflicts over carbon emissions under the current WTO trade system
Rethinking Evidentiary Rules in an Age of Bench Trials
Full text linkAmerican jury trials are vanishing. Statistics indicate that the number of jury trials in U.S. federal and state courts has diminished for decades, a phenomenon that has become even more pronounced amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Courts throughout the nation are on track for more than a year without any trials by jury. But as jury trials wane, bench trials are dominant in federal and state courts for both civil and criminal cases. What does that mean, then, for evidentiary rules? The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), first adopted in 1975, codify federal evidence law and have been adopted by the vast majority of states. Technically speaking, these rules apply to both jury and bench trials. However, in practice, trial judges often apply rules of evidence loosely when they sit without a jury. Time and again in bench trials, objections to the admissibility of evidence are met with the judicial response of, “I’ll let it in and just give it the weight it deserves.” In an era when bench trials have become the new normal, such an enormous gap between the law in operation and that in the books suggests the need to reexamine the current arrangement of the FRE, to inquire whether bench trials should have their own customized rules of evidence, and, if so, what those rules should look like. This Article examines the similarities and differences between jury and bench trials in judicial fact-finding and explains why bench trial judges cannot rely on Free Proof and instead still need the guidance of evidence rules—albeit different rules than those used for jury trials. This Article proposes what those rules for bench trials might look like and discusses why and how such a project could go beyond bench trials, making a profound impact globally
01. Letter to Chancellor Daniel Aldrich
Full text linkIn a document dated July 9, 1968 from the Advisory Committee on Law School Planning, commissioned by UC President Clark Kerr to study California state needs for legal education, to Daniel Aldrich, Founding Chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, the Advisory Committee proposes recommendations for the Irvine campus to pursue a law school
Property: Cases and Materials
Full text linkhttps://scholarship.law.uci.edu/celebration_of_books_2022-2023_book-covers/1005/thumbnail.jp
