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Projections for Arctic Marine Accessibility: Risk under Climate Change
No full textFew transformations in Earth systems are as dramatic as those currently occurring in the Arctic. We reveal the emergence of a new route regime in response to the evolving context of climate change and human pressures. This paradigm shift presents both opportunities for Arctic exploration and maritime trade, as well as risks for marine ecosystems and coastal communities. It underscores the need for concerted efforts to recalibrate the associated legal framework
A Greater Purpose for Icebergs: Iceberg Trade to Combat the Effects of Climate Change
No full textThree-fourths of the planet’s freshwater is stored in glaciers, and as the glaciers melt, humans are forfeiting their greatest freshwater resource. Climbing global temperatures, attributable to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, accelerate glacial melt while intensifying drought and water scarcity. This Comment identifies a way to relocate our greatest freshwater resource before it melts into the salty sea. Further, this Comment discusses how an iceberg trade could ensure the right to water by creating access to freshwater for all. Finally, this Comment introduces the iceberg trade as an equitable remedy to be employed by the Paris Agreement in the global response to climate change
Integrating Human Rights in Domestic Clinical Practice
No full textGiven that the human rights framework contains a rich and evolving body of norms and standards, integrating human rights law into clinical teaching provides new avenues to approach problem-solving. A human rights framework offers additional sources to ground moral and legal claims, as well as new strategies and advocacy targets. These alternatives work to foster creativity and lawyering skills, particularly in areas where domestic law is limited or constraining. Moreover, U.S. advocates have much to learn from global human rights struggles and advocacy efforts and can benefit from engaging in human rights discourse and practice. This article introduces readers to human rights norms and strategies as potential teaching and advocacy tools, providing practical case studies and exploring both opportunities and challenges
The Bench
No full textA facsimile of Hogarth’s own engraving intended to show the difference between CHARACTER and CARACATURA,” this print juxtaposes the images of prominent English judges with exaggerated caricatures in the upper portion. This caricature section, referred to as “the second state” in discourse on the print, is rendered in less detail as it was incomplete when Hogarth died in 1764.https://scholarship.law.pitt.edu/pitt-law-art/1013/thumbnail.jp
The Section 1031 Exchange Requirement
No full textSection 1031 is the most widely used transactional tax-planning tool in federal income tax law. It allows owners of real property to transfer their property and acquire like-kind real property without recognizing taxable gain. Yet one of its most fundamental elements—the exchange requirement—remains under-analyzed and widely misunderstood, with costly consequences to untold numbers of taxpayers every year. Inaccurate information regarding the exchange requirement is disseminated to property owners by advisors and exchange professionals, causing property owners to forego business and transactional opportunities. Other property owners pay for costly transactional planning at the urging of advisors who misunderstand the exchange requirement. Thus, the section 1031 exchange requirement is in desperate need of in-depth analysis and clarification. This Article applies in-depth analysis to demystify the exchange requirement. The resulting clarity will relieve property owners of costs resulting from lost opportunities and expensive transactional planning. The costly pressure points related to the exchange requirement are most pronounced with exchanges that commonly occur (or would occur more commonly with a clear understanding of the exchange requirement) in proximity to tax-free business transactions (i.e., contributions to and distributions from entities). This Article draws from legislation, legislative history, case law, IRS guidance, and tax policy to show that the exchange requirement attracts a form-driven analysis, which deviates from the standard substance-over-form analyses that apply to most federal income tax issues. The Article shows that courts deliberately adopt the form-driven analysis and shun substance-over-form analyses because the latter fail to provide clarity, and it shows how that analytical framework applies to exchanges that occur in proximity to business transactions. This novel analysis and understanding of the section 1031 exchange requirement provides newfound clarity to judges, advisors, property owners, scholars, and commentators. In doing so, it will free property owners to engage in business transactions confidently, forego costly transactional structures, and thereby increase general economic activity
How Victim Impact Statements Promote Justice: Evidence from the Content of Statements Delivered in Larry Nassar’s Sentencing
No full textWhether crime victims should present victim impact statements (VISs) at sentencing remains a subject of controversy in criminal justice literature. But relatively little is known about the content of VISs and how victims use them. This Article provides a content analysis of the 168 VISs presented in a Michigan court sentencing of Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to decades of sexual abuse of young athletes while he was treating them for various sports injuries. Nassar committed similar crimes against each of his victims, allowing a robust research approach to answer questions about the content, motivations for, and benefits of submitting VISs. Specifically, it is possible to explore the question of whether (roughly) the same crimes produce (roughly) the same VISs. The VISs reveal the victims’/survivors’ motive for presenting VISs, their manner of presenting the impact of sexual abuse, their interactions with the sentencing judge and the defendant, and other features of the VISs. Analyzing the VISs’ contents confirms many of the arguments supporting VISs at sentencing and challenges lingering objections to them. The findings support using VISs for informational, therapeutic, and educational purposes in criminal sentencings
Catalyzing Public and Private Investments to Scale Up Socio-Bioeconomy and Nature-Based Solutions
No full textSocio-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
Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer\u27s Pursuit of Equal Justice for All
No full textHow four Supreme Court cases in recent years—all argued and won by one indomitable lawyer—are central to the pursuit of equal justice in America.
Stephen Bright emerged on the scene as a cause lawyer in the early decades of mass incarceration, when inflammatory politics and harsh changes to criminal justice policy were crashing down on the most vulnerable members of society. He dedicated his career to unleashing social change by representing clients that society had long ago discarded, and advocated for all to receive a fair trial.
In Demand the Impossible, Robert L. Tsai traces Bright’s remarkable career to explore the legal ideas that were central to his relentless pursuit of equal justice. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. He argued four capital cases before the US Supreme Court—and won each one, despite facing an increasingly hostile bench. With each victory, he brought to light how the law itself had become corrupted by the country’s thirst for severe punishment, exposing prosecutorial misconduct, continuing racial inequality, inadequate safeguards for people with intellectual disabilities, and the shameful quality of legal representation for the poor.
Organized around these four major Supreme Court cases, each narrated in vivid and dramatic detail, Tsai’s essential account explores the racism built into the criminal justice system and the incredible advancements one lawyer and his committed allies made for equal rights. An electrifying work of legal history, Demand the Impossible reveals how change can be won in even the most challenging times and how seemingly small victories can go on to have outsized effects.https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/1369/thumbnail.jp