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Legal Personhood for Artwork
No full textArtwork is unique and irreplaceable. It is signifier and signified. The signified of a work of art is its coherent purpose. But the signified of a work of art can be altered when not protected. The ramifications of unduly altering the signified of a work of art are consequential for both living and future generations. While the law provides protection to artists and art owners, it fails to grant rights to works of art themselves. The current legal paradigm, designed around the interest of owners and artists, also falls short of protecting Indigenous art aimed at conserving traditions and cultural identity, rather than monetizing creativity. This Article provides a theoretical framework for recognizing legal personhood for works of art, in the interests of art in and of itself as well as of current and future generations of human beings. This new paradigm protects artwork through the features of legal personhood. Legal personhood for artwork prioritizes the protection of art in and of itself and enhances intergenerational equity
Political Questions and the Role of Federal Courts in Deciding Claims that the Executive Branch is Violating Fundamental Norms of International Law: The Case of United States Aid for the Israeli War Against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank
No full textA recent challenge to the Biden Administration’s military aid to Israel as aiding genocide presents an important question of the role of U.S. courts in adjudicating claims that top U.S. officials, in their execution of U.S foreign policy, are violating fundamental international law norms, such as the prohibition against committing or aiding and abetting genocide. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed the case as presenting a non-justiciable political question.
The Ninth Circuit’s decision raises the broad question of whether challenges to U.S. government violations of fundamental norms of international law can ever be justiciable in domestic courts. The court’s holding suggests that all cases challenging a broad U.S. policy of committing or aiding torture or genocide abroad will be dismissed as a political question. While the panel attempted to temper its holding by asserting that “although some cases involving alleged genocide will be justiciable,” the decision’s rationale contradicts this.
This essay will analyze Defense for Children International-Palestine v. Biden (“Defense for Children”) as a window into broader, theoretical questions of the legitimacy and viability of the political question doctrine as the courts have applied it to foreign affairs disputes. Further, this discussion of Defense for Children will fashion a proposed solution to the conundrum federal courts face when confronted with broad challenges to U.S. foreign policy as violative of the Constitution, congressional statutes, or international law
Big Roadblock, Meet Big Data: Overcoming the Business Judgment Rule Using Directors’ Online Data
Get PDFTargeted and Ticketed: Student Ticketing and the Perpetuation of the School-to- Prison Pipeline
Get PDFThe National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) is a non-profit organization working to end the harms of the juvenile, municipal and criminal legal systems, including by decriminalizing normal adolescent behavior, ending financial consequences, and improving children’s access to adequate developmentally appropriate treatment. Our work prioritizes eradicating the school-to-prison pipeline, and abolishing harmful fines, fees and economic sanctions through the Debt Free Justice Campaign (DFJ).
In school districts across the nation, students receive fees and fines as consequences for school-based behavior. Students are policed and ticketed for age-appropriate behaviors and disciplinary matters such as littering, truancy, and underage drinking and smoking. While reforms in the juvenile legal system have been supported by emerging research on adolescent brain development and evidence-based interventions, there is a rapidly growing phenomenon of fining youth through what may be viewed as a less-punitive system for municipal ordinance violations. The youth being channeled into this municipal legal system are disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth and youth with disabilities. They are not provided the same legal protections as those youth in juvenile court, and they and their families are driven deeper into debt.
This article looks into an intersection within our work by examining municipal ticketing: when an economic sanction becomes not only a barrier to education, but a funnel into the court system. Through case studies of this phenomenon in specific states (Texas, Illinois and Colorado), we will explore various dimensions of these racially discriminatory practices, including the harmful results of giving Student Resource Officers (SROs) discretion to ticket students, the various drivers of increased municipal court usage, and the impact of overall reform happening in a particular state. We will conclude by suggesting possible advocacy strategies, and restorative justice alternatives to continue the work to keep students in school and out of court
Racial Capitalism and the Proliferation of Charter Schools in Oakland
Get PDFOver the last thirty years, charter schools have flooded the American public education system. The publicly funded and privately operated alternative to neighborhood district schools is often celebrated as a means for under-resourced students to receive a quality education. However, the effect of charter school growth on districts themselves and the students who remain at traditional district schools requires greater scrutiny. A case study of Oakland reveals that intermingling private enterprise with public education has led to a disparate impact on low-income families of color and students with disabilities.
Under theories of racial capitalism, racial exploitation is central to the operation of capitalism and the free market, rather than an inadvertent side effect. Scholars of racial capitalism assert that economic structures designed to accumulate capital inherently reinforce racial inequality by systematically dispossessing vulnerable communities of essential resources. This Article employs a racial capitalism framework to argue that the economic structure imposed on school districts by charter schools reinforces inequality by divesting resources from district schools, dispossessing Black students and students with disabilities of educational opportunities, and creating conditions that lead to the displacement of Black families