STU Scholarly Works (St. Thomas University)
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Abortion in the United States: A Cry for Human Dignity
No full textIn recent years, the debate surrounding abortion has taken flight. It has been one of the most discussed and most controversial topics in the history of the United States as well as around the world. This article undertakes a critical analysis of whether mothers in the United States should maintain their exclusive privacy right to choose to terminate a pregnancy or whether unborn babies also have substantive due process rights, in particular a right to life. The gestational process of human development as well as pregnancy from the mother\u27s perspective shall first be addressed. The various types of abortion procedures, most reported reasons for attaining an abortion, as well as a mother\u27s experiences post abortion and its interaction with the institution of family will also be explored. Conflicting claims from the mother, the unborn child, and the father will be examined as well as the varying doctrines of religious institutions, ideas of philosophy, and the viewpoints of activist organizations from both the pro-life and the pro-choice movements. The legal responses in form of the treatment of abortion in various societies and the United States\u27 history of abortion legislation as well as the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court will also be discussed. Lastly, current and changing conditioning factors in government and politics as well as appraisals of intervention will be explored via critical legal analysis and a solution proposed with a view toward contributing to an order of human dignity, using the framework of the New Haven School of Jurisprudence
Kendall v. United States and the Inspector General Dilemma by Daniel Epstein
No full textThe early Supreme Court decision of Kendall v. U.S. ex rel. Stokes et al. provides a foundation for evaluating contemporary issues in congressional oversight. With recent attention on the removal of Inspectors General, Kendall provides a framework for examining the authority of Inspectors General in investigating ministerial, rather than discretionary, activities of the Executive branch. However, as this essay argues, because IGs are executive officers with ministerially-established powers, the President can appropriately use his removal power as a check on IGs investigating discretionary activities of the Executive branch beyond the authorities established under the IG Act
Fundamental Labour Standards and Corporate Sustainability: an Analysis of The Regulatory Framework of Core Workers\u27 Rights and its Integration in Contemporary International Business
No full textThe core of international protection of workers\u27 rights is made up of the Fundamental Labour Standards that were developed in the framework of the International Labour Organization (ILO). These standards, included in the eight fundamental conventions of the ILO are part of public international law, but are also incorporated into a large number of other - public, private, binding and voluntary - instruments that regulate international corporate behavior and form the basis for worker protection in international corporate social responsibility mechanisms. Fundamental Labour Standards (FLS) aim to secure respect for the prohibition of child labour, the prohibition of forced labour, non-discrimination and equal treatment, and freedom of association and collective bargaining. This article examines the scope and content of the FLS, reviews the large diversity of regulatory instruments that apply these standards in relation to the corporate sphere, and analyzes how FLS are addressed at the corporate level in practice
Children, Chocolate, and Profits: A Policy-Oriented Analysis of Child Labor and the Chocolate Industry Giants
No full textIn 2001, the chocolate industry adopted the Harkin-Engel Protocol, also referred to as the Chocolate Industry Protocol, in which it publicly acknowledged the problem of forced child labor with a promise to commit significant resources to address it and ensure that cocoa beans and their derivative products have been grown and/or processed without any of the worst forms of child labor. The noble goals set forth in this voluntary, self-regulating agreement were to be attained by 2005. Twenty years have passed since the signing of the Chocolate Industry Protocol (CIP). The purpose of this paper is to determine the effectiveness of the CIP and the status of child labor in the cocoa supply chain in the years since
Motions, Affidavits, Declarations, Stipulations and Orders
No full textBook: Nevada Civil Practice Manual
Nevada civil practitioners can rely on the unmatched scope of coverage packed within the 40 chapters of the Nevada Civil Practice Manual in this completely updated Sixth Edition. Obtain the most updated case and statute information, practice tips from experts in Nevada civil law practice and many new or revised forms.From researching Nevada law and filing and litigating a civil action, to trials and enforcement of judgments, Nevada Civil Practice Manual guides you through virtually every civil procedure and practice with expert analysis and in-depth discussion, including lien law, probate and extraordinary writs. Locate comprehensive discussion of the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure as well as many statutory provisions relating to civil cases. Citations include Nevada cases construing the rules to illustrate practical application of various rules and including motion practice.https://scholarship.stu.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1046/thumbnail.jp
Making Drug-related Deportability 1914 Again? How a strict “categorical approach” to the CSA would eliminate unpredictable agency interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act
No full textThe Controlled Substance Act ( CSA ) of 1970 serves as a near midpoint for considering a century of drug regulation, dating to the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act (1914), the now-quaint first federal step in this field, i.e. of taxing the sale of (but not outright criminalizing) cocaine and opium. The early cases construing the Harrison Act are similarly anachronistic. Bundled as public welfare cases and including United States v. Balint,\u27 in those early days, the Supreme Court was willing to forego requiring the element of criminal intent to be read into general and novel statutes like the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act, and in Balint yielded to apparent congressional wisdom to punish controlled substance violations without an impediment of traditional mens rea. This logic would seem to have been explicitly \u27firewalled to its bygone era by Morissette v. United States (1952), particularly in light of the modern, comprehensive CSA subsequently clearing the field in 1970. Convicted immigrants only wish they were so lucky. In a parallel track, use of the categorical approach in modern criminal and immigration\u27 law has evolved to require strict comparison of federal and state definitions of criminal offenses in order for those offenses to trigger sentencing or deportation consequences. This implies that both state drug offenses and drug definitions also require a literal federal analogue, under the CSA, to prompt collateral federal treatment. Again, convicted immigrants only wish it were so simple. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), part of the U.S. Department of Justice, has repeatedly invoked the public welfare cases to justify removal of immigrants for drug offenses in the absence of proof of their criminal intent. In 2019, the BIA had further telegraphed reluctance to requiring strict uniformity in state drug definitions vis-a-vis the federal enumerated standard substance before permitting an immigration consequence to flow from a related offense. The author has written on, and litigated-both successfully\u27 and unsuccessfully,\u27 and in pending matters9 -these issues as both primary counsel and for amici curiae. This article develops the interconnectedness of the above two topics, in order to comprehensively discuss the immigration consequences of drug convictions, particularly as evolved since 1996 and to attempt to reconcile 1) tracks of Supreme Court civil and criminal jurisprudence regarding mens rea and 2) the collision course of the categorical approach with the interpretive principles of Chevron.\u270 In doing so, the article makes recommendations for a more consistently principled, predictable, and uniform intersection of the CSA and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). While this paper mostly deals with highly technical explanations of legal theories in the criminal-immigration universe, it should not be lost on the reader just how out of touch the legalese gets from reality. In a way, it is a microcosm of the larger social problem. America\u27s cultural duality is on display-with our aspirational decadence conflicting with our puritanical roots-and we struggle to balance these extreme polarities. If controlled substances were regulated from a holistic public health perspective, if our laws were not so dissonant with our culture\u27s appetites, or even if drugs were taxed (not outright banned) as in 1914, we could avoid much of the technical jousting of the following pages. However, as it is, we have serious legal apex scenarios-criminal sentence enhancements and deportation-in which society\u27s wrath bares down on individuals, typically with consequences disproportionate to the harm (if any) they inflicted upon society. With the stakes so raised, the esoteric legal analysis is the necessary antidote and justified defensive tool to a ludicrously over-punitive, unrealistic, and hypocritical criminal scheme
Crisis-Induced Innovation in U.S. Legal Education
No full textThis essay provides recommendations for making law school in-person attendance, course evaluation, and assessment methods more accommodating after the circumstances of the pandemic subside because the circumstances of millennials will not
“Drive-by” Jurisdiction: Congressional Oversight in Court
No full textOn July 9, 2020, in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP and Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, the Supreme Court held that the lower courts did not adequately consider the separation of powers concerns attendant to congressional subpoenas for presidential information. Given that the question presented in Mazars concerned whether Congress had a legitimate legislative purpose in subpoenaing the President’s personal records, the Supreme Court’s decision is anything but a model of clarity. The Court simultaneously opined that disputes “involving nonprivileged, private information” “do[ ] not implicate sensitive Executive Branch deliberations” while claiming “congressional subpoenas for the President’s information unavoidably pit the political branches against one another.” This essay presents a more precise framework for adjudicating interbranch disputes. By understanding Congress as it understands itself, this article draws a legal distinction between congressional investigations of the private sphere versus oversight of the Executive Branch. It analogizes Congress’s regulatory investigations to the sorts of quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative regulatory inquiries commonplace among federal agencies. Like regulatory inquiries by federal agencies, subpoenas for testimony and documents are enforceable against the private sphere. Oversight subpoenas, it is argued, are not enforceable precisely because oversight involves political questions inappropriate for judicial resolution. Just like in the administrative context, where regulatory inquiries must be purged of evidence of political taint, any regulatory inquiry from Congress must be likewise detached from its more politicized counterpart in the name of oversight. In this sense, the accommodation hinted in Chief Justice Roberts’ Mazars opinion can be properly understood as a requirement that Congress exhaust its political remedies before seeking private ones. As such, the analytic framework presented here makes the otherwise hard case of Mazars an easy case of identifying an improper attempt to conduct oversight in the facade of a regulatory inquiry, one tainted by prior political efforts and a prematurely clotured political process
40 Writing Hacks for Appellate Attorneys
No full textI am a career law clerk for a federal appellate judge. Like any member of the court system, I keep an open mind until each case closes. But also like any member of the court system, I often know within the first pages of a brief whether it rides on the right track. Here are 40 suggestions to avoid derailing
Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Heritage
No full textBook: The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law
This Handbook sets out and assesses the international legal framework governing the protection of cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is frequently not bounded by national territory and can only effectively be protected through international cooperation. This is a primary driving force of contemporary multilateral, regional, and bilateral initiatives, including legal measures. Accordingly, the Handbook is primarily focused on public international law, but it embraces also aspects of private international law and comparative law. It analyses the substance of cultural heritage protection and explores its links with other areas of public and private international law, as well as the ways in which cultural heritage law is contributing to the development of international law itself. The Handbook concludes with an examination of the implementation of cultural heritage law and of regional approaches. It reflects the diversity of developments in almost every field of international law which is leading to this specialist area of law and provides an overarching rationale for understanding and teaching cultural heritage law as a coherent body of law with key principles and practices. The book is designed in such a manner to enable a reader, whether it be a practitioner, policymaker, teacher or student, to pick and choose according their individual needs.https://scholarship.stu.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1018/thumbnail.jp