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Exploring the Mediating Role of Mentalization in the Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Suicidal Ideation in a Non-Clinical Pakistani Sample
No full textThe aim of the current study is to determine the relationship between attachment styles, mentalization, and suicidal ideation using a quantitative correlational survey design in a non-clinical Pakistani sample. A purposive-convenience sampling technique was employed to recruit N = 295 adults (males, n = 81; females, n = 214) from Pakistan, aged 18 to 55 years (M = 23.07, SD = 5.37), using a Google survey. It was hypothesized that there is a relationship between attachment styles, mentalization, and suicidal ideation. Moreover, it was also hypothesized that there is a relationship between anxious attachment style and self-mentalization. To test the hypotheses, data were collected through three questionnaires: the Mentalization Scale (MentS), the Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS), and the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS). The study's results were analyzed using SPSS 29.0.1.0. The findings revealed that attachment styles have a relationship with mentalization, self-mentalization (MentS-S), and suicidal ideation, whereas no significant correlation was found between mentalization and suicidal ideation. Only self-mentalization was found to have a negative correlation with suicidal ideation (r = −0.14, p = .01). Anxious attachment style was found to have a negative correlation with self-mentalization (r = −0.42, p = .01) and a positive correlation with suicidal ideation (r = 0.26, p = .01). The current findings underscore the importance of integrating emotional regulation strategies in therapeutic work with individuals with anxious attachment styles to prevent the development of suicidal ideation
A Looming Crisis: Exploring the Precarious Legal Status of ‘Climate Refugees’ Under International and Human Rights Law
No full textAs climate change worsens, millions of people around the world will be displaced, further exacerbating conflicts and resource scarcity. In recent years, individuals displaced by climate change have sought legal recognition as 'climate refugees' under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1951. This paper argues that the Convention, originally designed to address persecution-based displacement, lacks provisions for those fleeing environmental crises. This paper explores alternative legal frameworks relating to the status of 'climate refugees' under international and domestic law, with a focus on recent judicial opinions. It also examines alternative frameworks for refugee claims, including human rights treaties, as well as regional agreements such as the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees and the 2009 African Union Kampala Convention. These mechanisms offer potential pathways for recognizing and protecting those displaced by climate change beyond the narrow definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The paper concludes that regional agreements, modeled after the Kampala Convention, provide the most practical and enforceable solutions for addressing the complex legal challenges posed by climate-induced displacement
Pot Without Patriarchy: Gender Equity in the Adult-Use Cannabis Industry and the Feminist Cooperative Model
Full text linkMany states that have legalized recreational cannabis in the last decade have done so with social equity in mind. So-called “cannabis social equity” programs in those states primarily aim to rectify the harms of discriminatory enforcement of cannabis laws before legalization, but they also pursue a broad vision of diversity in cannabis business ownership as the industry rapidly grows. As more data on cannabis industry demographics becomes available, states’ equity programs have received widespread criticism for their failure to realize their racial equity and restorative justice goals. There has been far less discussion of the persistent gender disparities in the cannabis industry, though. Despite states’ equity efforts, the nascency of the industry, and the fact that women are starting and leading businesses in other sectors at higher rates than ever before, women are not pulling ahead in cannabis. This Note seeks to contribute to the holistic, intersectional project of cannabis equity by exploring cannabis’s gender problem—including its causes and potential statelevel policy solutions within constitutional limits on gender-based affirmative action. It argues that women’s participation and leadership in the cannabis industry are essential in light of the hidden costs of the War on Drugs on women and women’s historic exclusion from, or exploitation by, other “vice” industries like gambling and tobacco. This Note ultimately advocates for an increased regulatory focus on support for co-op businesses, as their democratic, collective structure renders them uniquely well-suited to achieving gender equity in cannabis while prioritizing community and resisting corporate capture
The Children Are Not for Sale: Stamping Out the Monetized Sharenting Entertainment Industry and Rehabilitating Parental Rights
Full text linkSaving the children is once again on the sociopolitical docket, and the legislature has an opportunity to enact legislation that might actually save children. A pertinent child welfare concern shared by psychologists, child advocates, and the Federal Government today is an increasing youth mental health crisis and overwhelming evidence that social media use is a primary cause. Meta has even joined the cause, launching a public relations campaign voicing its openness to congressional reform. Additionally, the bipartisan “Kids Online Safety Act,” is pending in both the Senate and House of Representatives as parallel bills S.1409 and H.R. 7891, respectively. This is a bipartisan effort to pass evidence-based regulation aimed at protecting children by supporting parental rights. Despite this progress, there is one extremely big gap in this piece of legislation that runs the risk of undermining it entirely, a generational gap.
Children who were raised on the internet are now parenting on the internet. When a parent posts pictures, videos, or publicly discusses their child in detail online, this is called “sharenting.” In practice, sharenting can refer to a range of content. Some forms include high levels of child participation, such scripted skits with their parents. Others involve passive participation, such as parent incorporating filming into their daily routines. Online posts divulging stories with identifiable information or repurposing of already existing photos of the child is a common form of sharenting. Scholars in law and psychology problematize excessive sharenting for contributing to harm already associated with general childhood internet use: reputational harm, privacy risks, vulnerability to harassment and cyberbullying, or simply amplified general embarrassment. Although those sound like harms a parent would intuitively avoid, the unregulated rollout of the internet is likely to blame for the public’s unhealthy relationship with it.
As technology rapidly developed over the past several decades, the social role of the internet has been a loose cannon. Sociological shifts in internet use impacted different age demographics at different developmental moments. For example, the Millennial generation ranges from people born in roughly 1981 through 1996, and Generation Z (“Gen Z”) ranges from people born in 1997 through 2012. At-home computer use increased in the 1990s at a fast pace with two percent of American households having internet access in 1992 and twenty-six percent in 1998. By 2007, sixty-four percent of teens ages 12-17 reported to engage in some form of content creation, ranging from blogs to online communities to publishing works of art. That same year, Facebook started incorporating user data into a user-targeted advertising structure and YouTube introduced in-video advertisements and its paid Partner Program. The average teen’s diary and locker room discussion became a marketplace overnight without any real means of understanding the implications of this shift. This same cohort is now in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Many still use social media as a form of diary or group discussion, but now the topics of discussion include their children. Although this narrative thread is not the only explanation for the proliferation of sharenting, a successful legislative agenda that aims to protect children’s online safety needs to take the history of the internet into account.
An unregulated internet helped create a generation of parents primed to share an unsafe amount of information about their family life and seamlessly transitioned into an infrastructure that facilitates monetizing that habit. Increasingly, parents who post pictures and videos of their kids are gaining lucrative mass followings for the content they post. Parents can profit off of this following by teaming up with a given social media platform to get a share of related ad revenue from the platform, or get paid directly by companies to discuss their products in their family posting. Parents can also use a subscription model in which followers pay to get bonus content, though Meta announced efforts to crack down on this specific method in response to criticism that its predominant content and clientele sexualize children. When follower counts start reaching the thousands or millions, children can turn into an online celebrities. Child-rearing is becoming a form of self-expression in an era in which online self-expression is a viable career option, all while more and more commerce is online. The result is a new entertainment industry in which parents combine their parental liberties and freedom of expression to commodify their parent-child relationship: the Monetized Sharenting Industry
Rhyme and Reason: How Intellectual Property Can Inform the Use of Rap Lyrics as Evidence in Criminal Trials
No full textOver the past two decades, the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal prosecutions in the United States has become increasingly common. The introduction of these rap lyrics into evidence proves uniquely problematic and dangerous, specifically for Black and Latino boys and men who already face systemic oppression, bias, and incarceration. Common objections to the use of these rap lyrics as evidence include a First Amendment Constitutional argument, as well as those grounded in existing evidence rules. Proposed solutions are also divergent and include: the categorical exclusion of rap lyrics as evidence, the mandated use of expert witnesses to dissect the rap lyrics in the context of the genre more generally, and the lyrics’ admission only when they explicitly discuss the crime at issue at trial. However, because this is such a new and evolving area of the law, what these solutions often lack is solid doctrinal foundations, which make it harder for consistent legislation and adjudications to follow.This Note proposes two solutions for the admission of rap lyrics as evidence grounded in two existing Intellectual Property (“IP”) frameworks. The first solution addresses, as a threshold matter, how to determine whether rap lyrics in any given case should be admissible at all. Borrowing from trademark law’s spectrum of distinctiveness, this Note creates a similar spectrum of distinctiveness based on the proximity of the rap lyrics to the specific crime at issue in the trial. This spectrum of distinctiveness in many ways encompasses the evidence rule against unfair prejudice and should be used by judges, who themselves are subject to implicit biases and are not qualified to dissect rap lyrics. Second, for situations where rap lyrics are deemed admissible, this Note propose a solution that requires judges to, at the defendant’s request, either (1) provide a court-appointed expert to testify and contextualize the lyrics or (2) allow the defense to bring forth their own expert witness. This solution is based on a cautionary tale from copyright law: the infringement by reproduction doctrine, famously and confusingly codified in the 2nd Circuit case of Arnstein v. Porter. The Arnstein court’s categorical exclusion of expert testimony during the improper appropriation stage of analysis, relying instead on the response of the ordinary lay hearer (i.e., the jury) is “universally repudiated” by legal copyright scholars. Thus, especially when transferred to the criminal context where the stakes are much higher, the aftermath of Arnstein emphasizes the importance of always permitting, and perhaps even mandating, the use of expert testimony
Identifying an “Effectively Competitive” Market: The Work of the Copyright Royalty Board
Full text linkBecause the statutes supplant the actual market, the CRB Judges must establish a “hypothetical market” that satisfies the statutory standard. A critical element in that regard is the testimony of the parties’ economists, which consists of various forms of economicThe United States Copyright Royalty Board (“CRB”) establishes royalty rates for compulsory statutory licenses of sound recordings paid by Webcaster licensees to sound recording companies. These rates are set by the government, rather than the market, because the licensed sound recordings are not simply individual copies of discrete sound recordings in competition with each other, but rather are collections of repertoires offered under a blanket license by the major record companies and one independent consortium—who control the vast majority of recordings.
Accordingly, coexisting with the efficiencies of collective ownership is the market power of these collectives. Absent a regulatory rate, the collectives, “complementary oligopolies,” can exploit the “Must Have” (essential) nature of their blanket licenses by setting non-competitive royalty rates. When rates are not “effectively competitive,” the market is beset by inefficient and exploitive pricing.
It is for this reason that many collective licensors are subject to royalty rate regulation. The fact that unregulated copyright collectives may not achieve an economic optimum establishes the strong theoretical foundation for the regulation of such collectives.
The CRB’s three-judge panel is required by statute to “establish rates . . . that would have been negotiated in the marketplace between a willing buyer and a willing seller.” To accomplish this economic task, the Judges preside over adversarial trial proceedings between licensors and licensees.
Because the statutes supplant the actual market, the CRB Judges must establish a “hypothetical market” that satisfies the statutory standard. A critical element in that regard is the testimony of the parties’ economists, which consists of various forms of economic modeling. The experts who proffer such testimony are typically well-credentialed economists who have been, inter alia, the highest-ranking economists at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and distinguished professors of microeconomics and industrial organization. Their direct oral and written testimonies, akin to expert reports, are subject to adverse expert rebuttals, examination by skilled counsel, and inquiries from the Judges, one of whom (the author of this Article), by statute, “shall have significant knowledge of economics.”
This Article focuses on a seminal opinion by the CRB Judges, affirmed by the D.C. Circuit: the Web IV Determination holding that the statutory “willing buyer-willing seller marketplace” standard shall reflect the workings of an “effectively competitive” market. In all subsequent CRB royalty rate setting determinations, the Judges have applied this “effective competition” standard to the particular facts of the case
Certifying Legal AI Assistants for Unrepresented Litigants: A Global Survey of Access to Civil Justice, Unauthorized Practice of Law, and AI
Full text linkThe global integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into legal services has created a critical need for clarity regarding unauthorized practice of law (UPL) rules. Traditionally, UPL rules prohibited unlicensed individuals from engaging in activities legally reserved for qualified attorneys, including, in some jurisdictions, offering legal advice, interpreting laws, representing clients in court, or drafting legal documents. Now that some AI systems can perform functions that practice of law regulating authorities have traditionally reserved for licensed attorneys, a framework is needed to certify the use of legal AI assistants by unrepresented litigants.
Ensuring the accuracy of information provided by legal AI assistants for unrepresented litigants benefits the entire legal community, including attorneys, by promoting stricter standards and higher acceptance thresholds. We examine the perspectives of several primary stakeholders in certifying legal AI assistants, including unrepresented litigants, practice of law regulating authorities, judiciaries, the legislature, the legal aid community, and the legal tech community.
We conduct a detailed survey of access to justice, AI, and UPL in various international jurisdictions, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Germany, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In each of these jurisdictions, we explore how UPL is currently managed in the context of legal AI use by unrepresented litigants. We also include a 50-state and 6-territory survey for the United States on what each Bar Association and Judiciary is doing to regulate legal AI use by unrepresented litigants.
In light of this survey, we propose that practice of law regulating authorities add certified legal AI assistants to their lists of UPL exemptions so that such assistants can provide specific and useful legal information, guidance, and advice to unrepresented litigants. We propose a capability-based framework for certifying legal AI assistants for unrepresented litigants. This is intended as a harmonized global proposal, designed for local implementation by each jurisdiction’s practice of law regulating authority, with the flexibility to address individual jurisdictional nuances.
Unrepresented litigants are already using AI chatbots for help in legal proceedings, sometimes to their detriment. Our proposal aims to allow unrepresented litigants to use legal AI assistants that have been verified for accuracy. This framework addresses the key justification for UPL restrictions—the risk of incorrect legal guidance—by basing the certification of individual capabilities on their accuracy when tested on public benchmark datasets. Legal AI assistants are added to lists of UPL exemptions under this approach if their accuracy meets or exceeds a certification threshold when tested on these public benchmark datasets. The jurisdiction’s practice of law regulating authority would set the certification threshold or, as we suggest, a third-party certifying authority delegated to perform this task. While many public benchmark datasets are required under this framework, the legal AI community is rapidly developing such datasets.
To enable AI to enhance access to justice for unrepresented litigants globally, practice of law regulating authorities in each jurisdiction must choose to exempt certified legal AI systems for unrepresented litigants from unauthorized practice of law regulations
Reflections on Section 367(b) Regulations and Inbound Transactions
Full text linkCross-border combinations of U.S. and foreign public companies are unusual but happen from time to time. Our broad and often arbitrary anti-inversion rules discourage such transactions utilizing a foreign parent company for the combined group. But using a U.S. parent company can also be painful to the foreign company shareholders. Our section 367(b) regulations require gain recognition for the foreign company’s material shareholders subject to U.S. tax. That seems to be a high price to pay for the pleasure of bringing the foreign corporate group into the U.S. tax net.
Much has been discussed and written about the section 367(b) regulations that compel this result since the regulation’s finalization in 2000 and especially since the enactment of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This article reflects our exploration into what led the original regulation writers down the path they took and suggests that maybe they were wrong in their thinking. Our hope is that it will stimulate a broader discussion of the goals of the section 367(b) regulations as applied to inbound transactions and how they should be implemented in the current regime of section 245A deductions and GILTI and Subpart F inclusions
Spaceshifting: On Inhumanity as Shaping Resistance
No full textThe ontological violence of being confined to categories of the Inhuman (especially the “Animal”) is often resisted by appealing to acceptance into “common humanity,” a desire to be recognized as "human,” validating and working within this category. Through the creation of this exploratory, sticky, tangled website, I construct emerging connections and contrasts in BIBI's "Animal Farm" (가면무도회), INIKO's "Jericho," Rina Sawayama's "XS," and horsegiirL's "f0rbiidden l0ve$tory," and the ways each project occupies and employs the Inhuman, interrogating and challenging appeals to acceptance and expansion in the category of the “human.” These projects are created by artists who themselves are subjected to historic and present processes of de"human”ization, warping and transforming their own physical matter, as well as transgressing space and time around them—visibly, lyrically, audibly—through embracing and inhabiting Inhumanity as robot/cyborg, alien, monster, and/or nonhuman animal(s). Through this website, I tear open questions of racialized, gendered violence and "survivor"-hood; capitalist excess, co-optation, and consumption; and other interconnected, overlapping layers of violence of fixed and fixing notions of “the Human.” I additionally question the limitations of these projects, exposing contradiction and tension, as well as asking what is at stake in Inhumanity—and what this means in immediate organizing and resistance work.
Notes on Contributor:
Gray is a multi-disciplinary artist making multimedia pieces often exploring—but not limited to—sonic analyses. Gray's research often reflects on soundscapes as ontology in practice, as well as the relationships that can result from these practices. Outside of their art-work, Gray spends time community organizing
Refugees and the Right to Education: Reflections on International Frameworks and the Australian Context
Full text linkThe right to education is universally recognized as a fundamental human right, safeguarded by numerous international declarations and conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Viewing refugee education through the lens of human rights is rooted in the principle that everyone, regardless of citizenship status, should have equal educational opportunities as an integral aspect of their broader human rights. However, such opportunities are variable. Using an interpretive approach to policy analysis, this paper reviews the Australian education policy space in the context of international initiatives, exploring national responses juxtaposed with key global arrangements. In shedding light on the alignment—or lack thereof—between national policies and international obligations, this paper contributes valuable insights to the broader debate on the importance of rights-based refugee education