The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
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The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The United States, Trade Sanctions, and International Blocking Acts
Get PDFWhen the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA,” colloquially known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) in May of 2018, that withdrawal signaled not only the United States withdrawal from that deal, of which it had been one of the chief negotiators, but also of a new level of trade engagement by the United States and the Trump Administration within the international community. European countries, in an attempt to continue existing business relationships with the Iranians, pulled an old tool from their toolbox – the blocking statute – to attempt to allow European and multinational companies to ignore the sanctions tied to the American withdrawal from the JCPOA. This Comment discusses both the international tensions engendered by the United States JCPOA withdrawal as well as the apparent movement by the United States to manipulate and dominate international trade post-JCPOA and its ramifications for the international community.
Part I of the Comment describes the history of United States extraterritorial trade efforts as well as international efforts to contain its extraterritorial trade reach. Part II discusses contemporary legislative schemes in Europe, including existing international dispute mechanisms that could not only protect European trading interests but also provide a path towards eventual compromise. Part III explains how forceful enforcement by the European Union of its own regulations could further bolster European trading interests. Finally, this Comment suggests that eventually, the United States will circle back to a more moderate stance on its extraterritorial international sanctions scheme as a result of European statutory efforts
Competition, Privacy, and Big Data
Get PDFThis article analyzes the competition policy and privacy issues that are raised by large disparities in the amounts of consumer data that are held by different firms. First, it explains how competition authorities could take data acquisition into account in evaluating the effects of mergers and examines conditions under which those authorities might mandate data sharing among competitors. Next, it considers how privacy issues might be treated in analyzing whether data sharing should be permitted or mandated. Finally, it examines possible conflicts between policies that address competition and those that deal with privacy
Closed Adoption: An Illusory Promise to Birth Parents and the Changing Landscape of Sealed Adoption Records
Get PDFImagine spitting into a tube and mailing your DNA off only to discover that you had a sibling who had been adopted by another family or that a parent’s affair had resulted in a half-sibling. For many individuals, these family secrets have been exposed due to direct-to-consumer DNA testing companies, such as 23andMe.
By the 1950s, most states had enacted statutes that sealed adoption record files in order to preserve the privacy of the birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families. While some states have moved toward granting adoptees access to their adoption records, most states still have some type of restriction on an adoptee’s access to these records. However, with the advent of direct-to-consumer DNA tests, adoptees no longer need to rely on the court system to discover identifying information about their birth families. With a swab of cotton and a click of a button, adoptees can connect with relatives on 23andMe thereby completely circumventing the privacy goals of these adoption record laws.
This Comment analyzes the adoption record laws of four states and then compares those approaches to the privacy strategies being adopted by sperm banks to maximize donor privacy. This Comment also sets out the arguments for keeping the adoption files sealed and the counterarguments for allowing unrestricted access to adoption records. Finally, it proposes a Uniform Model Act that attempts to satisfy the arguments for opening adoption records while still mitigating the privacy damage to birth families who do not wish to be contacted
Missing the Role of Property in the Regulation of Insider Trading
Get PDFFor decades, legal scholars have evaluated the law and practice of insider trading through a property lens. Some have debated whether a property rationale is useful for explaining past cases or might make a useful framework for deciding tough cases in the future. Others have explored which market actors should be allocated property rights in inside information in order to increase the efficiency or liquidity of U.S. securities markets. Yet scholars seem to have missed the fact that officials have consistently relied on the violation of some party’s property rights to justify imposing liability for insider trading—including in classical theory of liability cases.
Missing the role that property principles continually play in the doctrine has undermined the quality of the policy and doctrinal debate surrounding insider trading. Because there are costs associated with changing the current state of affairs, a discussion of how to allocate rights in inside information is incomplete without recognizing which parties currently hold title to the information. In addition, while many scholars are correct to reject a property rationale as useful for explaining the majority of past insider trading cases, it would be a mistake to dismiss the explanatory power of property principles entirely. If officials consistently rely on the violation of property rights in inside information to justify imposing liability, then property and related doctrines may help scholars and policy makers to understand what changes would be required to bring the regulation of insider trading into greater harmony with its doctrinal and statutory roots.
With these opportunities in mind, this article identifies several ways that property principles motivate the U.S. insider trading regime. It concludes by highlighting some considerations that scholars and policy makers should take into account in future analysis
Practical Truth: The Value of Apparent Honesty in Supreme Court Opinions
Get PDFThe focus of this Essay is on the importance that apparent honesty has on the persuasive force of Supreme Court opinions. Legal scholars and Supreme Court Justices have observed the connection between the Court’s legitimacy and the persuasive force of its opinions. Because the Court’s opinions are both an exercise of the Court’s power and the justification for that power, the Justices’ opinions must be persuasive.
The study of rhetoric has long recognized three methods of persuading an audience of the correctness of a particular view. Those methods are appeals to logic, credibility, and emotion. Of theses three methods, I assert that ethos/credibility is the most important to the United States Supreme Court, and that apparent honesty is a necessary part of such an appeal.
To support my assertions, I have divided this Essay into three Sections. Section I briefly discusses ethos-based appeals and how such appeals are generally derived. Section II applies this approach to Supreme Court opinions. Finally, in Section III, I identify friction points in Supreme Court decisions where there is a heightened danger of appearing less than fully honest. Because failing to appear honest can significantly harm the Court’s credibility, avoiding such an appearance is critical. I assert that there are at least three circumstances where the danger of appearing less than fully honest is increased. These three credibility “choke points” involve stare decisis, high-profile politically contentious cases, and changes in a Justice’s position. Additionally, I suggest several methods of reducing the danger created by these “choke points.
Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Drivers: Autonomous Vehicles and AI-Chaperone Liability
Get PDFThe future of mainstream autonomous vehicles is approaching in the rearview mirror. Yet, the current legal regime for tort liability leaves an open question on how tortious Artificial Intelligence (AI) devices and systems that are capable of machine learning will be held accountable. To understand the potential answer, one may simply go back in time and see how this question would be answered under traditional torts. This Comment tests whether the incident involving an autonomous vehicle hitting a pedestrian is covered under the traditional torts, argues that they are incapable of solving this novel problem, and ultimately proposes a new strict liability tort: AI-Chaperone Liability. Because advancement in technology requires advancement in the law, AI-Chaperone Liability is a step forward in unchartered territory
Election Integrity: A Bipartisan Panel Discussion
No full textOn October 14, the American Constitution Society (ACS), the Democratic Law Student Association (DLSA), The Federalist Society, the Law and Technology Student Association (LTSA), and the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) joined together to host a program entitled “Election Integrity: A Bipartisan Panel Discussion.” The panel was moderated by Adjunct Professor Troy A. McCurry ’06. In addition to teaching courses on campaign finance law and election law, McCurry is the Director of Government Relations at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Panelists for the evening’s discussion were Darin Johnson, Associate Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law; Michael Thielen, Executive Director of the national chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association; and Ellen Weintraub, a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission