2208 research outputs found
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Missing the Mark: The Case for Removing Cannabis from the World Anti-Doping Agency\u27s Prohibited List
Get PDFSame As It Ever Was : The Tijuana River Sewage Crisis, Non-State Actors, and the State
Get PDFSewage—a scary mixture of human waste and industrial toxins—flows into the Tijuana River Valley, an environmentally sensitive watershed that straddles the United Mexican States ( Mexico ) and the United States of America. Treatment plants, a deteriorating one in Punta Bandera with limited capacity south of the border, and another in San Diego County completed in 1997, are inadequate to process the volume of sewage. So much sewage made its way into the Tijuana River that CBS 60 Minutes broadcast a special report on the binational environmental disaster in 2020.
Border factories and a population spike contribute to the sewage. Maquiladoras, or border factories, sprawl in a region twenty-five miles from the Pacific Ocean that abuts the U.S.-Mexico border. Tijuana’s population grew from 60,000 in 1950 to 2.2 million people, exacerbated by the addition of tens of thousands of displaced persons waiting in temporary shelters for asylum claims to be heard in the United States.
This Article looks at what has traditionally been the sole subject of international law and relations: sovereign States. The State remains the primary actor in international law, international relations, and along the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is not the only actor. This Article details the most important international agreements for the U.S.-Mexico border region.concerning the flow of waterways, the quality of water, and the respective responsibilities of the two countries which consists of a complex legal regime comprised of treaties, Minutes, and operating procedures with States and non-state actors (NSAs)
A Freezer Chest Of Frozen Embryos: ‘Men And Women Of Good Conscience Can Disagree’
No full textFaced with saving a hypothetical injured woman or 100 frozen embryos, the essay author argues that even if life or personhood begins at conception that does not mean that pre-natal lives and post-natal lives are of equal value or that state laws must embrace the equality of all human life or protect pre-natal life.
The assignment of different values to different stages of life is very much a part of existing law and policy, reflected in the common law of homicide, the Model Penal Code, the allocation of organs to transplant patients, the allocation of scarce medical resources, and the law of damages. However, while we are forced to assign different values to different lives in a variety of contexts, acknowledging that process of valuation makes us uncomfortable precisely because it cannot claim any basis in objective truth. If the state is to give priority to the protection of an embryo or fetus against the desire and well-being of a pregnant woman, then it must properly be seen as a choice that prefers (and is driven by) the moral intuition and religious obligations of some over the moral intuition and religious obligations of others. Giving absolute priority to the well-being of the pregnant woman over that of a fetus can be defended on secular philosophical grounds, as brilliantly demonstrated by Judith Jarvis Thomson; free exercise grounds; and, on the basis of religious doctrine (and therefore must be protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act)
COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and (Mis)perception of Risk
No full textThis Article tackles the critical problem of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and provides a normative framework for legal policies to address such hesitancy in the ongoing pandemic. The foundation of this Article rests in decision-making theories that allow policymakers to understand individual misperception of risk as compared to evidence-based assessment of risk. Vaccine-hesitant individuals assign a high risk to the COVID-19 vaccine and a low risk to the disease—a perception that is disconnected from the science. The backbone of this Article is the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic and the underlying science of the disease and vaccines. The timeline provides a factual background to demonstrate how vaccine hesitancy to the COVID-19 vaccine emerged. The instant pandemic also demonstrates changes in how individuals see themselves in society, receive information, and are persuaded by economic forces. This Article combines the individual’s decision-making process with modern day variables to suggest interventions that can undo anti-vaccine damage. While the novelty of the normative framework provided herein is instructive for current COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy issues, this framework can be applied to other areas in which individual’s perceptions of risk are disconnected from evidence-based assessment of risk
Not Bluffing: Resolving Doctrinal Ambiguities in California\u27s Natural Condition Immunity as Climate Change Heightens Risks of Injuries on Public Lands
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The Role of Law and Myth in Creating a Workplace that \u27Looks Like America\u27
Get PDFEqual employment opportunity (EEO) law has played a poor role in incentivizing effective diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and harassment prevention programming. In litigation and investigation, too many judges and regulators credit employers for maintaining policies and programs rather than requiring employers to embrace efforts that work. Likewise, many employers and consultants fail to consider the organizational effects created by DEI and harassment programming. Willful ignorance prevents the admission that some policies and programming harm those most in need of protection.
This approach has resulted in two problems. One is a doctrinal dilemma because important presumptions embedded in antidiscrimination law are tethered to employer practices, many of which do not promote EEO. Simultaneously, society faces an organizational predicament because employer practices are driven by unexamined myths about how to achieve bias and harassment-free environments. Neo-institutional theory explains how this form-over-substance approach to EEO law and practice began and has evolved. This Article builds upon that theory by arguing that favorable conditions exist for a shift from a cosmetic to an evidence-based approach to legal compliance. Three developments mark the way forward: (1) a pathbreaking Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) report; (2) the EEOC’s call for better research on DEI and harassment prevention program efficacy; and (3) new social science research discussing which DEI efforts are most likely to succeed and those most likely to prompt backlash.
To facilitate evidence-based EEO compliance, this Article advocates changes in liability standards. It also recommends the creation of a supervised research safe harbor for employers willing to work with researchers and regulators to assess and continuously improve their DEI and harassment prevention efforts. Finally, the Article urges lawyers to more frequently employ Brandeis briefs in litigation to place social science research directly in front of jurists. Solving the twin problems wrought by cosmetic compliance requires taking seriously the findings of social scientists. An evidence-based approach to DEI and harassment prevention would assist in restoring the promise of EEO law to create healthy, diverse, and bias-free U.S. workplaces
Evaluation of Risk Perception of Smoking after the Implementation of California’s Tobacco 21 Law
Get PDFDecreasing smoking initiation remains a public health priority. In 2016, California, in the United States, enacted the Tobacco 21 law, which raised the minimum age for the purchase of tobacco products from age 18 to age 21. This paper evaluates whether the enactment and implementation of the Tobacco 21 law changed how young adults perceive the risk(s) of smoking. Data were drawn from a cohort of emerging adults (n = 575) in California who were non-daily smokers at enrollment and followed quarterly for 3 years. Data were collected during 2015–2019. Piecewise multilevel regression models were used to test for changes in smoking status and perceived risks of cigarettes after Tobacco 21 enforcement began. Findings indicated that the prevalence of current smoking and perceived risks of smoking both declined following Tobacco 21 implementation (ps \u3c 0.001). Post-hoc analyses suggested that post-implementation changes in perceived risk occurred primarily among ongoing smokers. Findings suggest that Tobacco 21 and associated public health measures have been effective, but additional research is needed to disentangle the effects of specific components. Understanding the impact and efficacy of tobacco laws provides great social value to research and implement policies that create intervention(s) on reducing tobacco use initiation