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Gone Overboard: Why the Arctic Sunrise Case Signals an Over-Expansion of the Ship-As-A-Unit Concept in the Diplomatic Protection Context
Get PDFPolicing Sex: The Colonial, Apartheid, and New Democracy Policing of Sex Work in South Africa
Get PDFThe history of the policing of sex work in South Africa reveals the surprisingly contradictory manners that legal regulations, police action, and public discourses have all “policed” sex work to meet competing goals. Sex work has generally been subject to formal state policing in the form of legal regulations and laws, which mostly focus on the public nuisance aspects of it. However, there has also been a more informal policing of sex work through public discourses in the media, medical community, and amongst activists. These various forms of policing are at times contradictory, and may result in various approaches toward sex work, which are at odds with each other. It is thus important that these various forms of policing be considered to ensure that the official policies on sex work match the actual practices of how sex work is policed. The actual criminalization of sex work is not as significant as the everyday policing practices, which often belie de jure criminalization, and are instead informed by these larger informal discourses
Unsophisticated Sentencing
No full textThis essay, written for the Wayne Law Review’s 2014 Symposium on white collar crime and sentencing, examines the rising popularity of the “sophisticated means” enhancement under Section 2B1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Over the past decade, the rate at which federal courts apply the enhancement in criminal fraud cases has more than tripled. This Essay considers several possible explanations for the enhancement’s increasing prevalence, including the possibilities that: (i) fraud offenders as a whole have become more sophisticated; (ii) federal prosecutors are investigating and charging more sophisticated frauds; and (iii) the enhancement’s meaning has, over time, gradually expanded to include additional conduct, a phenomenon I refer to as “sentencing creep.” With this final explanation in mind, the Essay concludes with some practical advice for reinvigorating the enhancement as a useful sorting device
Marriage Equality is Both Feminist and Progressive
Get PDFMarriage equality has the ability to lessen vulnerability for society’s most needy. This article discusses two aspects of marriage equality in particular. Part II discusses why marriage equality can be feminist in practice and why obtaining marriage equality for same-sex couples will advance feminist values within marriage. Part III discusses how marriage equality can be progressive and help those who are vulnerable in our society by providing numerous rights that are otherwise unavailable or expensive to replicate. While marriage equality cannot bring an end to the many problems caused by marriage’s privileged status in our society, it has the ability to play an important role in promoting feminist and progressive goals
In Defense of Snooping Employers
Get PDFThe Article describes the means through which employers gather information about their employees, including through some recent, rather novel approaches to collecting such data. In addition, this Article discusses the financial, legal, and practical concerns that motivate employers to snoop in the first place, arguing that employers engage in this conduct for what frequently amount to very legitimate reasons. More significantly, this article places substantial responsibility for employer snooping with the courts themselves, highlighting particular decisions and doctrines that not only permit, but in fact encourage, employers to engage in these efforts to monitor employees
Judicial Capacities and Patent Claim Construction: An Ordinary Reader Standard
Get PDFPatent claim construction is a mess. The Federal Circuit’s failure to provide adequate guidance has created significant problems for the patent system. The problems with claim construction result from the Federal Circuit’s inability to resolve whether claim terms should be given (1) the general, acontextual meaning they would have to a skilled person in the field; (2) the specific meaning they have in the context of the patent; or (3) some combination of the two. The claim construction debate largely overlooks the generalist judges who must implement claim construction. This Article fills that gap, concluding that existing approaches are difficult, costly, and error prone for generalist judges because they force the judge to step into the shoes of a scientist. It is time to abandon the legal fiction that claims should be construed from the perspective of a skilled person in the field—instead, judges should construe claims from the perspective of an ordinary reader discerning meaning from the context of the patent. The ordinary reader standard is more familiar to generalist judges, easier and cheaper to apply, and less error prone. Perhaps surprisingly, it is also consistent with the nature of claim construction. Rather than eliminate technical context, an ordinary reader standard focuses on the technical context that was provided by the patentee, is publicly available to everyone, and by definition reflects the skill level, field, and time of the invention. And,rather than ignore the audience for patent claims, it provides a common ground for the varied consumers of modern patent claims: skilled people, business people, patent examiners, lawyers, and judges
An Evaluation of the U.S. Policy of Targeted Killing under International Law: The Case of Anwar Al-Aulaqi (Part II)
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