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The Biopolitics of Maskless Police
Get PDFDespite the recent movement against police violence, police officers have been endangering their communities by engaging in a new form of violence— policing while refusing to wear facial coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Many states advise people to wear masks and to socially distance when in public spaces. However, police officers have frequently failed to comply with these guidelines as they interact with the public to enforce these COVID-19 laws. Police enforcement of COVID-19 laws is problematic for two reasons: (1) it provides a method for pathologizing marginalized communities as biological threats; (2) it creates a racialized pathway for the spread of the virus.
First, these new laws allow police to exercise what Michel Foucault described as “biopower,” a form of power that allows the State to target populations relying on biological justifications. The racialized nature of the biopower and necropolitics of COVID-19 is reflected in the social and political order that allows for people of color to die from COVID-19 at a higher rate than the rate for White people. There is a real risk that relying on the police to manage the spread of COVID-19 will allow police to construct already marginalized communities as contagious threats. Second, as the racially-biased nature of policing is well-documented, enforcement of COVID-19 laws may contribute to the racialized spread of the virus by encouraging police officers to interact with marginalized communities. There are already reports of maskless police officers enforcing mask mandates in Black and Latinx communities, demonstrating the urgency of this threat. As politicians step up calls for law enforcement to become involved in enforcing COVID-19 mandates, anyone serious about protecting the health of all communities should question police involvement in this project
Transitional Justice and the Future Unified Korea
No full textThis dissertation study is an examination of transitional justice issues in dealing with human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the context of future unification of the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the DPRK. The systemic, widespread, and gross violations of human rights in the DPRK, which have been deemed to entail crimes against humanity, underscoring the urgent necessity of accountability and transitional justice. However, because the DPRK has not been taking any meaningful steps to improve the human rights situation or hold those responsible for human rights violations accountable, a scenario of unification of the two Koreas provides the best if not the only opportunity to properly deal with the human rights violations in the DPRK. Thus it is important to visualize such a scenario and the requirements it would entail for achievement of transitional justice.
Because transitional justice is a challenging process involving formidable tasks, it needs well-thought-out approaches and preparation. Transitional justice needs to be designed based on a deep understanding of context and planned comprehensively to redress victims effectively. Thus, in this dissertation the unique context of the ROK and the DPRK and some critical guiding principles for transitional justice are examined, including discussion of how a future unified Korea should prepare, design, and implement transitional justice to achieve genuine reconciliation and healing of the society. Specifically, it is argued that a victim-centered approach should be taken as a foundational guiding principle to adequately redress gross and serious human rights violations, with emphasis on the victim’s effective participation. Furthermore, transitional justice design should be based on a comprehensive understanding of the country’s context and needs, reflecting the views of the affected community obtained through consultation conducted in a way that promotes national ownership of the process. At the same time, the transitional justice process of future unified Korea should be designed and implemented in compliance with international norms and standards, taking a comprehensive approach that incorporates various measures to best serve large objectives, with due respect to gender and child status as well as other vulnerable groups
Valuation as a Challenge for Tax Administration
Get PDFValuation issues have long posed challenges for the U.S. federal tax system. This is not just because of questions about what technique will most accurately value particular types of property. A key problem for tax administration is that taxpayers have a financial incentive to claim erroneous, self-serving valuations. This Essay analyzes tax valuation through this tax compliance lens. In so doing, it highlights the importance that third parties to the taxpayer-government relationship act at arm’s length from the taxpayer. It also explains why penalties are insufficient to deter erroneous self-reported valuations. The Essay also draws on the tax compliance perspective to make some preliminary observations about valuation methodologies
When Critical Race Theory Enters the Law & Technology Frame
Get PDFJessica Eaglin intertwines the social construction of race, law and technology. This piece highlights how the approach to use technology as precise tools for criminal administration or objective solutions to societal issues often fails to consider how laws and technologies are created in our racialized society. If we do not consider how race and technology are co-productive, we will fail to reach substantive justice and instead reinforce existing racial hierarchies legitimated by laws
Debt Expansion as Relief and Rescue at the Time of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Insights from the Legal Theory of Finance
Get PDFIn Section II, we discuss the relief and rescue policies in the US, UK, and EU and show how they have been advanced by legal elasticity in suspensions from normal private and regulatory law. Crucially, such legal elasticity is intended to facilitate an increased debt burden for corporations and households as a means of relief and rescue. We argue that this policy choice, which is startlingly similar in these developed jurisdictions, has been influenced by the contexts of financialization in these jurisdictions and the perception of temporary duration by policy makers. However, there is a need to critically interrogate the impact of debt expansion as a means of relief and rescue.
Section III explores the impact of debt expansion on corporations and households and argues that the legal and regulatory framing of debt has been substantially distorted by the measures discussed in Section II, contributing to increased corporate and household fragility in the long term. The likely temporary effect of debt expansion is overstated, and the consequences of the trade-off with micro- and macro-financial resilience and stability would be highly mixed but significant. This does not mean that substantive policy agendas such as relief and rescue are sub-optimal. However, there is a longer term need for the continuous adjustment of law and regulation to address adverse consequences for households, corporations, and the financial system as a whole.
We argue in Section IV that the theoretical insights from legal elasticity suggest that more lasting and continuing applications of elasticity could be needed to fully address adverse impacts from firstround applications. Our arguments also intend to enrich the theoretical understanding of legal elasticity and can thus contribute to future policy applications.
In Section V, we apply our theoretical insights to construct a methodological framework for mapping long-term policy and reform considerations, in order to address the adverse consequences of corporate and household fragility, as well as risks to the financial system as a whole. In so d0ing, we offer a blueprint for substantive policy choices, without being unduly prescriptive. The theoretical insights of legal elasticity provide us with a platform to consider more broadly and holistically the problems of overindebtedness in the corporate and household sectors in developed jurisdictions, heightened and sharpened during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is time for policy makers to reflect on the structural implications of addressing these problems. Section VI concludes
