18265 research outputs found
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Introductory Remarks - Hasbrouck
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Wiant, Parella, and Other Attendees
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Faculty Publications Display
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W&L Law Library Main Reading Room
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Rethinking Social Rights from Latin America
Full text linkInternational human rights courts and bodies have traditionally enforced social rights within constrained frameworks, such as “available resources” and “minimum provision,” often overlooking deeper structural inequalities and urgent global challenges. This paper advocates for a paradigm shift grounded in the capabilities framework, reconceptualizing rights to encompass sustainability, harmony, and human flourishing. Drawing on indigenous philosophies from Latin America, I propose strategies to strengthen enforcement mechanisms, including the establishment of specialized human rights courts, equitable taxation systems, and regenerative economic models. By aligning human rights with capabilities and ecological stewardship, this paper illustrates their potential to address poverty, inequality, and climate change while fostering a more just and sustainable global framework
Political Disinformation in the Anthropocene
Full text linkThe Anthropocene is the name that scientists have given to our current geological epoch, which references the overwhelming influence of human agency on the Earth and its ecological systems. Adopted as a theoretical tool across multiple academic disciplines, social scientists often employ the term to address deep-rooted political and socioeconomic problems and the symptoms of global inequalities and injustices. Meanwhile, legal scholars have employed the term to address the global environmental harms of human agency and to examine how normative frameworks must fundamentally change and adapt to the times ahead. At the same time, recent scholarship also notes that democracies across the globe are experiencing rapid decay, as populist leaders and autocrats are frequently climate change deniers who weaponize social media to spread disinformation. With this scholarship in mind, the Anthropocene has come to represent the convergence of the global environmental and political crises that now confront us.
Within the environmental and political turmoil of the Anthropocene, disinformation in online spaces is a growing cause of concern. The spread of misleading or patently false information about matters such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change poses significant threats to alleviating the harms of each. Indeed, online disinformation undermines public trust in democratic institutions and often adversely affects the already frayed relationship these institutions have with vulnerable populations. Moreover, in a world where communication increasingly happens online, digital disinformation subverts truth and advances the extremist ideas that surge on social media. Yet attempting to mitigate online disinformation implicates concerns over free speech and free association in cyberspace, which in turn affects broader concerns over the sustenance of liberal democracies.
This Article examines online, political disinformation and the corresponding speech issues within the context of the Anthropocene. It asks: If democracies are going to survive the current onslaught of political disinformation in the Anthropocene, how might they adapt? And what will free speech normativity look like in the future? By drawing from the relevant Anthropocene theory across law and the social sciences, and exploring more flexible approaches to free speech norms, it concludes by offering suggestions for mitigating political disinformation and its effects in our current era of global anthropogenic uncertainty
Preserving Pixels: The DMCA and the Quest to Preserve Video Gaming’s Legacy
Full text linkVideo games have fundamentally transformed how humans learn, play, and connect, becoming essential cultural artifacts that warrant careful preservation for present and future study. Yet, video game preservation has emerged as a critical challenge for cultural institutions as the medium rapidly evolves and early works become inaccessible due to technological obsolescence and legal barriers. Without immediate action to address the limitations of current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) exemptions for video game preservation, libraries, archives, and museums risk permanently losing access to historically significant games, with studies showing 87% of pre-2010 video games are already inaccessible. Congress should amend the DMCA to establish broader exemptions for video game preservation by cultural institutions that recognize emulation as a necessary and cost-effective preservation tool, while implementing reasonable access controls that protect copyright holders’ legitimate market interest. While scholars have extensively documented the technical challenges of video game preservation, and others have analyzed the DMCA’s impact on digital preservation generally, existing literature has not comprehensively examined how the triennial rulemaking process specifically impedes institutional efforts to preserve video games in their playable state.
This Note analyzes eight years of DMCA rulemaking proceedings to demonstrate how the temporary nature and narrow scope of current exemptions create unnecessary barriers for institutions, especially those using emulation as a preservation solution, while proposing both expanded temporary exemptions and broader statutory reforms that would enable preservation without undermining the commercial reissue market. By examining the technological necessity of emulation alongside the development of DMCA exemptions, this Note provides the first detailed analysis of how misalignment between preservation needs, technological solutions, and regulatory frameworks threatens both the historical record of video games and scholarly access to this culturally significant medium
The Impact of \u3cem\u3eErlinger v. United States\u3c/em\u3e on State Recidivist Sentencing Laws
Full text linkIn Erlinger v. United States, the United States Supreme Court ruled that finding that an offender had committed two felonies “on separate occasions” under the Armed Career Criminal Act had to be done by a jury, not a judge. In one respect, the decision is narrow: it is an extension of the Court’s Apprendi jurisprudence. But in another respect, the decision is far-reaching. As some state appeals courts have already realized, the decision makes unconstitutional state laws that give the judge—rather than the jury—the power to decide whether someone is a “persistent” or “habitual” offender based on whether a defendant’s felonies occurred at “different times” or on “separate occasions.” This Article is a call for lawyers and scholars to pay attention to Erlinger. It also tries to give some guidance to defendants litigating Erlinger violations, courts dealing with these defendants, and state legislatures who will have to fix their now-unconstitutional sentencing laws