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How to Make Transactional Classes More Engaging and Practical with Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms: A Practical Framework and a Look at the University of Miami School of Law\u27s Innovative Approach
Full text linkPrevent Phishy Business: Comparing California’s and the United Kingdom’s Age-appropriate Design Code to Protect Youth From Cybersecurity Threats
Full text linkCybersecurity is the safeguarding of computer systems and networks against information disclosure, theft, or damage to users’ hardware, software, or electronic data, as well as disruption or misdirection of the services computers and networks provide. Knowing privacy would be breached due to the impact of COVID, in 2020, the United Kingdom got ahead of the game and passed rules/regulations requiring online services to protect children under the age of eighteen from scams, phishing, and security attacks. However, currently, the United States does not have a sufficient uniform privacy law governed to protect children under the age of eighteen from cybersecurity threats. Instead, the majority of regulations are handled on a state-by-state basis, and unlike the UK most regulations are not specifically intended to protect children. Fortunately, in 2022, California signed into law an act that requires businesses that provide an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements to safeguard against hackers.
This Note will begin by describing how and why the United Kingdom’s regulations work to protect children from security risks. It then provides an overview of the US legislative framework at the federal and state levels contending that a piecemeal approach leaves children at risk. Although some states have enacted protective legislation, it demonstrates that many have not gone far enough and identified one state, California, as the best practice. This Note concludes by comparing the United Kingdom’s and California’s Age- Appropriate Design Codes for users under the age of eighteen and recommends that the rest of the United States should combine the two approaches to create a uniform legislative framework at the federal level that requires businesses that develop online services to provide a high-privacy default standard, where children’s personal data is only visible or accessible to other users of the service if the parents amend their settings to allow this via an age assurance security check
Virtual Stardom: The Case for Protecting the Intellectual Property Rights of Digital Celebrities as Software
Full text linkFor the past several decades, technology has allowed us to create digital human beings that both resemble actual celebrities (living or deceased) or entirely virtual personalities from scratch. In the near future, this technology is expected to become even more advanced and widespread to the point where there may be entirely virtual celebrities who are just as popular as their flesh-and-blood counterparts—if not more so. This raises intellectual property questions of how these near-future digital actors and musicians should be classified, and who will receive the proceeds from their performances and appearances. Since, in the near-term, these entities will probably not develop sentience akin to an artificial general intelligence, they will essentially function as software licensed out to execute tasks on various entertainment projects— be it acting in a movie or delivering a performance on stage or in the metaverse. As such, this paper proposes that virtual celebrities be classified as software, and their owners (either corporate or individual) should enjoy copyright protections for their use, and image and name trademark protections in case they are unlawfully copied by third parties
Power and Finesse: How the United States’ and Australia’s Women’s National Soccer Teams Score for Equal Pay
Full text linkOver the last fifty years, women’s soccer has emerged as a segment of the sport attracting an audience of all ages, genders, and national origins. Despite its relatively young but dense history, the sport’s following is fun, passionate, and inspiring to both die-hard fans and casual viewers alike. However, with its explosion in popularity comes a corresponding rise in life-altering issues requiring legal solutions. Behind the scenes, these female athletes come together not only over their love of the beautiful game but in confronting similar challenges regarding their employment agreements, which are governed by domestic and international labor law, as federations have historically been reluctant to righteously compensate to their female players equally to their male players. The most recent World Cup in the summer of 2023 once again brought these issues to the forefront of international news, with particular focus on pre-tournament favorites the United States Women’s National Team and the co-host Australian Women’s National Team, commonly known as The Matildas. Demands from these teams and others around the world for equal pay have only become louder and louder, though, prompting them to utilize domestic and international labor law to effectuate worthwhile change in the form of equal pay between women’s and men’s national soccer team players. The USWNT and The Matildas utilized different methods to achieve this worthwhile change, though, with each method bearing a myriad of advantages and disadvantages. While this note opines that The Matildas’ approach bettered the USWNT approach in their own respective contexts, both teams ultimately attained equal pay for their players.
This note will begin by briefly exploring both the history of women’s soccer both globally and in the United States and Australia. Then, it will examine labor law in their respective countries and their application to each team’s choice of bargaining strategy to obtain equal pay. This examination will include the backdrop against which the campaign for equal pay began and the measures each team and its players took as a part of that campaign. A comparison of each team’s strategy will follow. Next, the note will investigate these strategies to determine how well the teams and other contributors, like the general public, accomplished their goals and how they can impact other teams around the world. Specifically, the effects will be assessed through weighing the long-awaited result of equal pay for women and men with the economic and social costs accumulated for the teams and their players along the way. A synthesis will conclude the note about how the team, their federations, and international governing bodies may be able to play a significant role in shaping the future of women’s soccer
The Parts That Don’t Glitter: A Comparative Analysis Between Switzerland and the United States on the Regulations of the Importation of Gold and Its Effect on Human Rights in Gold Mining Countries
Full text linkThis Note considers and compares rules and regulations Switzerland and the United States have placed on the trade and importation of gold. It explores the history of the gold trade which has led to its modern use and the negative implications that gold refining in Switzerland has on countries where gold may be illegally mined. Although some rules are in place in these gold mining countries, regulations upon the acceptance of gold may have an even greater impact on the gold supply chain and the human rights issues it affects. The United States and Swiss governments currently have some restrictions on gold importation, but this Note will look at the strength of these regulations and how they can or should be improved. Along with this, the Note will analyze the impact nongovernmental organizations have on the gold supply chain and if their oversight has a strong enough impact that reaches back to the first step of gold mining or if the governments are the actors that need to intervene the most
The Submerged Administrative State
Full text linkThe United States government is experiencing a reputation crisis: after decades of declining public trust, many Americans have lost confidence in the government\u27s capacity to perform its basic functions. While various explanations have been offered for this worrying trend, these existing accounts overlook a key factor: people are unfamiliar with the institutions that actually do most of the governing-administrative agencies-and they devalue what they cannot easily observe. The submerged nature of the administrative state is, we argue, a central reason for declining trust in government.
This Article shows that the administrative state is systematically submerged in two ways. First, administrative agencies are constrained in their communications with the public: it is difficult for them to publicize their own accomplishments and successes due to a range of legal, political, and resource constraints. Second, agency actions are frequently opaque: it is difficult for the American public to perceive, comprehend, or trace policy outputs back to government action. Together, these factors have the effect of making Americans less aware of the work that the administrative state does, thereby undermining the public\u27s trust in government.
The Article then argues that it is time to unsubmerge the administrative state. Doing so has the potential to rebuild trust in government by bringing administrators and their expertise to light, revealing the extent of benefits provided by agencies, and bolstering public participation in agency processes. This approach comes with potential perils, including the dangers of propaganda, skewed agency priorities, and backlash, yet these dangers are outweighed by the necessity of bringing the administrative state to light
Considering Caretakers: An Explicit Argument for Downward Departures During Federal Sentencing Mitigation for Caretakers of Children
Full text linkThe sentencing stage of the federal legal system provides defendants with an opportunity to articulate why the sentencing judge is justified in imposing less severe sentences. Yet, under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, sentencing judges have been restricted in the characteristics and background information that can be utilized when imposing a downward departure from the recommended Guidelines sentence. More specifically, there is great variability regarding the extent to which family-related circumstances can be utilized as justification for a downward departure due to the Sentencing Commission’s ambiguous language. Considering the damaging effects of incarceration on children when a caretaker is physically removed from society, it is crucial that sentencing judges are empowered to consider caretakers when determining what punishment fits the crime while also promoting the betterment of society.
Legal scholars have recognized that the Guidelines do not allow a downward departure from recommended sentences to be justified by responsibilities to a third party (e.g., children). Therefore, sentencing judges must be presented with an articulated justification for a downward departure utilizing a defendant-centered lens. For a defendant to successfully argue for a downward departure, a defense attorney’s sentencing mitigation must include an explicit and principled rationale. Therefore, in the context of caretaker incarceration, it likely would not be sufficient for a defense attorney to argue that their client deserves a downward departure because incarceration is deleterious for the family, in a general sense.
This Note proposes an explicit and principled argument that can be made for a downward departure based on a defendant’s identity as a caretaker. Because the overall goal of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is to impose sentences that promote retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation, these four goals of sentencing can serve as useful guideposts for the sentencing mitigation argument. In effect, the argument for a downward departure will explicitly enumerate the impact of incarceration on all caretakers while promoting the objectives behind the Federal Sentencing Guidelines