8145 research outputs found
Sort by
Racial Disparities in Crime-Based Removal Proceedings
Full text linkWhether and to what extent racial minorities experience harsher treatment or face worse outcomes in court are questions of fundamental importance for any justice system. Questions of racial inequality are especially salient in the context of removal proceedings that are triggered by immigrants’ criminal history. Many individuals in crime-based removal proceedings are immigrants of color who face a host of legal disadvantages that are tantamount to double penalties for the same crime for which they have already been punished through the criminal justice system. This Article offers, for the first time, systematic empirical analyses of crime-based removal proceedings decided between 1998 and 2023 in U.S. immigration courts. Our analyses produced three key findings. First, our results show that double penalties for immigrants in crime-based removal proceedings are large and growing. Second, there are significant racial disparities in the rate at which immigrants are released from detention and the rate at which they are ordered removed from the United States. Specifically, Hispanic immigrants with drug-related charges and Black immigrants with domestic violence or firearms charges face significantly worse outcomes than their counterparts. Third, non-white immigrants fare better when their presiding judges are of the same, rather than different, race. For white immigrants, however, they generally fare better than non-white immigrants regardless of the presiding judges’ race, and this white favoritism is more pronounced among some non-white judges than white judges. These findings have important implications for scholarship on the continuing salience of race and ethnicity in criminal and civil proceedings despite facially race-neutral laws, as well as policymaking aimed at advancing racial equality in our justice system
Forced Arbitration in the Fortune 500
Full text linkAs the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) nears its centennial, its most controversial byproduct—forced arbitration—has entered uncharted territory. For years, companies exploited their power over fine print to produce ambitious dispute resolution regimes. This trend reached its apex in the 2010s, when the Supreme Court held that arbitration is incompatible with class actions and gave its blessing to delegation provisions, which allow the arbitrator to decide whether a case must be arbitrated. But around 2020, the dynamic changed. Plaintiffs’ lawyers discovered a tactic called “mass arbitration” that gains settlement leverage by bombarding defendants with scores of individual claims. In addition, Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which excludes claims of sexual wrongdoing from the FAA, and is weighing other anti-arbitration measures. But one fact that shines through the debate over these developments is how little we know about the prevalence and content of forced arbitration clauses. To be sure, some scholars have published helpful surveys of arbitration agreements. Yet this work tends to be out of date, based on tiny sample sizes, restricted to certain industries, and focused on consumer transactions to the exclusion of employment arrangements. This Article improves our grasp of forced arbitration through an empirical study of the arbitration provisions of the largest corporations in America (the Fortune 500). This original, hand-collected dataset of 582 forced clauses yields three main insights. First, big businesses actively engage in procedural rulemaking. Indeed, nearly eighty percent of Fortune 500 enterprises mandate arbitration for at least some of their customers or workers (or both). Second, private tribunals are probably less hospitable to plaintiffs than the judiciary. Seventy-seven percent of forced arbitration clauses expressly prohibit class actions, seventy-eight percent contain delegation clauses, and about half feature a term that may be substantively unconscionable. Third, and most surprisingly, the drafting quality varies tremendously. Some private procedural codes reflect the meticulous care of a watchmaker, but others are marred by shocking mistakes. The Article then explains how its findings shed light on proposals to weaken the FAA, mass arbitration, and judicial review of forced arbitration clauses under the unconscionability doctrine
Commodification, Precarity, and Identity: A Review of Professor Bridget Crawford’s Taxing Sugar Babies
Full text link“Proven” Safety Regulations: Massachusetts 1805 Proving Law As Historical Analogue for Modern Gun Safety Laws
Full text linkInternational Abolitionist Advocacy: The Rise of Global Networks to Advance Human Rights and the Promise of the Worldwise Campaign to Abolish Capital Punishment
Full text linkThe modern international human rights movement began with the U.N. Charter and the U.N. General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although the movement to abolish the death penalty is rooted in the Enlightenment, global advocacy to halt executions and to abolish capital punishment has accelerated exponentially in recent decades. This Article discusses the origins of global networks to advance human rights and highlights the growing international advocacy, including by nation-states and nongovernmental organizations (“NGOs”), for a worldwide moratorium on executions and to abolish capital punishment altogether. The total number of countries conducting executions in the past few decades has declined dramatically, putting retentionist states, such as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, North Korea, and the United States, in an increasingly isolated position in the international community. Many nations now even refuse to extradite criminal suspects without assurances that the death penalty will not be sought. With more than 90 countries having already ratified or acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and with scores of domestic and international NGOs now actively promoting abolition, the global movement to abolish capital punishment has made significant strides and holds tremendous promise, though much more work remains to be done. This Article highlight the path forward for advocates seeking the death penalty’s abolition in law—and de facto—across the globe, with a focus on international law and classifying the use of capital prosecutions, death sentences, and executions as acts of torture and clear violations of fundamental human rights. In particular, the Article discusses advocacy efforts before the United Nations, highlights the role of NGOs in leading that effort, and advocates for the recognition of a peremptory, or jus cogens, norm of international law prohibiting capital punishment in light of the modern conception of torture
Competition in the Global Law Market: Offshore Development of the Statutory Rule in Hastings-Bass
Full text linkThis Article examines the competitive dynamics in the global law market through the lens of the statutory evolution of the Rule in Hastings-Bass across various International Financial Centers (IFCs). Following the UK Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Pitt v Holt and Futter v Futter, which significantly restricted the judiciary’s ability to void trustee decisions under the Rule, seven IFCs (Jersey, Bermuda, The Bahamas, the Dubai International Financial Center, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands) enacted statutes to preserve and clarify the Rule within their jurisdictions. These legislative actions highlight the strategic adaptations by IFCs to enhance their legal frameworks and maintain a competitive edge in providing sophisticated trust services. By codifying the Rule, these jurisdictions have addressed key criticisms of the common law version, ensuring greater certainty, flexibility, and protection for trust beneficiaries. The Article argues that this evolution exemplifies the positive role of jurisdictional competition in improving legal services and facilitating international financial transactions, thereby contributing to the global economy
The Question Not Presented: Government and Social Media Corruption After Murthy v. Missouri
Full text linkThe Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri in 2024 dismissed a suit by multiple plaintiffs alleging that the Biden Administration’s efforts to persuade social media platforms to monitor content violated the First Amendment. Although the Court did not directly decide the constitutionality of the government policy, the Court imposed a high bar for plaintiffs other than social media platforms to show standing to challenge the constitutionality of government pressure on the platforms. But the coercion problem is not the only troubling aspect of this government policy. The question not presented to the Court was the corruption problem. What happens when powerful politicians pressure social media platforms to do what they want for their own political advantage and then suggest that government regulation of the platforms will be impacted by “voluntary” adherence to content moderation norms? Politicians could seek more moderation or less moderation of platform content depending on their political objectives. Is this a proper use of government power, and will more of it be encouraged by the Court’s decision in Murthy v. Missouri?This Article addresses the heightened risk of quid pro quo relationships between public officials and social media platforms after the Murthy holding made it difficult for plaintiffs to sue the federal government for pressuring social media on content moderation. Government pressure on social media platforms exerted with corrupt intent presumably will be outside the reach of the courts when most affected platform users don’t have standing to sue.This Article explains why bribery laws are insufficient to deal with this corruption problem. A case study is presented by an October 2019 meeting between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at the White House. President Trump, as one next president, has close relationships with titans of the social media industry, including Elon Musk, owner of X. Trump also is the controlling shareholder of his own social media platform, Truth Social. The potential for quid pro quobetween politicians and social media now is stronger than ever. This Article also addresses legislative and regulatory solutions to this problem