Current Federal Law Research Articles

НОРМАТИВНО-ПРАВОВЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ УСТОЙЧИВОГО ФУНКЦИОНИРОВАНИЯ АГРОПРОМЫШЛЕННЫХ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ ОПЕРЕЖАЮЩЕГО РАЗВИТИЯ НА ОСНОВЕ ПРИМЕНЕНИЯ МЕЛИОРАТИВНЫХ ТЕХНОЛОГИЙ

Purpose: analysis of the regulatory and legal tools aimed at creating conditions for the sustainable functioning of agro-industrial territories of advanced development (hereinafter – APTOR) based on the use of reclamation technologies within the framework of the current legislation of the Russian Federation. Materials and methods. Analysis of the regulatory documentation in the field of agro-industrial sector made it possible to identify the required amendments to the legislation in the field of land reclamation in order to create the APTOR. Using the existing experience of the target direction of subjects with the status of advanced development territories, they proposed APTOR as a kind of variety based on reclamation technologies, the latter being a mechanism that stimulates the intensification of agricultural activity. It has been determined that the interaction of various subjects of state power and management on the creation of territories of advanced development is carried out in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the current federal legislation. Conclusions. Currently, in the current legal framework of the Russian Federation, the projects to create advanced development territories, of which there are more than 100 today are being implemented. It is advisable to concretize the concept of “agro-industrial territory of advanced development” in a separate chapter of the current Federal Law no. 473 of December 29, 2014 “On Territories of Advanced Socio-Economic Development in the Russian Federation”.

Nurse practitioners and barriers to diabetic foot treatment.

Even with full practice authority, nurse practitioners (NPs) face limitations in care and treatment options. An example of this is current federal law prohibiting NPs from ordering diabetic shoes. This study reviewed the background of this problem, potential impacts on patient health and NP practice, and viable solutions for consideration. This was a descriptive study of NPs in a northwestern state with full practice authority. An anonymous online survey was used. There were 54 total NP respondents. The potential negative patient outcomes associated with restricted NP ability to prescribe diabetic footwear were supported through the literature review and the survey, including increased foot complications and acuity, translating to increased costs. Of the NPs queried, 80% felt inability to prescribe diabetic footwear was limiting to their practice, and 92% felt this affected patient outcomes. Federal legislative changes with support of bipartisan bills allowing NPs to prescribe diabetic footwear could facilitate timeliness and access to care while reducing costs. Legislation affecting NP scope of practice is an important issue with implications related to patient outcomes. Nurse practitioners should continue to support legislation at the federal level to pass bills allowing for NPs to certify orders for diabetic shoes.

Что фактически фиксируется в качестве исторического поселения

Выявление на территории современного населённого пункта некой чётко локализуемой объёмно-пространствен­ной и планировочной целостности, характеризуемой как историческое поселений, представляет и сегодня серьёзную проблему. Суть проблемы заключается в размытости понятия «историческое поселение», установленного в действующем Федеральном законе «Об объектах культурного наследия (памятниках истории и культуры) народов Российской Феде­рации» от 25.06.2002 № 73-ФЗ. Нечёткость и неконкретность формулировки «предмета охраны» исторического поселения, также усложняет, а в ряде случаев делает невозможной чёт­кую локализацию такого уникального градостроительного исторического объекта, как «Историческое поселение».
 В статье рассматривается проблема локализации объ­ёмно-пространственной и планировочной целостности исторического поселения. Представлены результаты анализа законодательно введённого определения «Историческое по­селение» и его некорректность. Доказывается, что основопо­лагающим фактом, подтверждающим наличие исторического поселения на территории современного населённого пункта, следует признать сохранившуюся историческую среду даже в случае отсутствия объектов культурного наследия. Осно­ванием такого утверждения является признание ценнейшим достоянием материализованной в предшествующие периоды времени нематериальной действительности. Именно истори­ческая среда поселения является ярчайшим материальным свидетельством этой нематериальной действительности или творческой деятельности ушедших поколений граждан кон­кретного поселения. Это именно то, что необходимо выявить для того, чтобы установить правила эксплуатации в целях сохранения для будущих поколений.

Credit by any Other Name: How Federal Consumer Financial Law Governs Income Share Agreements

This article analyzes whether Income Share Agreements (ISAs) are governed by federal consumer financial law — particularly the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), and the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA). The paper concludes that all of these federal laws apply to ISAs because ISAs meet the statutes’ various gate-keeping definitions of “credit” and “debt.” Although the question of whether ISAs are “credit” has not yet been addressed by the courts, our analysis reveals that ISAs share essential characteristics with traditional student loans and therefore should be treated the same. Critically, ISAs grant student borrowers the right to defer payment for educational services they receive. They also create debts for borrowers because borrowers are obligated to pay back a percentage of their post-graduation salaries for a defined period or, in the case of default or early repayment, a set amount that is typically a multiple of the amount borrowed. These repayment options result in students either paying back their ISAs in more than four installments or incurring a finance charge. As this article explains, these features of ISA repayment put them squarely within the coverage of existing federal consumer protection law. And the private entities providing them are, in turn, subject to regulation and enforcement under current federal law.

Assessment Of Psychological Advertising Along Consumer Rights And The Rule On Section 5 Of The Federal Trade Commission, Part 1 Of 2: Unfairness Doctrine

Over a century of research and empirical findings have linked advertising with consumer choice based on affective information processing, which many researchers emphasized as unconscious brain processing. This paper examines a variety of empirical findings and historical data on psychological or affective processing which provides evidence that psychological advertising affects consumer behavior and choice. Thereafter, building on existing research and literature, we analyze the legal implications of psychological advertising to stimulate affective or unconscious decisions that impairs rational choice and thus harmful. Based on this argument, we analyze the current federal consumer protection law regulating advertising under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”) which bans unfair and deceptive practices, then present rationales for change followed by a framework for revision. The objectives of such change is to ensure that this regulation upholds consumer rights and provide a consumercentric process that respects free choice. One outcome of this proposal will be a ban on advertising practices that utilize psychological stimuli. The framework will focus on expanding the “unfairness” doctrine of the FTC Act. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) states that “unfair acts or practices injure both consumers and competitors because consumers who would otherwise have selected a competitor’s product are wrongly diverted by the unfair act or practice,” thus an effective customer-centric regulation could postulate a healthier economy.

LEGAL REGULATION OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS IN THE FIELD OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Environmental protection is an important concern for society. One of the most relevant topics of recent times is the solution of the issue related to attracting private investment in solving environmental problems in Russia. The use of public-private partnership mechanisms is seen as the most promising tool for this. Herewith, the fruitful application of this institution in the field of environmental protection largely depends on the effectiveness of its legal regulation. Meanwhile, it seems that the existing approach in the Russian legislation does not meet this condition yet. There is no special legal regulation of PPPs in the environmental sphere, and the current Federal Law of July 13, 2015 No. 224-FZ contains norms restricting its application for different reasons, posing to scientists and practitioners as a whole the question of the effectiveness of this specified legal act in environmental sphere. In order to determine the most optimal model of legal regulation of PPP in the fi eld of environmental protection in the Russian Federation, among other things, it is necessary to study the experience of such legal regulation in foreign countries. This article is devoted to the study of this particular issue. The article considers the main models of legal regulation and forms of public-private partnerships in foreign countries, and also analyzes a number of specifi c PPP projects aimed at protecting the environment and their legal regulation. According to the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that there is no special legal regulation of these relations. However, this fact is not an obstacle to the use of PPP in the field of environmental protection. The author concludes that artificially limiting the use of PPP to solve environmental problems is not justified.

Section 230 and the Duty to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Between August and November, 2017, the Myanmar military carried out a series of brutal attacks against Rohingya Muslim communities in Rakhine State in Myanmar. Myanmar’s military used Facebook as a tool for ethnic cleansing. In theory, Rohingya plaintiffs could bring a state tort law claim against Facebook alleging that Facebook was negligent (or worse) in permitting its social media platform to be utilized to spark mass violence against the Rohingya. Could Facebook be held liable in a civil suit for complicity in genocide, or for aiding and abetting the commission of a crime against humanity? Under current federal law, the answer is clearly “no.” Section 230 of Title 47 of the U.S. Code states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Judicial decisions establish that Section 230 grants online service providers broad immunity for content posted by third parties. Thus, Section 230 provides Facebook a valid federal preemption defense to a state tort law claim. This essay contends that Congress should create a statutory exception to Section 230 to permit civil suits against social media companies for complicity in genocide or crimes against humanity. The United States has a clear duty under international law to prevent genocide. One could also make a persuasive argument that the United States has a duty under customary international law to prevent crimes against humanity. The United States is not violating its international legal duty to prevent mass atrocities by granting immunity to internet companies. However, withdrawal of that immunity for content that contributes to commission of mass atrocity crimes would be a helpful step for the United States to implement its duty to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.

United States vs Safehouse: The implications of the Philadelphia supervised consumption facility ruling for law and social stigma

In October 2019, a federal judge ruled that a Philadelphia nonprofit (Safehouse) group's plan to open the first site in the U.S. where people can use illegal opioids under medical supervision does not violate federal Controlled Substances Act, delivering a major setback to Justice Department lawyers who launched a legal challenge to block the facility. The Judge wrote that “the ultimate goal of Safehouse's proposed operation is to reduce drug use, not facilitate it,” which represents the first legal decision about whether supervised injection sites can be legally permissible under U.S. law. Although supervised consumption facilities (“SCFs”) remain controversial, they already exist in many countries in Europe as well as Canada, Australia, and Mexico, and evaluations of their public health impact have demonstrated the value of this practice. The decision is hailed as a public health victory and could shape the legal debate in other U.S. cities. Challenges remain as stigmatizing attitudes regarding substance use are widely accepted, culturally endorsed, and enshrined in policy. The Safehouse case shows that SCFs might be able to survive under current federal drug laws, but public understanding and support of these facilities will also be crucial for cities and states to open them.

Use Surplus Federal Real Property to Expand Medical and Quarantine Capacity for COVID-19

Last week, the Trump administration announced plans to partner with states to increase hospital capacity to address a potential surge in patients needing emergency care owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vice President Mike Pence stated that the government was committed to answering requests from governors for additional capacity by “creating field hospitals” or “retrofitting existing buildings,” with support from the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to constructing field hospitals and expanding existing hospital capacity, the US government should identify potential surplus federal real property for immediate conversion to increase hospital bed capacity and to fulfill other needs, such as extensive quarantines or isolation needs related to COVID-19. The federal government has thousands of surplus facilities, including hospital buildings and dormitories, that are eligible to be repurposed for public health needs under current federal law.

Privacy and Security Issues with Mobile Health Research Applications

This article examines the privacy and security issues associated with mobile application-mediated health research, concentrating in particular on research conducted or participated in by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers. Building on other articles in this issue that examine state research laws and state data protection laws as possible sources of privacy and security protections for mobile research participants, this article focuses on the lack of application of federal standards to mobile application-mediated health research. As discussed in more detail below, the voluminous and diverse data collected by some independent scientists who use mobile applications to conduct health research may be at risk for unregulated privacy and security breaches, leading to dignitary, psychological, and economic harms for which participants have few legally enforceable rights or remedies under current federal law. Federal lawmakers may wish to consider enacting new legislation that would require otherwise unregulated health data holders to implement reasonable data privacy, security, and breach notification measures.

THE LEGAL CONCEPT OF THE SECURITY PHENOMENON: CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Nowadays, the phenomenon of "security" has acquired the status of a general scientific term, which served as an occasion for the search for its conceptual basis. In any study, regardless of a particular branch of knowledge, this search, as a rule, begins with the concept of this phenomenon given in the Law of the Russian Federation “On Security” No. 2446-1 of March 5, 1992. Recently, this concept has been criticized more in view of “passivity”, “static character”, “excessive ideologization” and other comments. Conclusion: its suitability as a methodological basis is doubtful. Critics often give, as an indirect proof of the correctness of their position, the argument about the absence of such a definition in the current Federal Law “On Security” No. 390-ФЗ dated December 28, 2010. The author has attempted to understand how strong and convincing the arguments "against" made by different authors are.

Understanding Workplace Stress Among Federal Law Enforcement Officers

Research dating back to the 1940s has examined how police work may offer unique and high-volume stressors. While much has been learned from those studies about the sources and consequences of police stress, scholars have typically examined those issues from the perspective of local and state officers. That being the case, much less is known about the sources and consequences of workplace stress among those working at the federal level of law enforcement. To add to this limited knowledge base, here we present findings from 20 in-depth interviews conducted with current federal law enforcement officers in the Southern United States. We provide extensive analysis and description of four key stressors that emerged from the lived experiences of interviewees. This is followed by a discussion of the consequences of these stressors, as well as relevant policy implications.

Genetic Nondiscrimination Laws: What Oncology Nurses Need to Know.

To review information concerning current federal genetic nondiscrimination laws to increase awareness and knowledge of these laws for oncology nurses. Genetic information nondiscrimination policy research, case law, professional organization Web sites, peer-reviewed journals. Genetic nondiscrimination is addressed in four major federal laws. The need continues for comprehensive federal genetic nondiscrimination legislation, applicable to all Americans regardless of their genetic predisposition. Oncology nurses need to effectively advocate for patients and their families by interpreting and disseminating provisions and limitations contained in existing federal genetic discrimination laws.

Подходы к определению безопасности в законодательстве Российской Федерации

In the modern world, “security” has become one of the key categories. The need of a person, society and the state to be protected from various types of threats and dangers determines the use of various tools to influence social relations. One of the most significant regulators of such relations is law. Despite of the consistent development of security legislation, the question of the content of such a basic legal category as “security” remains open. In the Federal Law “On Security” the concept of security is not disclosed. The specified gap in the “basic law” on security is compensated for in branch federal laws and subordinate regulatory legal acts, which contain definitions of relevant types of security. The study of approaches to the definition of security in sectoral laws and subordinate regulatory legal acts allows us to conclude that, as a key characteristic of security types, it is primarily called “state of protection” against the corresponding threats. At the same time, the lack of a conceptual coordinate system as a whole, and the concept of “security” in particular, in current Federal Law “On Security” leads to the reproduction of terminological uncertainty in sectoral security legislation.

Vehicle Rental Laws: Road Blocks to Evolving Mobility Models?

The laws and regulations governing mobility are inconsistent and antiquated and should be modernized to encourage innovation as we prepare for an autonomous car future. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) has concluded that Autonomous Vehicles, or Highly Automated Vehicles (“HAVs”) may “prove to be the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago.” Preparation for a HAV world is underway as the mobility industry evolves and transforms itself at a remarkable pace. New mobility platforms are becoming more convenient, more automated and more data driven—all of which will facilitate the evolution to HAVs. However, that mobility revolution is hindered by an environment of older laws and regulations that are often incompatible with new models and platforms. Although there are a number of different mobility models, this article will focus on carsharing, peer-to-peer platforms, vehicle subscription programs, and rental car businesses (yes, car rental is a mobility platform). All of these mobility models face a host of inconsistent legal, regulatory and liability issues, which create operational challenges that can stifle innovation. For example, incumbent car rental, a mobility platform that has been in place for over 100 years, is regulated by various state and local laws that address everything from driver’s license inspections to use of telematics systems. Although physical inspection of a customer’s driver’s license at the time of rental is commonplace and expected in a traditional, face-to-face transaction, complying with the driver’s license inspection for a free-floating carsharing or other remote access mobility model becomes more problematic. Part B of this article will review current federal and state vehicle rental laws and regulations that may apply to incumbent rental car companies and other mobility models around the country, including federal laws preempting rental company vicarious liability and requiring the grounding of vehicles with open safety recalls, as well as state laws regulating GPS tracking, negligent entrustment, and toll service fees. Part C poses a series of hypotheticals to illustrate the challenges that the existing patchwork of laws creates for the mobility industry. For instance, whether a mobility operator can utilize GPS or telematics to monitor the location of a vehicle is subject to inconsistent state laws (permitted in Texas, but not California, for example). And vehicle subscription programs are currently prohibited in Indiana, but permitted in most other states. Similarly, peer-to-peer car rental programs currently are prohibited in New York, but permitted in most other states. Finally, Part D of the article will offer some suggested uniform rules for the mobility industry.

Whistleblowers Need Not Apply

Whistleblowers are severely disadvantaged when they apply for jobs. Many whistleblowers experience retaliation twofold—first, at their place of employment after they initially blow the whistle, and, second, on the job market for any subsequent employment. This negative trail follows whistleblowers, labeling them as disloyal, suspicious, and, ultimately, not ideal employees, and, thus, unable to find work. Current federal law largely ignores this problem, and protections for job applicants with whistleblowing histories have been severely lacking in some of the most prominent whistleblowing statutes. This article is the first to examine this glaring lack of legal protection as it pertains specifically to whistleblower job applicants by undertaking a comparative analysis of the retaliation protections available in a number of federal statutes and suggesting statutory reform based on that analysis. Specifically, this article draws comparisons between civil rights statutes, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which each provide expansive protections for job applicants, and the most prominent current federal whistleblowing statutes, the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, the Dodd‐Frank Act, and the False Claims Act, which lack these protections. We conclude by recommending amendments to these federal whistleblowing statutes, arguing for specific retaliation protections and redress for whistleblowers who are denied a chance to work again because of their past revelations.

Networked Employment Discrimination

Employers often struggle to assess qualified applicants, particularly in contexts where they receive hundreds of applications for job openings. In an effort to increase efficiency and improve the process, many have begun employing new tools to sift through these applications, looking for signals that a candidate is “the best fit.” Some companies use tools that offer algorithmic assessments of workforce data to identify the variables that lead to stronger employee performance, or to high employee attrition rates, while others turn to third party ranking services to identify the top applicants in a labor pool. Still others eschew automated systems, but rely heavily on publicly available data to assess candidates beyond their applications. For example, some HR managers turn to LinkedIn to determine if a candidate knows other employees or to identify additional information about them or their networks. Although most companies do not intentionally engage in discriminatory hiring practices (particularly on the basis of protected classes), their reliance on automated systems, algorithms, and existing networks systematically benefits some at the expense of others, often without employers even recognizing the biases of such mechanisms. The intersection of hiring practices and the Big Data phenomenon has not produced inherently new challenges. While this paper addresses issues of privacy, fairness, transparency, accuracy, and inequality under the rubric of discrimination, it does not pivot solely around the legal definitions of discrimination under current federal anti-discrimination law. Rather, it describes a number of areas where issues of inherent bias intersect with, or come into conflict with, socio-cultural notions of fairness.

Важные коррективы в закон о противодействии легализации преступных доходов

Amendments to the current Federal Law of August 7, 2001, No. 115-FZ "On combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism" by the laws of April 23, 2018, No. 90-FZ and No. 112-FZ, will allow Russia to significantly improve the effectiveness of measures aimed at financing terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAR IN RUSSIA

The article examines the historical trends of the development of the Bar in Russia. The way of formation and development of a professional lawyer's representation from the origins of representation in the domestic legal process in the 15th century is traced, and up to the adoption of the current Russian law on advocacy in 2002. Complex and generally contradictory relationship between the state and legal profession throughout its existence is shown. Special attention is paid to the golden age of the Russian advocacy, which began after the Great Judicial Reform of Emperor Alexander II and lasted only half a century. In this connection, both the institution of sworn attorneys and the institute of private attorneys introduced later and causing a lot of criticism were subjected to analysis. Further, the thorny path of legal profession during the Soviet period of state and law from the Decree on Court No. 1 to the Regulation on the Bar of the RSFSR of 1980 is traced. The adoption of the current Federal Law On Advocacy in 2002 was due to radical changes in Russian society, which led to an increase in the demand for qualified legal assistance and the needs for effective protection of human rights and freedoms.

ACOG Committee Opinion No. 733 Summary: Employment Considerations During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.

In the United States, it is common for women, including mothers and pregnant women, to work outside the home. Working during pregnancy is generally safe. For those in high-risk occupations or with medically complicated pregnancies, work accommodations often can allow for continued safe employment. The major employment issues concerning pregnant women include pregnancy-related discrimination, work accommodations that allow continued employment, job-protected leave, and wage replacement while on leave. Workplace discrimination related to being pregnant and pregnancy-related harassment, including discrimination in the hiring process, is prohibited by federal and state law. There is no federal law guaranteeing comprehensive accommodations for pregnant and postpartum workers. Current federal and state laws provide protection for some pregnant women, but not others, because of eligibility requirements and state-by-state differences. By writing appropriate notes to employers, obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers can be instrumental in obtaining accommodations for their patients who are able to continue working. Accommodations that allow a woman to keep working are the most reliable way to guarantee pay, benefits, and job protection. Obstetrician-gynecologists and other obstetric care providers also can assist pregnant women and their partners by providing them with information and resources that might help them better understand their employment rights. However, in cases for which potential job discrimination has occurred, accommodations are denied, extended medical leave is necessary, or when other complex employment questions arise, legal assistance should be obtained.