Legal Battle Research Articles

AFTER THE RIGHT TO WATER: Rethinking the State and Justice in Mumbai

AFTER THE RIGHT TO WATER: Rethinking the State and Justice in Mumbai

Jeremiah Stamler, MD (1919-2022).

Jeremiah Stamler, MD (1919-2022).

The ‘Kalimah Allah’ Debacle: Competing Narratives in Politics, Law, and Religion

This article studies the various competing narratives concerning the legal battle to use the word ‘Allah’ in Malaysia. Beginning in 2008, two court cases involving the word Allah drew considerable national attention and challenged the relationship between Malaysia’s Muslim majority and Christian minority. The first case, which received the most attention and generated the most substantive debates, involved the Catholic newspaper, the Herald: The Catholic Weekly. The second case involved Jill Ireland, a native Christian Sarawakian bumiputra, whose religious CDs were confiscated upon her arrival at the LCCT airport in Sepang, Negeri Sembilan. These two court cases serve as primary sources of information for analysing the multiple narratives present in the Kalimah Allah debate across three dimensions: politics, law, and religion. The three dimensions will then be incorporated into a heuristic model based on feedback loops, a systems thinking tool, in which interrelations between various narratives are visualised for a better understanding of the complexity of the Kalimah Allah issue, particularly within Malaysia’s unique political, legal, and religious contexts.

Jam Session for Seasoned Freelancers—Part 1

A popular session during the annual conference was the Jam Session for Seasoned Freelancers. The session gives seasoned pros the chance to share experiences and discuss ideas, concerns, and challenges with peers who have the same or even more experience. A range of important topics were discussed at this year’s session. These include managing stress, email issues, travel and security issues, sculpting your business, friendships with colleagues, referring clients, legal battles, and one of the costs of doing business. In this issue, we will cover the first 4 topics. Contributors include: Melissa L. Bogen Lori De Milto Cathryn D. Evans Gail V. Flores Phyllis Minick

WEAPONIZING THE COVID-19 VACCINE: THE GEOPOLITICAL STRUGGLE

As the world continues to navigate a global pandemic that ignores national borders, it is not surprising to find a divide between the interests of vaccine-producing countries — and their entire supply chain networks for intermediates and raw materials — and countries that are primarily reliant on these producers for their vaccine consumption. This paper puts this debate in the context of a multi country strategic game where the major players have been able to produce a vaccine for COVID-19 and control the distribution of the vaccine and all its components. To address this issue of sovereign players, some have raised the possibility of a GATT/WTO intervention into COVID-19 vaccine sale and distribution. In addition, a legal battle is taking shape over lucrative patent rights for COVID-19 vaccines, with drug companies pitted against each other and government and academic scientists over who invented what. At the heart of the disputes is the billion-dollar question: Who can claim to have invented important elements of the COVID-19 vaccines? In June 2022, the WTO struck deals on a partial patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines. Most observers believe that this change to the intellectual property rules will have limited impact on actual production for now because a current surplus of vaccines globally means there is little demand among vaccine makers to increase output. The implications are clear. The WTO compromise has allowed the existence of high hurdles for exports of products made under such a license. Given the limited WTO compromise agreement there are several options available to solve the problem of lack of access to the COVID-19 vaccine consuming nations at this stage. First, the US Supreme Court could invalidate each of the pharmaceutical companies’ patent requests. Second, individuals could file legal actions designed to disgorge the monopoly revenue of these pharmaceutical companies. If no legal action is taken, along these lines, and the WTO compromise is insufficient to solve the COVID-19 vaccine shortages in the developing world, then the developed countries will be opening the gate to PRC delivery of their COVID-19 vaccine to the entire developing and emerging markets.

Federico Fellini (1920–2020), special issue of Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, vol 9, no. 1, 2021

Federico Fellini (1920–2020), special issue of <i>Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies,</i> vol 9, no. 1, 2021

Workers against the City: The Fight for Free Speech in Hague v. CIO

Workers against the City: The Fight for Free Speech in <i>Hague v. CIO</i>

The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights by Thomas C. Holt

Reviewed by: The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights by Thomas C. Holt Raymond Arsenault The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights. By Thomas C. Holt. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xii, 151. $18.95, ISBN 978-0-19-752579-1.) An abbreviated format poses a daunting challenge to any author, especially when the subject at hand is as complex and important as the American civil rights movement. Limited to approximately 120 pages of text, Thomas C. Holt had no choice but to avoid literary flourishes and potentially interesting digressions in his effort to produce a book that covers the major topics related to the history of the movement. With this restriction in mind, he set out to write a book that could transcend its brevity by keeping its "eyes on the prize," in the words of a popular movement anthem. The prize, in his view, is to capture the spirit and essence of a grassroots movement that depended heavily on the contributions and sacrifices of the mass of activists commonly known as "foot soldiers" (p. 19). Holt hopes to dispel a common misunderstanding of the civil rights struggle: the belief that the momentum and success of the movement were primarily a function of charismatic leadership and careful management from above. "Freedom," he writes in the final paragraph of the book, "is a prize won not in a single campaign, but in a long struggle waged by a determined and committed people. And, ultimately, it is not exceptional leaders but ordinary people themselves, conscious of the historical possibilities of their moment and acting collectively, who have the capacity to win that fight and change their world" (p. 120). While Holt does not deny the importance of organizational leadership, he is determined to challenge its centrality. This perspective allows him to treat leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and Stokely Carmichael as flesh and blood figures without turning them into mythic heroes. It also encourages greater appreciation for the critical role that women played in advancing the struggle, and a nuanced and balanced assessment of the relationships between local and national movements and the relative importance and connection between legal battles in the courts and the nonviolent direct-action struggle in the streets. The result is a highly sophisticated account that does full justice to both the strengths and the weaknesses of the movement. The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights is truth-telling history that studiously avoids the pitfalls of a comforting, celebratory narrative. Holt begins fittingly with a highly personal, prologue-like introduction that focuses on his grandmother Carrie Lee Fitzgerald, a Black Virginian who [End Page 423] refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in 1944. This simple act of resistance and courage, much like Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat eleven years later, introduces the intimidating world of Jim Crow that movement activists confronted in the years to come. The six chapters that follow offer an effective mix of chronological and thematic analysis, emphasizing change over time and the geographic diversity of discrimination and civil rights activism. One chapter titled "Before Montgomery" sets the stage for two chapters dealing with "Communities Organizing for Change," one subtitled "New South Cities," and the other subtitled "The New 'Old South,'" and a chapter focusing on "Organizing in the 'American Congo': Mississippi's Freedom Summer and Its Aftermath." The final two chapters address "Freedom Movements in the North" and "Legacies: 'Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.'" Despite their brevity, the six chapters offer a wealth of information and interpretive insight on the nature of the post–World War II African American freedom struggle. Holt's command of the secondary literature is sure-handed and reliable, and his conclusions about the complexities of racial discrimination and resistance bear the mark of a veteran scholar at the top of his game. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more valuable or thought-provoking introduction to the history of a movement that changed all of our lives. Raymond Arsenault University of South Florida Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

“Mujeres ricas y libres”: Mujer y poder; Inés Muñoz y las encomenderas en el Perú (s. XVI)

This study addresses the role of women in shaping Spanish rule and society in Peru during the first decades of colonial dominance. Liliana Pérez Miguel, while focusing on the specific historical character Inés Muñoz, examines the extensive and diverse groups of women who benefited from the encomienda. This institution, transplanted from the Iberian Peninsula to the New World, entrusted to its beneficiaries, known as encomenderos, the Catholic evangelization and protection of specific Indigenous communities. These encomendados in return paid a tribute, in metals and goods, to their encomenderos. This access to tribute and labor force made encomiendas one of the royal rewards most desired by those who participated in the discovery, conquest, and colonization of the New World. This book shows that several women were active participants in early Spanish colonization, an enterprise that according to the traditional historiography was dominated by male actors.Pérez Miguel specifies that her book fits with an increasing production of gender studies on Latin America and colonial Peru specifically. Her work highlights the diverse social and ethnic backgrounds of those women who obtained an encomienda and their challenges and actions in the face of changing legislation and political interests that shaped their tenures. While the book focuses mainly on Inés Muñoz's life and contribution to Peru's colonization and early society, Pérez Miguel constantly draws comparisons with other contemporaneous encomenderas in colonial Peru, which allows her to reveal the wide range of these women's experiences during the convulsive decades of Spain's colonization of Peru. Through various waves of political unrest, many of these encomenderas had to overcome the loss of partners, children, and even the benefits granted them by the crown. Contradicting the passive role that traditional scholarship has asserted for female actors in early modern societies, many of these encomenderas actively assumed the leadership of their households and estates, and they even initiated legal battles to defend their benefits or seek alternative ones. Thus, beyond a clear focus on gender and biography, this work significantly contributes to social and legal history scholarship.The book provides a lively illustration of the early decades of Spanish rule in Peru, exploring the personal and intimate experiences of famous historical characters such as Francisco Pizarro and Hernando Pizarro, along with many other Spanish conquerors. However, Pérez Miguel highlights as protagonists their female companions and offspring, who on various occasions became the beneficiaries of encomiendas. Their access to economic resources, political influence, and local support networks permitted these women to make profound and lasting contributions to early colonial Peru's politics, economy, society, and culture. Muñoz was related to Francisco Pizarro through her marriage to Francisco Martín de Alcántara, half brother of the famous conqueror. Her close relationship with the first governor of Peru led Muñoz to become the caretaker of his mestizo children and brought her political and economic benefits, including multiple encomiendas. However, she was also affected negatively by the political instability of the early colonial period. After the governor and her husband died at the hands of political enemies, Muñoz became vulnerable, facing the loss of some of her political and economic benefits. By recounting the various setbacks suffered by Muñoz and many other women, some of whom had received encomiendas, the book re-creates the changing political environment faced by these women.Pérez Miguel approaches the experiences of encomenderas with a sharp analysis that employs diverse historical methodologies. She offers an extensive historiographical discussion on her use of gender as a category of analysis that brings together scholarship produced in Latin America, Europe, and North America, a historical dialogue that nurtures this book's outstanding contributions. The author's analysis is also grounded on copious archival research, including probanzas, personal correspondence, notarial records, legal proceedings, and many other records. In approaching these materials, she reminds the readers about their potential biases in relation to women's actions. She also recognizes the danger of generalizing from encomenderas' particular experiences, some of which escaped the written registers. Aware of these limitations, Pérez Miguel critically examines these resources, providing elaborate tables and charts to complement her argument. This book is enjoyable reading for both expert and general audiences, with lively stories and exciting data. Overall, Pérez Miguel's work provides a significant contribution to the scholarship on early colonial Peru.

The bundling of claims in cartel damages litigation in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy and France

When pursuing damages in so-called ‘follow-on’ cartel damages claims claimants can anticipate fierce resistance from defendants. Normally, the only way for claimants to survive this legal battle is to combine forces. This is what is called the bundling of claims. This article contains a comparative study of the possibility of those harmed by cartels and other anti-competitive conduct working together as claimants by bundling their individual claims in various European jurisdictions: Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Italy and France.

How a Legal Fight Against Monsanto Became an Indigenous Self-determination Claim in Mexico

Abstract This article examines the successful legal battle led by Mayan beekeepers participating within an activist network against the permission granted to Monsanto in 2012 by the Mexican government to commercialize genetically modified soybeans in the Yucatán Peninsula. Our approach emphasizes the relevant role of rights-advocacy lawyers and their organizations working together with local grassroots, Mayan beekeepers and scholars in a legal battle that puts forward the rights to a healthy environment and to indigenous self-determination. We consider the judiciary's response to such demands and, in doing so, we explain why some collective rights, such as the right to free, prior, and informed consultation, were more appealing to Mexican judges while others were blatantly ignored. Likewise, we explore why and how a legal fight against Monsanto GM soybean became a struggle for the recognition of Mayan communities’ self-determination expressed in the right to free consent and self-consultation. Our research sheds light on some positive and unexpected outcomes of legal mobilization against GMOs in the Yucatán Peninsula, while acknowledging that GM soybean, despite being banned, is still produced and marketed illegally in the country.

Determining the “Core of Indianness:” A Feminist Political Economy of NIL/TU,O v. BCGEU

In light of Bill C-92, which establishes a framework for delegating child and family service provision to Indigenous communities, this article addresses the contested regulation of employment and labour relations in Indigenous social service workplaces. It approaches this subject by looking back at NIL/TU,O Child and Family Services Society v. B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, a case in which employees at a First Nations child and family services provider attempted to unionize. NIL/TU,O set in motion a legal battle over the jurisdiction of Indigenous labour relations that ultimately reached the Supreme Court of Canada in 2010. The SCC’s determined that the labours of the Indigenous workers at NIȽ TU,O Child and Family Services are a matter of provincial jurisdiction because they fall outside of the “core of Indianness,“ a contested legal concept used to designate federal legislative power over First Nations peoples. Using Indigenous feminisms and a feminist political economy approach, we argue that this decision rests on gendered appraisals – and, indeed, obfuscations – of social reproduction labour. Bill C-92 necessitates revisiting the case history in NIL/TU,O because of the ways in which it seems to conflict with the new Act. We suggest that the uncertainty surrounding jurisdiction over Indigenous labour has the dual potential of, on the one hand, being used strategically for exploitative or dis-possessive purposes, or, on the other hand, taken up as a opening for increased self-determination by Indigenous peoples.

Sources of the Media Agenda: Source Selection and Media Reform in Argentina

ABSTRACT Using agenda-setting theory and content analysis, this study examines the coverage of Argentina’s 2009 emblematic Audiovisual Communication Services Law (ACSL). The law, which sparked a legal battle between the government and that nation’s most powerful media corporation, aimed to democratize the airwaves and to increase plurality and inclusion. To explore the sources used in the stories covering the law, data were collected from three national newspapers’ online publications (Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12), between 1 March 2009, and 29 October 2013. Each newspaper’s online database was employed to identify articles about the ACSL. Results from the analysis suggest that the quantity of sources varied significantly across the three papers. Further analysis revealed that at the beginning of the controversy all newspapers used similar sources, but as the discussion progressed, Página/12 (liberal, more supportive of the law) tended to use more government officials while La Nación and Clarín (conservative, opposed to the law) tended to use oppositional leaders, unnamed sources, and media organizations associated with the conglomerates.

Fugitives

Abstract Historically, French Guiana was an anomaly in the French Americas, neither a settler colony nor an economically successful slave-based plantation colony like its wealthy Antillean counterparts. Sporadically governed, underpopulated, and generally neglected by the metropole, it was considered a backwater of the French empire. However, by the first decades of the nineteenth century, the punishment of fugitive slaves had become fundamental to how the colony of French Guiana conceptualized itself. The struggle between owner and state about who had the right to punish, and by what means, caused ferocious repercussions over who could claim sovereignty over slaves and their potential labor. The issue of flight came to signify the legal and political battle between settlers and the state. Indeed, the desire of the French state to control the terrain of French Guiana through the recapture—and punishment—of the enslaved echoes what would occur in the latter half of the nineteenth century as French Guiana became the world’s most notorious penal colony. This paper will explore these issues in nineteenth-century French Guiana through the fugitive figure of the enslaved and subsequently that of the runaway convict.

IP Rights to AI-Generated Works: Barriers Presented by Existing Law and Reformations Needed

Previously we have seen computers as only the aiding tools for different human activities. Modern technological development created computers with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capable to perform works autonomously or with the least intervention of human beings. These Ai-generated works resemble human thought-created. The use of AI-capable computers is increasing in different fields of health, commerce, industries, arts, literature, music composition, scientific operations, etc. Consequent to this technological development, the claims for Intellectual Property rights ((IP) like copyrights and patents are being raised by several persons or institutions for the AI-generated works as they are produced with their investment and plan. Such claims raised the legal battle which is now at the peak in the 2020s between the modern necessity and the traditional legal base that conceived only the creative works of human intellect (or mind) are eligible for IP legal protection, and not the work machine-generated. This article attempted to analyze some important legal issues centering the IP to AI-generated works, indeterminacy, industrial and commercial necessity, and finding the legal way out to the emerging issues for granting IP to AI-generated works.

Little Island: Its big journey through legal battles

Little Island, also known as Pier 55, is a futuristic-looking 2.4-acre public park with performance venues out to the Hudson River in New York City. The project is primarily funded by the media mogul Barry Diller through the Diller–von Furstenberg Family Foundation. The project is part of the Hudson River Park but operates as a tax-exempt non-profit private entity on which the Foundation holds a 20-year lease. During its development process, the project was criticised by many for its controversies; this led to a lawsuit City Club of New York v. Hudson River Park Trust (2015) in the hope of prohibiting the construction of the island. The petition states that the Trust violated the public trust doctrine, State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR), and the park violates the Hudson River Park Act and its accompanying regulations. The Supreme Court of New York State denied the petition and dismissed the proceeding. In 2017, the project faced another lawsuit, City Club of New York v. United States Army Corps of Engineers (2017), concerning the unlawful construction permit issuance. The New York Southern District Court ruled that the Corps violated the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act as it failed to consider the environmental impact of the construction in the estuarine sanctuary, but the issues were resolved subsequently. Despite the victory, the project was terminated but revived again with a pledging deal made by the then New York state governor Andrew Cuomo in 2018. The project is now completed and opened to the public in 2021. Little Island epitomises a compelling private-made-public development in New York City during modern times; its challenges and drawbacks from the legal, community and environmental perspective, including the environmental concerns, regulation violations and the fear of capitalisation on public property, are widely applicable to other developments in New York City and beyond.

Opposing Lincoln: Clement L. Vallandigham, Presidential Power, and the Legal Battle over Dissent in Wartime

Opposing Lincoln: Clement L. Vallandigham, Presidential Power, and the Legal Battle over Dissent in Wartime

They Could Have Been Yours

They Could Have Been Yours Joy Baglio (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Trn Long (Pexels) [End Page 92] It's 8 am on a Monday, and I'm curled in bed, eating cereal from a plastic bowl and browsing the Site, indulging a secret, bitter part of myself that likes to keep tabs on the past. I'm used to seeing every type of announcement, but there's something about J's engagement post, something I hadn't expected, that pricks me like a tack. Perhaps it's that no one wants to see a former lover happily engaged, especially not first thing in the morning, or maybe it's the constant commenting of mutual friends, continually pushing the post to the top of the feed. He has a beard now and longish hair; still attractive, but in a cusp-of-middle-age kind of way. He's wearing angular sunglasses and grinning, arms around a petite, rabbit-faced brunette, the ring on her finger thrust into the foreground like a small glittery moon. Of course, I don't care that much, but it irks me just a little, just enough to text my sister. She'd once [End Page 93] written him a scathing email, defending me during the final fallout, though now she responds quickly, as she does with all drama, unimpressed: Let it go. I dump the remains of my cereal in the sink, troubled that this small sliver of Past has managed to faze me, and head out to work. ________ I'm a lawyer at a top firm in the city. On my lunch break, I check the Site just to see how many "likes" J's post has tallied, and I don't believe what I find: T, a dancer with whom I'd had something complicated and illicit, is (strangely) also getting married. I feel the tack prick harder than it did this morning, because with T there was something abyss-like that might have swallowed me had he not left me first. You're not gonna believe this, I text my sister. T too. T what? Engaged. Stop, she texts. ________ I know it's a dangerous spiral—obsession, memory, regret, logging on more and more—but I'm eager to check on both posts, to torture myself again, to see the announcements, mute and beaming with their growing trains of "Congrats!" and "So happy for you!" and "Gorgeous couple!" On the morning of the next day, while still in bed, unready to face the world, I'm thrown yet again: N, a coworker from my former law firm, whom I dated in the tempest of my first legal battle, who once told me that if it were going to be anyone it would be me, has popped the question to a smiling, round-faced woman in large glasses on the Great Wall of China. And I'm staggered to see that under N's post in the feed, L, whom I met at a bartending class in Chelsea the same fall I quit art and applied to law school, has announced his engagement to a folk musician he met on an Ayahuasca trip in the Peruvian jungle. At work, I tell several coworkers, "Like a third of my exes are suddenly engaged." One looks up from the copy machine, laughs. "That's what happens." "It's life," says another, a girl of unbesmirched modesty who, despite this, has a voice like a stone in your shoe and is engaged herself. Then, without looking up from her computer, "Just block them." Her desk borders mine, and I've spent the last week noticing all the details of her ring, which, since I'm to her left, I see quite frequently. [End Page 94] When I'm home, I arm myself with a pint of Jack Daniels that I swig right out of the bottle, sit on the sofa, and log on. I will block each of them as permanently as I can, wipe each swiftly from my news feeds, though I'm not prepared for what I find: The engagements of the first three must have been...

The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England

The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England

Military Courts, Civil-Military Relations, and the Legal Battle for Democracy: The Politics of Military Justice. By Brett J. Kyle and Andrew G. Reiter. Oxford: Routledge, 2021. 252p. $160.00 cloth.

Military Courts, Civil-Military Relations, and the Legal Battle for Democracy: The Politics of Military Justice. By Brett J. Kyle and Andrew G. Reiter. Oxford: Routledge, 2021. 252p. $160.00 cloth. - Volume 20 Issue 1