US Law Research Articles

A Double-Edged-Sword Approach to Fighting Pandemics: Patent Waivers and Incentives to Innovate

Although continents recently experienced an apoc­alyptic pandemic that posed a mortal danger to millions of people, a new, even deadlier pandemic could soon emerge… The paper seeks to address the role played by patent waivers and current contractual arrangements in the pharmaceutical indus­try in addressing the dangers caused by the current and future pandemics. The process of waiving patents is explored where it is argued that it sadly cannot amount to the knight in shining armour that everyone has been expecting. Due to the lack of coordination, the tremendously long process, and the potential block in innovation arising from pharmaceutical companies having smaller incentives, more attention must be paid to other alternative institutional solutions. Drawing from the economics literature on innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, a concep­tual framework is proposed for improved legal intervention in the case of patent waivers in international intellectual property law instruments. In addition, the paper provides a comparative law and economics treatment of current patent waivers in US, EU, and international law instruments.

Gaps, guesswork, and ghosts lurking in technology integration: Laws and policies applicable to student privacy

Technology integration and learning analytics offer insights to improve educational experiences and outcomes. In advancing these efforts, laws and policies govern these environments placing protections, standards, and developmental opportunities for higher education, students, faculty, and even the nation‐state. Nonetheless, evidence of educational restrictions, encumbered actions, and archaic approaches pervades the legal literature and case law demonstrating that these laws and policies do not always function well in evolving and emerging technology spaces. To examine these laws and policies of student privacy, the author employs the combination of a critical policy analysis, which derives from critical social research as a means to explore discourse and policy through drawing out the policy contexts, texts, and consequences, and Flood's liberating systems theory, which directs the analysis to a problem‐solving approach by examining the policy discourse from a systems‐thinking lens. Based on a review of 184 court cases, 74 policies from a diversified representation of US states/territories, and seven developed nations or multi‐nation consortia, this examination illuminates how context and text such as the type and setting of the privacy matter (eg, various freedom of information acts, educational records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union) presents opportunities for protections and standardization efforts; however, they also illustrate significant protection gaps, guesswork and insufficiency around the type and degree of data subject consent, and ghosting effects of data subjects' protections. While the extant literature already supports aspects of these findings, it does not account for this holistic view of these three privacy vulnerabilities—especially in light of the principles to which these laws purport to achieve. Moreover, the three identified privacy vulnerabilities suggest overlooked inclusion of two overarching privacy concepts—transparency and equity. This study recommends that key actors in the policy construction realm (ie, university leaders, policymakers, and judges) should engage in analyses, dialogue, and consideration about transparency and equity by considering contemporary privacy problems in the contexts of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and cybersecurity as a way to improve transparent and equitable policies in these areas rather than exacerbating the privacy dilemmas already in place. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic In the United States, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) are well documented evidence of privacy protections for education and health records, but they fail to offer sufficient protections for students as data subjects with emerging technologies. Existing federal‐level laws in the United States do not offer a systematic or uniform approach in the manner that data users obtain consent, so data subjects are largely unaware of what is being consented. Other than matters of consent, policy strategies based on student privacy laws (ie, voluntary consensus standards, basic practices to maintain privacy, an ethics review board, data/record retention and destruction, and data sanitation of equipment) are significant and informative largely from the university‐perspective, not the students as data subjects. What this paper adds A new comprehensive examination of US laws including statutes, regulations, and cases as well as seven key nation‐state or national consortia laws—especially the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and selected state laws in the United States, which offer consistent and greater student privacy protections. Insights about the principles designed among the laws, which centre around their application, essentiality, consent, and security. Attention to areas in which student privacy laws still present privacy concerns, but specifically identifying issues of significant gaps, guesswork and insufficiency around levels and types of consent, and ghosting effects of data subjects' protections. Implications for practice and/or policy Data subject consent should be established and consistent– whether an opt‐out provision, opt‐in provision, or some extensive engagement. Student privacy policies should incorporate principles of transparency and equity for data subjects and data treatment. Policymakers should consider now how the intersections of data subject privacy matters shall be addressed in the context of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and cybersecurity.

Injuries Due to Law Enforcement Use of Force in the United States, 2006-2015: Trends in Severity and by Race.

The purpose of the study was to assess incidence and severity of hospital reported injuries related to law enforcement Use of Force (UoF) in the US over time, and by race. Data from the National Emergency Department Sample from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project and the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS-AIP) from US Consumer Product Safety Commission were queried to identify UoF injuries. Regression analysis, t-tests, and chi-square tests were used in the analysis. Between 2006-15, there were 529,259 emergency department admissions for UoF injury in the NEDS, and 870,779 admissions in the NEISS-AIP. In a model adjusting for year, sex, and age, the Injury Severity Score increased by 1.1% annually (p<0.0001). Black people were 6 times as likely to be admitted to the ED as White people or Native Americans/Alaska Natives, and 25 times as likely as Asians/Pacific Islanders. Black patients were 4 times as likely as White patients to be admitted as inpatients. Per arrest rate by race using FBI uniform crime reporting data, Black arrestees were 2.5-3.1 times as likely as any other race to be hospitalized for UoF injury. The results of the study demonstrate that US law enforcement are injuring civilians more frequently and severely over time, and that Black people are disproportionately affected.

The (Non-)Use of African Law by the International Criminal Court

Abstract All defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to date have been African, with their alleged crimes having been committed, at least partly, on African soil. When turning to national laws to resolve issues of interpretation in these cases, should the ICC see whether it can use laws of the African state in which the crime occurred? This article argues that it should, but observes – from a dataset of 16,192 citations containing over 200 citations to national laws – that it rarely does. Instead, it turns much more often to Western European and US laws. This phenomenon, the article suggests, troublingly reflects and perpetuates the marginalization of African and other global South laws from what constitutes international law. The article also argues that the Rome Statute requires the ICC to at least examine for appropriateness the laws of a subset of these neglected systems (‘the national laws of States that would normally exercise jurisdiction over the crime’) when identifying general principles of law. There are several compelling reasons to extend this examination requirement to African and other global South country laws more broadly, and even when not dealing with general principles of law, and few reasons not to.

Inadequate Cryptocurrency and Money Laundering Regulations in Indonesia (Comparative Law of US and Germany)

&lt;em&gt;Cryptocurrency as a virtual currency managed by a decentralized system makes it immune to government interference and allows it to transact under pseudonyms. This has the potential for cybercrime and illicit transactions, especially money laundering. This study aims to compare legal instruments in Indonesia, the US, and Germany regarding the use of cryptocurrency as a money laundering tool and to analyze the readiness of Indonesia to respond to this crime. This study is normative legal research conducted using a comparative and statutory approach. These findings show that the US and Germany have extensively regulated crypto. In the US, Crypto transactions are considered MSB, subject to BSA compliance. Each transaction must comply with AML, KYC, and CIP requirements. In Germany, Cryptocurrency is considered a personal asset. The crypto trading must meet the KYC and AML requirements. Indonesia needs advanced regulations because crypto is only considered an investment asset. The investigation is difficult because cryptocurrency is transacted pseudonyms, so connecting pseudonyms with real people is challenging&lt;/em&gt;

Systematic construction of lawfulness of processing employees’ personal information under China's personal information protection law

With the rapid development and widespread use of digital technologies in the workplace in China, employers’ right to monitor and direct employees has often been abused, raising a number of disputes over the infringement of employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information. China must urgently develop an appropriate approach to balancing these two conflicting interests. However, there is currently no coherent and uniform regime governing the protection of employees’ personal information in China. The primary legal source on which employers can rely is the latest version of the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), which offers three lawful bases for employers’ processing of their employees’ personal information. These bases are employee consent; “necessity for the conclusion or performance of an employment contract”; and “necessity for conducting human resource management.” Concerns have been expressed regarding the reasonableness and effectiveness of the three lawful bases under the PIPL. First, it is both legally and practically problematic for the PIPL to rely so heavily on employee consent. Second, it is unclear whether the other two lawful bases relieve employers of the duty of notification and, if so, how to safeguard employees’ right to know. Third, the ambiguous standard of “necessity” requires clarification.This article argues that China should adopt many elements from EU law, while US law should be only followed in relation to the standard of “necessity”. In relation to employee consent, the EU approach is preferable to the US approach. As the EU approach does not generally regard employees’ consent as a lawful basis for the processing of their information and uses the other two lawful bases as alternatives to employee consent, this approach better reflects the customary practices of employee subordination and employer control in China. In contrast, US law deems employee consent to be an absolute general defense to the tort of privacy violation and adopts an employer favoritism approach to balancing these two conflicting interests, which is not appropriate in the Chinese context. In relation to the scope of necessity, three tests taken from the EU and US approaches should be considered by the Chinese courts. In addition, when processing personal information based on the other two lawful bases, employers should safeguard employees’ right to know through collective contracts concluded with labor unions or employee representatives under the Chinese Labor Contract Law, which would effectively address employers’ arbitrariness. Ultimately, these changes would produce a better balance between employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information and employers’ need to subordinate and control employees.

Dynamic Decision-Making under Rolling Admissions: Evidence from US Law School Applications

Dynamic Decision-Making under Rolling Admissions: Evidence from US Law School Applications

The Origin and Purpose of Legal Protection for the Integrity of Copyright Metadata

Rights management information is copyright metadata legally protected by copyright law. The origin of such protection was a United States policy for governance of the information superhighway (the internet) and digital networks. The main discussion documents leading up to the WIPO internet treaties reveal that the policy behind protecting the integrity of copyright metadata was aimed at higher objectives of public interest, such as consumer protection, market efficiencies, and authenticity of creative content. Copyright management information was envisaged as one element of digital infrastructures for creating global electronic commerce, but digital copyright was also foreseen as important for the dissemination of cultural heritage. Today these infrastructures have become a reality through legislation on orphan and out-of-commerce works in Europe, and for the licensing and distribution of royalties for musical works and sound recordings in the US. Countries that implement the WIPO treaties or transplant the US law without considering the whole policy behind the protection of copyright metadata are falling into a copyright management gap because, globally, the discovery, visibility, compensation, and monetisation of local content from places without adequate digital rights metadata infrastructures will be more challenging. This article shows that US digital dominance is codifying and writing the DNA of cultural content.

Social Entrepreneurship: The Choice Between Labels, Variants, Dedicated and Conventional Corporate Forms

Abstract 85 Around the globe legislators have created labels and dedicated company forms for social enterprises. On the basis of an analysis of US, UK, German, French, Dutch and Belgian law, this article exposes which elements are important (and which are not) in the creation of these labels and forms. First, the distinction between labels and dedicated forms is of relative practical importance. Even dedicated company forms are – like labels – to a large extent governed by general corporate law. This offers advantages in terms of network effects and easy adoption. Creating a completely new corporate form is therefore justified only if there are compelling reasons for a comprehensive overhaul of existing company law. Second, the introduction of labels and dedicated company forms is influenced by the level of stringency with which jurisdictions distinguish between companies and nonprofit forms. For instance, the American benefit corporations and the French ‘raison d’être’ were introduced to explicitly authorize what conventional companies can do elsewhere. Nevertheless, a high degree of flexibility in conventional company law is insufficient to facilitate social entrepreneurship. Mandatory law for social enterprise labels or forms is necessary to credibly signal commitment to a social purpose. Yet, creating labels or dedicated forms for lightly regulated ‘mission purposes’ may generate noise that interferes with this signal. 86

Still a Nation of White Immigrants? Notes on the Present Debate

Abstract Recent years have generated an unprecedented popular decision about US racial identity. Before this, popular sentiment and legal policy clearly and congruently promoted immigration of white noncitizens, while severely restricting others. Until the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, the US law reflected Justice Grier's statement in Smith v. Turner, 48 U.S. 283, 461 (1849): “It is the cherished policy of the general government to encourage and invite Christian foreigners of our own race to seek an asylum within our borders, and to . . . add to the wealth, population, and power of the nation.” However, the 1965 reform and its successors diversified the immigrant stream and the nation, and current polls indicate that the majority of the US population now supports a generous and non-discriminatory immigration policy.

Article 17.6(ii) of the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement: Waiting for Chekhov’s Gun to Go Off

Abstract Article 17.6(ii) of the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement is a one-of-a-kind treaty norm that sets out a deferential standard of review for issues of law by requiring panels to accept any ‘permissible’ interpretation. The Appellate Body’s approach to analysis under Article 17.6(ii), which precluded a finding of two competing interpretations being permissible, has long remained a point of criticism by the USA, a frequent respondent in anti-dumping disputes. In the wake of the first arbitration award under the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Aarrangement (MPIA), which seeks to give more effect to the deferential standard of review, this article emphasizes the unprecedented character of Article 17.6(ii) in international law, argues that expectations of how it would operate arose from a misapprehension of Chevron deference in US law and that the whole issue may be another reason for having a separate dispute settlement track for trade remedies.

True Crime Television as ‘Popular Legality’: Affect, Testimonial Injustice, and the Criminal (In)Justice System in Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us

This article examines the Netflix true crime series When They See Us (2019) as a form of “popular legality” (Olson 2022). I argue that the show criticizes structural racism in the US criminal justice system and emphasizes this critique on a level of affect. More precisely, it is through an affective engagement of the audience with the show’s protagonists that When They See Us highlights how Black and Latinx communities are discriminated by US law and the criminal justice system. It thereby not only depicts African American and Latinx legal identities as marginalized by the law and legal system, but makes viewers able to feel them to be so. In addition, I argue that the show negotiates issues of testimonial injustice as one form of discrimination against People of Color in the US legal system. This negotiation of testimonial injustice also primarily takes place on a level of affect by inviting the audience to feel the effects that testimonial injustice has on the show’s protagonists.

Current landscape in US schools for bystander CPR training and AED requirements.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a public health crisis affecting about 356,000 adults and 23,000 children annually in the US with 90% fatality. Early bystander CPR and AED application improve survival. Less than 3% of the US population is CPR trained annually. Since 20% of the US population is at school daily, these represent ideal places to target CPR training. Having standardized state school CPR and AED laws will help with training. We performed a systemic search of the state-specific laws for school AED and CPR requirements within the US. We used PubMed and Google search using keywords: school CPR mandates, US laws for CPR in schools, US state laws for AED implementation, and gaps in US school CPR and AED. We searched for mandates for schools in other countries for comparison. The state laws for CPR training for high school graduation and AED requirements in US. schools are highly variable, and funding for AEDs is inadequate, especially in schools in lower socio-economic zip codes. Recent AED legislative efforts focus mainly on athletic areas and don't adequately address school size, number of buildings, non-athletic areas, and engagement of student-led advocacy efforts. To improve OHCA survival, we identified potential solutions to consolidate efforts and overcome the barriers-standardize state laws, involve student bodies, increase funding, and allocate appropriate resources. The CPR/AED education needs to start earlier in schools and be part of the standard curriculum rather than implemented as a stopgap check-box mandate.

Ford strikes major lithium deals

Ford Motor has signed lithium supply agreements with multiple producers in Australia and the Americas. Its goal is to bolster access to battery raw materials made outside China and ensure that its vehicles qualify for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a US law incentivizing the domestic production of materials for electric vehicle batteries and other clean technologies. The car company has struck deals with the major lithium producers Albemarle and SQM as well as the less established players Nemaska Lithium, Compass Minerals, and EnergySource Minerals. Albemarle has agreed to supply Ford with over 100,000 metric tons (t) of lithium hydroxide between 2026 and 2030 and will work with the automaker on battery recycling. SQM will sell both lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate to Ford, though the companies didn’t specify how much. Both Albemarle and SQM, which operate in the Americas and Australia, say their materials will allow

Legal regulation of employee privacy in the United States of America

Current labour legislation does not contain prescriptions that would guarantee employees the right to privacy, but such legal regulation has long existed abroad, which can be valuable for Ukraine in order to accumulate the best global experience in ensuring the protection of employee privacy.&#x0D; In the US, employee privacy encompasses two aspects: first, the employee's right not to disclose personal information to his employer, and second, the employee's right to personal autonomy, or so to speak, sovereignty in certain life decisions. In many important aspects, these two forms of privacy are quite different from each other, but within the scope of labour law, the right not to disclose certain personal information and the right to personal autonomy is still conceptually united by the obligation to ensure the employee's privacy at the workplace. In other words, such autonomy implies that the employer must know about its employees and control what the employees do, but only within the framework of the employment relationship, and only that information that characterizes them as professionals. When the employer tries to use its authority outside the employment relationship by asking about the employee's private life or trying to control this private life, we have a violation of the principle of the employee's sphere of autonomy and, therefore, an unacceptable abuse of the employer's authority.&#x0D; In this age of email and social media, more and more of an employee's personal life is online. However, when dealing with an employer-employee relationship, it is not considered acceptable to ask an employer to provide personal mail or other private information from current or prospective employees.&#x0D; Under state laws, employees can widely share personal information online while keeping it safe from their employers having access to that information. An employee's life can remain private, that is, confidential to the employer while being public to others if the employee wishes to disclose certain personal information.&#x0D; US law allows employees to keep their personal information from employers confidential, including information shared on social networks. In addition, a number of US regulations allow employees to protect their online activity from employers as confidential information, as well as the privacy of employees' financial information.

Lauren Bialystok and Lisa M. F. Anderson, Touchy Subject: The History and Philosophy of Sex Education

Had Touchy Subject: The History and Philosophy of Sex Education appeared between 2009 and 2017, we might regard it as a progressive call for change in sex education in US public schools, congruent with the nation’s liberal leadership. Were it published in 2010 or 2011, it might be read as a response to critical changes in US laws that improved access to healthcare and the rights of the LGBTQ community. Instead, Touchy Subject, written by Lauren Bialystok and Lisa M. F. Andersen, arrives in readers’ hands as multiple US state legislatures ban educating children about sexual identity for the first 7 years of public education and penalise librarians for having books with any sort of sexual content in school libraries. Although Bialystok and Andersen acknowledge that the ‘political dance floor has moved … to the right’ (p. 165), recent and further seismic shifts have reduced the idea that sex education in the here and now can be more and better than it has been to rubble.

Tax evasion and money laundering through crowdfunding: a comparative study of the laws of Mauritius, UK and US

Purpose The phenomenal proliferation of crowdfunding platforms raises concerns on the heightened occurrence of financial crimes since billions of funds are exchanged through these online systems frequently. Accordingly, some countries have implemented legislative responses to address these risks, although each countries’ laws have varying degrees of severity. Hence, the purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency and robustness of Mauritian laws to combat financial crimes that may arise from a crowdfunding transaction with a particular emphasis on money laundering and tax evasion. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this research objective, the black letter approach was used to analyse Mauritian rules and regulations on the researched topic and a comparative analysis was carried out against the corresponding laws on crowdfunding in some other jurisdictions, notably the UK and the USA with the view of suggesting the policy recommendations to Mauritian authorities. Findings It was found that there is still scope for improving the existing legal and regulatory framework on crowdfunding in Mauritius to prevent instances of money laundering and tax evasion. The paper suggests that a crowdfunding operator must be categorised as a reporting person and must carry out regular due diligence checks. There must also be more collaboration in terms of information exchanges and training sessions among the tax authority of Mauritius, crowdfunding operators, fund seekers and investors to shed light on the tax treatment of income and deductions to avoid issues of tax evasion. Originality/value At present, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is amongst the first academic writings on the efficiency of Mauritian laws in dealing with the risk of financial crimes through crowdfunding, and also, because existing literature is quite scarce on assessing the adequacy of crowdfunding rules in developing countries, this research aims at filling in the gap in literature. The study is carried out with the aim of combining a large amount of empirical, theoretical and factual information that can be of use to various stakeholders and not only to academics.

How Technology Is (or Is Not) Transforming Law Firms

In this review, we explore the impact of technology on US and UK law firms, focusing in particular on the recent machine learning wave of artificial intelligence. Technology has not so far ushered the end of law firms as we know them. Adoption of artificial intelligence/machine learning is in its early stages in the sector, and its impact has been constrained by the scope of use cases for which it is so far well-suited. Technology is nevertheless transforming law firms, in the sense of leading to material changes to their current forms, in the following novel ways: ( a) deployment not only in the back office but in the front office, affecting lawyers’ core tasks of advising clients; ( b) opportunities for lawyers to pursue alternative career paths with different skill sets across the profession; and ( c) emerging options for law firms to adopt business models creating value from nonhuman capital and nonlegal human capital.

Materializing the metaphor: Theorizing the food desert as a sociospatial–legal instrument in the production of space

In June of 2022, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new framework to address and transform the food system, including a commitment to increase funding to the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) to the tune of $155 million to address “food deserts.” This investment is perplexing given the decade of scholarship and activism critiquing the food desert concept and its tendency to invite supply-side, corporate food retail development, of which the HFFI is emblematic. Bringing legal geographies to critical food studies, this article argues that the food desert concept, as invoked, spatialized, and abstracted by the USDA, is better understood as a socio-spatial-legal instrument imbricated in the production of space. First, this article attends to the USDA's use of the food desert as a guiding metaphor in the production of abstract space, highlighting the dominant characterizations of abstract space—fragmentation, homogenization, and hierarchy. Second, this article traces how this abstraction is materialized through US legislation and policy aimed at “fixing food deserts,” most readily through the HFFI. In the context of extensive scholarship that has criticized the prioritization of capital development and food retail, this analysis engages radical food geography praxis to outline a new terrain for struggle, namely where the discursive comingles with and co-constitutes the legal and spatial. From this analytical vantage point, this article demonstrates how the food desert concept, through US law and policy, is made material and spatial in ways that reproduce inequitable food landscapes and foreclose more radical approaches to food equity. Beyond the context of the food desert concept, this analysis offers an account of how discourse is rendered material, and the consequences therein.

Maintaining a Balance of Private and Public Interests in the Field of Digital Assets Confiscation: The United States Case

The development of information technologies and the global change in the economic situation in the world have necessitated adequate legal regulation of cryptocurrency turnover. Maintaining a balance of private and public interests in the process of confiscation of virtual assets as products of criminal activity or means of committing a crime is an essential element in maintaining the stability of criminal law mechanisms for combating crime. Considering the United States of America case, the author analyzes the models of cryptocurrencies and digital assets confiscation in the form of criminal, civil and administrative confiscation. The author also studies legislative initiatives that allow US law enforcement agencies both to provide the possibility of compensation for victims of criminal activity and to restore social and public justice in order to prevent the development of criminal activity. The author concludes that it is possible to use the positive experience of the United States in the framework of Russian legal regulation.