Authors:Barbara Jimenez Abstract: The relationship between the United States and Cuba can be described as anything but simple. In fact, it is the intricacy of the relationship that inspired this Note. A key point in the complex relationship between the United States and Cuba was the United States’ decision to impose the embargo in 1962. Since 1962, Cuba’s relationship with the United States, and its allies, changed entirely. While the embargo poses an economic sanction, the United States, throughout the years, has placed sanctions on Cuban officials as a result of human rights violations in Cuba. Broadly, sanctions target the officials and freeze their assets in the United States. This Note uses Cuba’s protests for freedom on July 11, 2021, and the due process violations that ensued, as proof that these sanctions have not achieved their goal because they have failed to stop the human rights violations on the island.The focus of this paper is to explore alternatives to sanctions. The proposed alternatives are meant to provide an avenue that will lead to the desired change – namely, to stop legal and human rights violations in Cuba. This Note proposes a myriad of alternatives, which include the participation by international legal bodies, and the imposition of targeted sanctions, but at the core of the alternatives is the concept of engagement. Up until this point, sanctions have done nothing to change the behavior of the Cuban regime. Engaging in a dialogue with the Cuban regime and negotiating a series of exchanges could prove to be one of the only means to achieve the freedom and equality the Cuban people yearn for. PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:16 PDT
Authors:Samuel Kramer Abstract: This student’s note will attempt to answer three questions: 1) How Canadian and American legal precedent affects the modern identity of Indigenous Populations' 2) How COVID-19 legislative relief continues to shape indigenous identities' and 3) Can a comparative study teach legislators about enacting legislation that withstands shifts in political climates' PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:15 PDT
Authors:Ashley Rahaim Abstract: Genetic information is intimate and telling data warranting privacy in public and private realms. The privacy protections offered in the United States and Canada vastly differ when it comes to genetic privacy. Search and seizure law mirrors the privacy gap in the countries, as well as their treatment of DNA database information.This note explores the foreshadowing of the creation of genetic privacy laws and their varying levels of protection based on the way private information was treated by state actors through search and seizure caselaw, the creation of legal precedent, and the treatment of intimate personal data in the form of blood or DNA. The note will also address where the United States Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008 fails to truly guard the American genetic information and the dangers that come with that gap. PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:14 PDT
Authors:David F. Scollan Abstract: A great deal of academic research and writing has been done on the most glaring examples of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But, only a small cadre of authors have endeavored to identify the ‘lower limit’ of when state action qualifies as these heinous acts. This Note strives to add to that area of legal scholarship aimed at bringing instances of in-country state perpetrated violence out from the behind the veil of sovereign police action and into the spotlight to call them what they are: crimes worthy of international condemnation and punishment. Specifically, this Note unpacks two spasms of state level violence—Chile’s in 2019 and Colombia’s in 2021––both of which occurred in response to public protests and unrest. In doing so, this Note compares the facts of those events where national police forces and militaries were deployed against civilian protestors and highlights leading case law from international tribunals and regional human rights courts. Further, this Note applies those facts and persuasive cases to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as the relevant controlling treaty law for war crimes and crimes against humanity prosecutions. As a result, this Note runs its course as an academic ‘how-to’ guide for those interested in and committed to seeing the most powerful face justice for their actions and those of their subordinates at the International Criminal Court. PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:14 PDT
Authors:Martin Kwan Abstract: This article takes the role of the Devil’s advocate in order to question the judicial willingness to distinguish “race” from comparable notions. It suggests that, depending on the exact circumstances, a defendant can make an arguable case that the alleged intra–racial discrimination is motivated by perceived genealogical relatedness, but not because of belonging to the same “race.” Factually, the defendant claims to believe in being remotely genealogically related to the plaintiff. This is not unworthy of credence, because it is academically recognized that modern genealogy and root tracing can be an imaginative, forged exercise. Legally, this argument is supportable because there are cases holding that “race” or “ancestry” is different from genealogy or “line of descent.”By contrast, such an argument would not work in Canada, because Canada has adopted an expansive interpretation of the impermissible grounds. In particular, Canada includes “ancestry”—despite the fact that it is not explicitly included in their statute—on the grounds of “race”, “ethnicity” and “family status.” This covers more situations that resemble intra–racial discrimination, such as discrimination based on remote or close bloodline (un) relatedness. However, whilst the U.S. courts claim to have adopted a liberal interpretation, they also openly oppose expanding the law and have therefore narrowly interpreted “ancestry” and other impermissible grounds. This makes proof more difficult and leaves open gaps of protection in the U.S. PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:13 PDT
Authors:Carlos Iván Gorrín Peralta Abstract: The territorial law and policy of the United States changed towards the turn of the 20th century, as territorial expansion was no longer motivated by the extension of national borders, but by geopolitical, strategic and economic objectives. The new territories acquired in the Spanish American war were different from those previously annexed. The resulting constitutional doctrine of the Insular Cases differentiated the previous incorporated territories from the new unincorporated territories, which were not destined to be part of the U.S. nor to be admitted as new states. Despite purported changes in the relation with the United States in 1950-1952, Puerto Rico is still an unincorporated territory, subject to plenary territorial powers without its participation in the government of its sovereign. During the second half of the twentieth century, the international law of human rights has recognized the right to self-determination of all peoples. As a result, the constitutional law of early twentieth century is at odds with the international legal obligations of the United States arising from customary law and those assumed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Human Rights, which entered into force for the United States three decades ago. This article presents substantive and procedural avenues for the harmonization of U.S. constitutional law with international law through the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people of Puerto Rico. PubDate: Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:31:13 PDT
Authors:Thalia G. Rivet Abstract: This Note was inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas. This decision put an end to the decade-long circuit split over whether a Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) recipient, who entered the United States unlawfully, could still become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“LPR”). Since its inception, TPS holders have been denied an avenue to adjust their status despite their socioeconomic impact on the United States and every TPS-designated country. This Note will break down and analyze the decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas through (1) the examination of the circuit split cases, (2) the analysis of TPS holder’s impact on the United States and abroad, and (3) the effects of the pending bills in Congress on future TPS holders. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:39:03 PST
Authors:Nicholas Pierre-Paul Abstract: This Note was inspired by the questionable treatment of Haitian asylum seekers in Del Rio, Texas, where horseback U.S. officials charged at them using reins as whips, before immediately deporting them back to Haiti. The U.S. government justified its actions by claiming that Title 42 permits U.S. officials to prohibit the entry of individuals when there is a danger of introducing certain diseases, such as COVID-19. However, Title 42 conflicts with the United States’ codified commitment to the principle of non-refoulment, prohibiting it from returning certain refugees to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. Accordingly, the U.S. government is facing several lawsuits exposing Title 42‘s function of immigration regulation through alleged COVID19 pretenses. Thus, this Note will breakdown the United States’ displacement of the right to seek asylum by (1) analyzing U.S. treaty obligations through the lens of past Haitian refugee litigation and Haiti’s current affairs and (2) evaluating the U.S. government’s contention that Title 42 is entitled to deference under Chevron U.S.A. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:39:02 PST
Authors:Melany Danielson Abstract: The Preventing Future Pandemics Act was introduced to mitigate zoonotic disease threats around the world by focusing policy efforts on the closure of wildlife markets that gave rise to COVID–19. This Note challenges the efficacy of wildlife market closure policy by considering cultural, socioeconomic, and legal factors for the existence of wildlife market within megadiverse countries in Latin America. Based on scientific research on the animal-to-human interface and zoonotic disease transmission, this Note suggests effective policy should incorporate a targeted species ban for reservoir species, improved sanitary measures and disease surveillance, and wildlife trafficking prevention. Ultimately, this Note calls for policymakers to take into account the context of a historically undervalued Global South, the realities of human behavior, culture, and society, and the science on disease transmission. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:39:01 PST
Authors:Deborah Weissman Abstract: The matter of gender violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), has long been categorized as a particularly egregious crime. The consequences of IPV are profound and affect all members of the household, family members near and far, and the communities where they live. Gender violence impacts the national economy. Costs accrue to workplaces, health care institutions, and encumber local and state coffers. Survivors are deprived of income, property, and economic stability: conditions that often endure beyond periods of physical injuries. Offenders also experience economic hardship as a result of involvement with the legal system. They often face significant obstacles when seeking housing and employment and encounter other economic difficulties due to their legal status. These circumstances interfere with the tasks of mitigating gender violence.Economic difficulties are not only after–the–fact–occurrences. Decades of research demonstrate causal relationships between poverty, economic strain, and inequality, on the one hand, and survivor status, on the other. Moreover, studies confirm that economic instability contributes to the very factors that often culminate in offenders’ transgressions. Notwithstanding the IPV discourse that recognizes the entanglement between structural economic conditions and consequences to families and communities, too little economic support either on the front end or the back has been allocated to address these issues.This essay will address the various economic factors related to survivors and offenders. It critically assesses the ways in which the responses to IPV insufficiently acknowledge economic concerns as a function of a neoliberal economic system that fails to support meaningful social change It offers a brief comparative review of circumstances in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico following the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement and a hyped–up period of economic liberalization and free trade with a model to address gender violence developed in Cuba after the period of Cuba’s post 1959 revolution through the first decade of the twenty–first century based on a political economy built upon principles of social justice and gender equality. These disparate economic circumstances illustrate the ways in which political economies contribute to or mitigate gender violence. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:39:00 PST
Authors:Sara Lazarevic Abstract: This note explores the impact COVID–19 has had on contracting parties who have attempted to implicate force majeure provisions. An inquiry of recent cases reveals varying degrees of success and tension when parties turn towards force majeure text. This Note analyzes common law alternatives, discusses the implication of force majeure clauses as applied under Mexican and American law, highlights the implications that have played out in recent court decisions, and discusses post–pandemic implications that could affect how parties conduct cross–border transactions in the future. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:39:00 PST
Authors:Joanna Evans Abstract: Any assessment of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Right’s (ECtHR) in the field of violence against women and domestic violence must start with an acknowledgement of the ECtHR’s landmark judgments in this area and the positive practical impact those judgments have had upon the protection of women.However, much progress is still to be made. This article analyses three ECtHR cases from Russia and Georgia, and in so doing, highlights the need for greater transparency, proactivity, and coherency on the part of the Court. It considers in turn: a) the seemingly discriminatory impact of the ECtHR’s approach to applications for interim measures; b) the need for judicial proactivity in bringing a gender perspective and gender mainstreaming to cases brought before the Court; c) the lack of a reasoned and transparent approach with regard to redress. Ultimately, the article puts forward potential improvements which could be made to ensure that the ECtHR monitors its own practice and procedures in order to address the demonstrable need for a coherent gender mainstreaming strategy. PubDate: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:38:59 PST
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