It’s a truism that when lobbyists push a bill supposedly intended to help the disadvantaged, the real beneficiary is someone else. After all, lobbyists don’t work for free, and the disadvantaged can’t afford to hire them. The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act is no exception. At least, in theory, the CASE Act is [...]
Law students across the country are rallying like never before, launching ground-up, grassroots movements urging their respective state bars to forgo the traditional bar exam in favor of emergency diploma privilege in light of the COVID-19 crisis. One letter addressed to the NCBE has amassed over 2,000 signatures. Another letter, sent to the California State [...]
Like everyone, the copyright cops want to have their cake and eat it too. They claim that copyright is a kind of property, so the law should protect it just like any other kind of property. But they also claim that authors are morally entitled to copyright ownership because of their special contribution to society. [...]
Since its founding in 1959, the European Court of Human Rights — a court of last resort for disenfranchised people battling the power of often repressive regimes — has safeguarded rights and freedoms in its member states, now some 50 countries strong. Over the years, the court has forced reforms in Russian prisons, come to [...]
With the astonishing speed of the spread of COVID-19 – affecting more than 199 countries, 1,315,989 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 74,000 deaths – many countries are implementing extraordinary measures to meet this unprecedented challenge and to cope with the severe implications of the coronavirus crisis. The key measures of the containment strategy have entailed multiple [...]
The COVID-19 outbreak has shocked and de-globalized the international community. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a pandemic and several scholars have argued that China breached International Health Regulations (IHR) by not preventing the spread of the deadly COVID-19. The IHR aim to aid the international community in preventing and responding to [...]
Sometimes, it takes a crisis to make a change. Especially for the legal profession, which is notoriously allergic to change, no matter how necessary. For decades, the legal profession has debated how and why to evaluate attorneys before admitting them to the bar. But it looks like the COVID-19 pandemic may finally force its hand. [...]
At the moment, there are over 70.8 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. The fast mobility of large populations is an inalienable part of humanity that is driven by drought, famine, earthquake, climate change, political opinion, massive violation of human rights, religious persecution, racial discrimination, ideological conflict, war, and pandemic diseases. People fleeing such [...]
“The world is contending with the increasing incidence and severity of a wide range of highly infectious diseases.” These words appear in Responsibility for Epidemics, an article I wrote in 2018. There have of course been dire warnings about a global pandemic for a while. In Responsibility for Epidemics, I argue that a broader conceptualization [...]
The world in a plague year is a world turned upside down. Everything familiar becomes strange, and everything normal becomes peculiar. Commodities become scarce and luxuries become worthless. Leisure becomes insufferable and labor becomes precious. The great become small and the small reveal their greatness. But one thing is constant. The plagiarism police remain vigilant. [...]
