Month: May 2021

Georgia Law Professor Amann publishes “On Command” in Temple Law journal

Diane Marie Amann, the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law and Dean Rusk International Law Center Faculty Co-Director here at the University of Georgia School of Law, has published “On Command,” her contribution to a Temple International and Comparative Law Journal symposium issue.

The symposium took place in February 2020, just before the coronavirus lockdown, at Philadelphia’s Temple University Beasley School of Law. It brought together a dozen experts to comment on galley proofs of Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law, a book written by Darryl Robinson, Professor at Queen’s University in Canada, and issued later that year Cambridge University Press.

Amann took up the question of command responsibility, an issue on which she also has published at EJIL: Talk! and ICC Forum. The SSRN abstract for this essay states, in relevant part:

By reference to the Lieber Code and other sources, this essay emphasizes the history of responsibility underlying the doctrine of command responsibility, and further criticizes developments that seem to have intermingled that doctrine with what are called “modes of liability. The essay urges that consideration of commander responsibility stand apart from other such “modes,” and cautions against a jurisprudence that raises the risk that, before fora like the International Criminal Court, no one can be held to account.

The “On Command” essay is available here; the full symposium issue, also featuring contributions from Robinson himself, as well as Elena Baylis, Alejandro Chehtman, Caroline Davidson, Randle DeFalco, Margaret M. deGuzman, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt, Adil Ahmad Haque, Neha Jain, Mark Kersten Jens David Ohlin, Milena Sterio, and James G. Stewart, is available here.

Georgia Law Professor Bruner presents on corporate governance and sustainability to Italy PhD students

Christopher M. Bruner, the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law here at the University of Georgia School of Law, delivered a 3-hour seminar online yesterday to students in the PhD Programmes in Legal Sciences and Law and Innovation at the University of Macerata in Italy.

The seminar’s title, “The Corporation as Technology: Re-Calibrating Corporate Governance for a Sustainable Future,” is also the provisional title of Bruner’s forthcoming Oxford University Press book.

Bruner was introduced by Alessio Bartolacelli, who holds the Jean Monnet Business Law Chair in the European Union and Sustainable Economy at Macerata.

Georgia Law Professor Laura Phillips Sawyer gives talk at Justice Department on antitrust law and extraterritoriality

Dr. Laura Phillips Sawyer, Associate Professor here at the University of Georgia School of Law, earlier this month presented her most recent scholarship, related to law and extraterritoriality, at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Phillips Sawyer’s research paper, entitled “Jurisdiction Beyond Our Borders: United States v. Alcoa and the Extraterritorial Reach of American Antitrust, 1909–1945,” offers a historical explanation for the origins of antitrust extraterritoriality.

The 1945 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Alcoa is famous in antitrust law for several reasons. To be precise, it:

  • Narrowly defined market share in favor of the federal government;
  • Expanded the category of impermissible dominant firm conduct;
  • Interpreted congressional intent as protecting an egalitarian business environment; and
  • Established the extraterritorial reach of U.S. antitrust laws.

Although each of those contributions has incited legal commentary and critique, Judge Learned Hand’s decision to redraw the territorial application of U.S. antitrust has remained largely unexamined.

The essay that Professor Phillips Sawyer presented advances two arguments:

  • First, right before and during the interwar years, the antitrust doctrine of strict territoriality had been eroded through a series of distinguishing cases and contradictory congressional policies.
  • Second, the well-documented connection between European fascism and cartelization provided strong external pressures to extend American antitrust law and policy abroad and to redouble anticartel and antimonopoly provisions at home. By 1945 extraterritorial antitrust emerged as an acceptable means of governance to curtail international cartel behavior, discipline monopolies at home, and impose an American-led liberal—and hegemonic—internationalism on much of the rest of the world.

The essay will appear in American Democracy and Antimonopoly, a Tobin Project publication, edited by Professors William Novak and Daniel Crane. Additionally, it will play a major role in the first chapter of Phillips Sawyer’s next book, which explores the macroeconomic pressures on American antitrust law and policy. Her first book, American Fair Trade: Proprietary Capitalism, Corporatism, and the ‘New Competition,’ 1890-1940, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

Georgia Law Associate Dean Andrea Dennis gives online talk on “Rap on Trial” at Garden Court Chambers, London

Professor Andrea L. Dennis, who is the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and also the John Byrd Martin Chair of Law How here at the University of Georgia School of law, presented this month as part of an online seminar entitled ‘Black Lives Matter – challenging racist stereotypes in the justice system’. and sponsored by the Criminal Defence Team of Garden Court Chambers, a barristers’ set based in London, England.

Dennis presented in a session called “How the US and UK state criminalise Rap and how to combat it,” along with Erik Nielson, Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of Richmond and her co-author in an acclaimed 2019 book, Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics, and Guilt in America (prior post), as well as several practitioners from the United States and the United Kingdom.

The YouTube recording of the event (screengrab above) is available here.

Georgia Law clinic joins in publishing advisory for immigrant detainees

The Community Health Law Partnership Clinic at the University of Georgia School of Law and four other law school clinics have published a lengthy practice advisory intended to assist immigrants currently or previously held at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.

The practice advisory is designed to help them in seeking damages, stays of removal, and long-term immigration relief based on the abuse they suffered at the detention center (prior posts). It thus provides detailed instructions on how to: file claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act; request stays of removal from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); file complaints with the U.S Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; and apply for U Visas.  

Taking part in this effort at the Georgia Law were Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law, and Director of the Community HeLP Clinic, Staff Attorney Kristen Shepherd, and 3L Frederick King.

Joining them were the Boston University School of Law Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program, Columbia Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program, Texas A&M School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyer’s Guild. These and other entities have been collaborating on behalf of the Irwin detainees, including in ongoing litigation in Oldaker v. Giles, a consolidated habeas petition and class action complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. 

UGA Professor Peters presents to judges in Uzbekistan about social media

Pleased today to welcome a contribution from Jonathan Peters, an associate professor who has faculty appointments in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Law at the University of Georgia. (prior posts) Professor Peters teaches and researches in the area of media law and policy, and his post here discusses his participation April 19 in an online training event hosted in Uzbekistan.

I was honored recently to deliver a presentation to judges and court staff in Uzbekistan about using social media to engage with the public and press. The event was hosted by the Supreme Judicial Council of the Republic of Uzbekistan, as part of a project facilitated by the U.N. Development Programme and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

One purpose of the project, called the “Rule of Law Partnership in Uzbekistan,” is to strengthen public access to the nation’s judicial system as well as public trust in it. And a key priority has been to grow citizen knowledge of the courts and to improve the society’s legal culture and the population’s overall legal literacy.

To those ends, I shared an American perspective on how U.S. judges and courts—at the federal and state levels—use social media. Courts often use Twitter and Facebook to share information, and judges often use them to humanize themselves and to discuss matters of trial and appellate practice with other members of the legal profession. Over 42 percent of court public information officers reported in a recent survey that using social media is essential for courts to communicate with the public. As one put it:

There is an emerging recognition among courts that in order to fulfill the requirement that courts are transparent and understandable to the public in the new media age we are in, courts will have to play an active role in facilitating access to information and perform many of the same functions that traditionally have been performed by the now dwindling traditional media.

Judicial ethics codes even encourage judges to engage with their communities in various ways. For example, Canon 4 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges says that a “judge may … speak, write, lecture, and teach on both law-related and nonlegal subjects.” The associated commentary says that “[c]omplete separation of a judge from extrajudicial activities is neither possible nor wise; a judge should not become isolated from the society in which the judge lives.”

But judges must be careful on social media not to run afoul of certain limits on their extrajudicial speech, namely those on ex parte communications and their ability to comment on cases pending before them. They also must avoid activities that would reflect adversely on their impartiality or independence. As I told the judges in Uzbekistan, recognizing the risks posed by specific types of content will enable them to create and maintain a social-media presence that is effective and productive—and respectful of the unique responsibilities of a judge.

Georgia Law Professor Cohen presents “Culture Clash: Sociology of WTO Precedent” at Tel Aviv Law workshop

Harlan Cohen, the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, gave an online presentation Monday of “Culture Clash: The Sociology of WTO Precedent,” as part of the International Law Workshop at the Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University. Conveners of the weekly workshop series are Tel Aviv Law faculty members Natalie Davidson, Aeyal Gross, and Eliav Lieblich.

Georgia Law clinics’ advocacy helps client secure U.S. citizenship

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Years of advocacy by two clinics at the University of Georgia School of Law recently helped secure U.S. citizenship for a longtime immigrant client.

The earliest work with the client was undertaken by the Jane W. Wilson Family Justice Clinic, as at that time the client was facing severe domestic abuse. Working under the supervision of Clinical Assistant Professor Christine M. Scartz, then-student Eric Abney, a member of the Georgia Law Class of 2020, secured a 12-month family violence protective order and successfully negotiated a resolution that gave the client exclusive possession of the marital residence and a vehicle, sole child custody, and child support.

After the client had gained this measure of safety and stability, the client then was referred to Georgia Law’s Community Health Law Partnership Clinic for further advocacy. Working under the supervision of Jason A. Cade, Associate Dean for Clinical Programs & Experiential Learning, Amy Buice and Carter A. Thomas, members of the Classes of 2019 and 2020, respectively, used the Violence Against Women Act to ensure the client retained permanent residency without having to rely on her abusive former-partner. Subsequently, 3L Ansley Whiten helped the client file an application for naturalization, while 2L Luis Gomez prepared her for the naturalization interview; both were supervised primarily by Kristen Shepherd, the Community HeLP Clinic’s Staff Attorney.

The client became a U.S. citizen in April 2021, on her birthday.

Georgia Law Professor Cohen on WTO precedent at ESIL IG workshop

Harlan Cohen, the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center here at the University of Georgia School of Law, presented on “The Sociology of WTO Precedent” last month as part of a 2-day Behavioural Approaches in International Law Workshop.

It was sponsored online by the at Hamburg University, and organized by Hamburg Professor Eva van der Zee, Leiden Professor Daniel Peat, and Copenhagen Professor Veronika Fikfak. It was the first event of the new European Society of International Law Interest Group on Social Sciences and International Law.