Category: Issue 2

Note

Eliminating the Common Law Limitations on Force Majeure Clauses

Ben Luo

J.D. Candidate, Cornell Law School 2024; B.A., University of California, Berkeley 2020. 

This Note will argue that as a matter of law, courts should not apply common law limitations when interpreting catch-all provisions in contractual force majeure clauses. Instead, to properly limit the potential all-encompassing scope of force majeure catch-alls, courts should rely on the more general principles of contract interpretation. Part I of this Note will…

Feb 2024

Article

One-Offs

William D. Araiza

Stanley A. August Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. 

This Article examines the phenomenon of “one-offs”: court opinions that are rarely cited by the court that issued them and do not explicitly generate further doctrinal development. At first glance, one might think that such opinions are problematic outputs from an apex court such as the U.S. Supreme Court, whose primary tasks are the exposition…

Feb 2024

Article

Penalizing Prevention: The Paradoxical Legal Treatment of Preventative Medicine

Doron Dorfman

Associate Professor of Law, Seton Hall Law School Faculty. 

Preventive medicine, which includes interventions intended to preempt illnesses before they surface, has long been a priority for furthering public health goals and improving quality of care. Yet, preventive medicine also sends strong signals about the possible risks associated with the users’ behavior and character. This signaling effect intersects with existing stigma and pervades law…

Feb 2024

Article

Rape as Indignity

Ben A. McJunkin

Associate Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University; Associate Deputy Director, Academy for Justice. 

Rape law has a consent problem. The topic of sexual consent predominates any discussion of rape law, both doctrinally and socially. It is now widely taken as axiomatic that nonconsensual sex is paradigmatic of rape. But consent is in fact a deeply contested concept, as recent debates over affirmative consent have demonstrated. Grounding rape law…

Feb 2024

Article

Lethal Immigration Enforcement

Abel Rodriguez

Assistant Professor of Law, St. John’s University School of Law. 

Increasingly, U.S. immigration law and policy perpetuate death. As more people become displaced globally, death provides a measurable indicator of the level of racialized violence inflicted on migrants of color. Because of Clinton-era policies continued today, deaths at the border have reached unprecedented rates, with more than two migrant deaths per day. A record 853…

Feb 2024