• Selected
• Entire List

Abstract:
In the first decade of transition, the new republics of Central Asia and the Caucuses have made significant progress in tapping the hydrocarbon reserves of the Caspian Sea. However, the ongoing legal battle over drilling rights in Caspian Sea and the numerous conflicts within the region have added to delays of effective petrochemical exploration and drilling. There are several trends in the relations of the trans-Caspian republics including fractionalization, polarization, and integration. This analysis explores these current trends in Caspian Sea relations inherited from the Soviet energy legacy.

Caspian Sea, Energy, Soviet Union

Abstract:
This Note agues that the proposed European Regulation, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) program challenges national regulatory competencies in the areas of environmental and health protection. Specifically, the proposed European chemicals policy goes beyond harmonization by questioning the traditional balance between supranational market integration and national social policy. REACH does this by effectively creating field preemption in chemicals policy analogous to the American regulatory legal models. This Note explores the possibility of derogations under Article 95 EC, as well as the potential ramifications on ECJ jurisprudence.

European, Chemicals, Article 95, Preemption

Abstract:
This paper analyzes recent developments in the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Specifically, United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), made the Sixth Amendment Applicable to federal sentencing practice, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines advisory. Common-law jurisprudence was concerned with providing criminal defendants with the fairness of predictability with regard to the sentence to which they were subject. The Supreme Court undercut this tradition by subjecting federal criminal defendants to increased uncertainty in the sentencing process.

Federal Sentencing Guidelines

Abstract:
This Article seeks to demonstrate how a First Amendment framework to gay and lesbian rights is workable in the military context. Ryan Koslosky constructing homosexual identity in light of applicable Supreme Court jurisprudence to ascertain the workability of a First Amendment framework to litigate the constitutionality discharges pursuant to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. This Article utilizes the policy sciences to analyze the communicative functions of both sexual identity and law. Because of the communicative nature of identity and law, the prohibition on expressing sexuality is tantamount to a compelled affirmation of heteronormative social expectations of sexuality. This Article examines recent federal jurisprudence regarding deference to military policy and gay rights in light of this framework. Also surveyed are recent challenges to Don't Ask Don't tell in light of alternative litigation pathways suggesting that the current state of gay rights litigation has largely overlooked some key jurisprudential implications of Lawrence v. Texas.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Lawrence, Policy Sciences, gay rights

Abstract:
This Article examines the application of international law and human rights norms in American federal courts. There has been an extensive academic debate regarding the status of customary international law within the common law of the United States. There is disagreement over whether and how contemporary norms of customary international law are actionable under the Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C. 1350). Ryan Koslosky takes a policy-oriented approach to examining the nature of customary international law in as well as its status within the American legal system. In light of the epistemology of the Alien Tort Statute, this Article analyzes social and power relationships to view international law as a series of reciprocal transnational expectations. As such critics of post-Erie v. Tompkins Railroad Alien Tort Statute jurisprudence have overemphasized the role of both sovereignty and legal positivism in the application of international system and America courts. This Article takes the approach that in light of the history of the Alien Tort Statute and the nature of international law, all contemporary human rights norms are part of American jurisprudence and fully enforceable in federal courts.

Alien Tort Statute, Customary International Law, Policy Sciences, Federal Courts, Human Rights Litigation