Issue Archives

Class actions for monetary relief have long been the subject of inยญtense legal and political debate. The stakes are now higher than ever. Contractual agreements requiring arbitration are proliferating, limitยญing the availability of class actions as a vehicle for collective redress. In Congress, legislative proposals related to class actions are mired in parยญtiยญsan division. Democrats would roll back mandatory arbitration agreeยญments while...

Buildings in the United States are responsible for nine percent of the worldโ€™s greenhouse gas emissions, and improvement of building energy efficiency through strong building energy codes can help achieve signifiยญcant emissions reductions and cost savings. But building energy code regulaยญtion across the country is inconsistent: Some states have statewide codes with ambitious clean energy targets, while others have no statewide codes at all....

Gregory Ablavskyโ€™s Federal Ground explains how the national government and American law were transformed in the federal territories that compose modern Ohio and Tennessee. Ablavskyโ€™s careful research and fresh perspective will make his work a vital reference for histoยญrians, but this Book Review also highlights the bookโ€™s significance for leยญgal acยญaยญdemics and lawyers. Ablavsky has collected extraordinary evidence about property...

Between 2011 and 2015, 57,141 soldiers, sailors, and airmen were separated from service with less-than-honorable (LTH) discharges for miยญnor misconduct related to mental health problems. These discharges disยญproportionately affected servicemembers of color. These veterans and others like them face daunting reintegration challenges when they return to civilian society, as federal agencies and state governments deny them the benefits that usually...

Despite deportationโ€™s devastating effects, the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) specifies deportation as the penalty for nearly every immigration law violation. Critics have regularly decried the INAโ€™s lack of proportionality, contending that the penalty often does not fit the ofยญfense. The immigration bureaucracyโ€™s implementation of the INA, howยญever, involves a spectrum of penalties short of deportation. Using tools such as administrative...

THE RIGHT TO CONTEST AI

Margot E. Kaminski* & Jennifer M. Urban**

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to make important deciยญsions, from university admissions selections to loan determinaยญtions to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. These uses of AI raise a host of conยญcerns about discrimination, accuracy, fairness, and accountability.

In the United States, recent proposals for regulating AI focus largely on ex ante and systemic governance. This Article argues inยญsteadโ€”or reยญally,...

Contract law has long suffered from an institutional problem: Which legal institution can best create an efficient law for commercial contracts that can overcome โ€œobsolescenceโ€โ€”the persistence of rules that only solve yesterdayโ€™s contracting problems? Until the early twentieth cenยญtury, contract law was largely created by common law courts. The lawโ€™s default rules were efficient when created, and courts updated them as commerce changed....

State and federal courts routinely cast state legislatures in the role of democratic hero. Recent events illustrate: Some states have embraced the nondelegation doctrine, striking down governorsโ€™ pandemic responses based on the theory that those weighty choices belong to the legislature. During the 2020 election, federal judges invoked an โ€œindependent state legislatureโ€ doctrine to question voting rights measures from state execuยญtive actors...

BANKS AND CLIMATE GOVERNANCE

Sarah E. Light & Christina P. Skinner*

Major banks in the United States and globally have begun to assert an active role in the transition to a low-carbon economy and the reduction of climate risk through private environmental and climate governance. This Essay situates these actions within historical and economic contexts: It explains how the legal foundations of banksโ€™ sense of social purpose intersect with their economic incentives to finance major structural tranยญsitions in society....

As U.S. competition authorities ponder whether age-old antitrust laws should be modernized to apply to tech giants, a first-order question is: What existing antitrust laws apply to their conduct? A formerly formidaยญble tool that has been defanged through lax enforcement is the Robinsonโ€“Patman Act (RPA). Passed by Congress in 1936, the RPA was drafted in response to a growing public concern that large chain stores were squeezing out small businesses....