Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

Breaking down the legal basis for ruling on West Virginia v. EPA: Standing, Mootness, and Implications

With heightened pleas from the scientific community to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, legal challenges to environmental regulations have taken on renewed importance. Last term, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the landmark environmental case, West Virginia v. EPA. [1] The case has vast implications for climate action– the ruling could fundamentally dismantle the federal government’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. [2] However, while the Court’s decision has been strongly rebuked by many, the larger question surrounding it remains whether the Court should have issued a decision at all. The U.S. Supreme Court has historically heard and ruled on cases only where they would resolve a standing injury or harm by ruling on a given case. [3]

Alicia Lopez-GuerraOctober 4, 2022West Virginia v EPA, Clean Power Plan, Sackett, Climate Change

Rethinking the State Secrets Privilege After the War On Terror

In March of this year, the Supreme Court decided to block the testimony sought by Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, allegedly a former associate of Osama Bin Laden, claimed that he was subject to unlawful torture at a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) blacksite located in Poland. His lawyers wanted the testimony of two former CIA contractors, which would provide more information about the conditions of Zubaydah's detainment; however, the Supreme Court ruled that their testimony would divulge classified state secrets, upholding the Biden administration's assertion of the state secrets privilege. [1] CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck said that this ruling "will make it much harder, going forward, for victims of government misconduct that occurs in secret to obtain evidence helping to prove that the conduct was unlawful." [2] Indeed, by blocking the disclosure of the testimony, the Supreme Court sustained a dangerous trend in post-9/11 national security law: the Executive's overly broad assertion of the state secrets privilege to dismiss suits that could implicate the U.S. government in misconduct. [3]

Unjust Civil Rights Stripping: American Felon Disenfranchisement

In Alabama, some felons, though solvent of all their debts to the state, return to free society as partial citizens, unable to participate in the democratic franchise. [1] Their crimes cover a wide severity of offenses, which fall under the vague category of “moral turpitude.” [2] Alabama allows felons to regain eligibility to vote if they fully complete the original terms of sentence, fees and fines included. [3] These vague definitions of qualifying crimes and fine print attempts at trapping weary felons in voting limitations prevail across the country—not just in the Cotton State—and are unusually and harmfully prohibitive to those attempting a healthy return to citizenship. Permanent felon disenfranchisement and abusive restorative policies for felons rejoining the fold are harmful, and an untenable infringement on American voting rights and democracy. Though opportunities exist for bringing about redress for millions of those without suffrage, especially involving applications of the Equal Protections clause of the 14th Amendment.

Henry WagerJune 17, 2022Felon disenfranchisement, supreme court, Florida, Richardson v. Ramirez

Double Standards in International Law: Did the U.S. Get Away with War Crimes in Afghanistan?

Following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a substantial portion of media coverage and political debate focused on the glaring economic costs of the war. After nearly 20 years of military involvement, the United States is estimated to have spent over two trillion dollars in the region. However, this economic cost pales in comparison to the human cost of war. Reports estimate that, as of April 2021, more than 71,000 innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians had been killed as a direct result of the Afghanistan War. In fact, despite the U.S. government’s claim that it was only targeting terrorists and enemy combatants, many of the victims of U.S.-led airstrikes were innocent civilians. Reports show that, in 2017, the U.S. relaxed its regulations on airstrikes, resulting in a nearly 330% increase in the number of civilian casualties. The large number of innocent civilians killed during the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan raises critical questions regarding the authority of international law in relation to acts of war.

Selma NouriJune 16, 2022International Law, War Crimes, UN, International Criminal Court, Afghanistan, Ukraine

Is Kidfluencing Child Labor?: How the Youngest Influencers Remain Legally Unprotected

Internet celebrity culture, also known as influencer culture, has been rapidly changing over the past decade. “Kidfluencers,” or kid influencers, are children who have large followings on social media platforms (such as YouTube and Instagram), which can come from a social media page for the child themself or the child’s family. Kidfluencers are essentially child entertainers, as they generate income through sponsored content and/or social media platforms’ monetization policies; however, they are not legally considered as such. Furthermore, kidfluencers—alongside legally-recognized child entertainers, such as child actors—are not fully protected by current child labor laws. Even though parents are “to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control” without state interference per Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters (1925), these kidfluencers remain vulnerable to potential exploitation and abuse without legal protections.

Munirat SuleimanJune 16, 2022: Kidfluencing, Kidfluencer, Influencer, Child Labor, Child Labor Laws, YouTube

Extending Corporate Tort Liability to Social Media Algorithms

In September 2021, whistleblower reports about social media platforms’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) that promote certain platform content over others raised critical questions about the relationship between AI algorithms and corporate liability standards. Facebook consistently claims that AI is an “efficient” and “proactive” means to stop hate speech and other problematic content on its platform. However, internal documents reveal that AI removes less than ten percent of harmful content, such as hate speech or misinformation, from the platform.

H.R. 51 Passed in the U.S. House of Representatives: The District of Columbia Takes A Giant First Step in the Long Journey to Statehood

Washington D.C., the District of Columbia, is the capital of the United States and a global model for representative government. Yet 536,000 eligible voters in Washington D.C. who pay federal income taxes do not have representation in Congress. While residents can vote in presidential elections, their one delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives may help draft legislation, but is not permitted to vote on their behalf. Similarly, the District has two shadow senators who lack the ability to vote in the Senate or sit on committees, denying them full representation in either house of Congress.

Metaverse: The End of Privacy As We Know It?

The Metaverse aims to blur the distinction between reality and virtual worlds to create an unprecedented extended reality (XR) universe for human social interactions. A revolutionary proposal by Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, the Metaverse consists of a network of three-dimensional virtual worlds where people can interact with others using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies to work, learn, and socialize.

Are State Laws Allowed to Restrict Abortion? An Analysis of the Legality of Abortion

Abortion has remained a highly contested legal controversy ever since the revolutionary Roe v. Wade ruling that upheld the constitutional right to abortion until viability—when the fetus can survive outside the uterus—due to the compelling government interest in the woman’s life and the right to liberty and privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In recent years, however, individual states have increasingly restricted this right. In particular, a Mississippi law termed the Gestational Age Act “prohibits abortions after 15 weeks, except for… medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality,” thereby significantly restricting a woman’s legal access to abortion and penalizing abortion providers. [1] Subsequently, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this legislation has been appealed to the Supreme Court after the petition for certiorari—an appeal to the Supreme Court to review a case given the prior court’s improper decision—was granted, even as both the district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal struck it down as unconstitutional. [2] Overturning the right to abortion through Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would contradict legal precedent, for further restricting the right to abortion infringes on the right of bodily integrity, which largely prevents state involvement in personal medical decisions.