Targeted U.S. domestic sex trafficking of Native peoples has been documented since the time of Custer (Deer 2010, Smith 2005, Smith 2003). According to a few, geographically specific studies this practice continues today (Juran, et al 2014, Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition 2011, Pierce and Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center 2009). The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), its subsequent reauthorizations and the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA) 2013 reauthorization have encouraged activists in Indian Country, defined broadly, to believe that a change is possible within the system if they continue to raise the issue. But what if that strategy is flawed? Despite increasing awareness, it is clear that the United States policy environment has not yet experienced any significant change since the introduction of anti-trafficking law in 2000—especially for Native America. Using a tribal, feminist, critical race perspective alongside Native Nation (re)Building theory and a grounded, interdisciplinary focus, this study explores prominent public policy perceptions about how widespread the targeted domestic sex trafficking of Native peoples is in the United States. The first of its kind, this study reaches across broad geography and perspectives to locate synergies and ruptures that may also present opportunities for Native self-determination in creating effective Indian Country solutions. It also offers United States public policy suggestions helpful in addressing anti-trafficking legislative inefficiencies beyond Indian Country generally.

This thesis examines criminal law in the context of Australian indigenous–settler relations. Through the jurisprudence of Justice Kriewaldt in the Northern Territory, it explores the relationship between the policy of assimilation and the application of the criminal law to Aboriginal people. Justice Kriewaldt was the sole judge of the Northern Territory Supreme Court during the 1950s. This was an important period in Australian history when the assimilation policy was at its highpoint. The thesis focuses on three areas of criminal justice—provocation, sentencing and alcohol consumption regulation. Both for Justice Kriewaldt and, in contemporary times, these areas were and continue to be of particular relevance to Aboriginal people confronting the criminal justice system. The thesis demonstrates that Justice Kriewaldt’s approach in these areas was informed by his support for the assimilation policy. It is argued that Justice Kriewaldt generally understood Aboriginal people to be uncivilised and that he applied the criminal law to assist in civilising Aboriginal people so that they could become assimilated. / This thesis also explores how Justice Kriewaldt’s jurisprudence has pervaded current approaches to dealing with the interaction between Aboriginal people and the criminal law. The thesis argues that although echoes of Kriewaldt’s 1950s approach are persistent within contemporary applications of the criminal law to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, there have also been shifts in approach. It is contended that Aboriginal people are increasingly understood to be culturally devastated and sick, and that contemporary criminal law frequently aims to restore and repair Aboriginal people to their communities, rather than to assimilate Aboriginal people. It is argued that this approach has opened up a space for Aboriginal people to become more involved in the application of criminal justice and, from this involvement, a form of weak legal pluralism has emerged.

Thesis (LL. M.)--McGill University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-148).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-210).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-130).

<p> Across the United States, at least 1,600 local governments in 40 states have enacted stormwater fees since the mid-1960s. Many of these local governments enacted stormwater fees to finance costly infrastructure upgrades required by increasingly stringent federal and state regulation of stormwater systems and combined sewer overflows. The sustained spread of stormwater fees across the United States over the past five decades reflects a significant shift of fiscal responsibility for operating, maintaining, and improving key public infrastructure systems to the local level. This dissertation investigates the emergence, diffusion, and form of stormwater fees enacted by local governments in the United States over the past 50 years. Structured by several theoretical frameworks and utilizing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this research identifies key vertical and horizontal intergovernmental dynamics influencing the enactment of stormwater fees by local governments across the country. While underscoring the strong influence that federal and state regulation of municipal stormwater systems has played in popularizing stormwater fees among local governments in the United States, my research also highlights the crucial role that state-level statutory law, case law, and administrative approaches have had on expanding or contracting the options local governments have for implementing stormwater fees individually within their own jurisdictions and collectively across metropolitan regions. My case studies of stormwater fee form suggest that the challenges to broadly scoped collective action characterizing stormwater management and finance in highly fragmented metropolitan regions may present transaction cost barriers too high to be surmounted without coercive intervention from a higher level of government, but that collective action of more limited scope can be achieved in relatively self-organized manner. This research also demonstrates the enduring and important role that consulting firms and professional industry associations have played in influencing stormwater fee enactment by local governments across the United States over the past half-century.</p><p>

U.S.-Puerto Rico relations have always been mystifying to countless U.S. citizens, due to inconsistent policies and judicial decisions from the United States. Puerto Ricans have no control over immigration yet immigrants can decide the future of the island nation. Puerto Rico is a nation under colonial rule. Paul R. Bras sustains the possibility of corporate recognition for the ethnic group as a separate nationality within an existing state evocative of the United States. The United States has treated Puerto Rico as a foreign country nevertheless at times as domestic. Under U.S. law and jurisprudence Puerto Rico is not part of the United States but rather the island is a possession. The electoral difference in plebiscites between the two major political parties is less than three percent. Nonnative voters in the island can have the clout to decide the ultimate political status of the island. A key concern to the problem is who are considered nonnative voters in Puerto Rico. Non-native voters are those who have not been born in Puerto Rico nor have one of their parents born in the island. The exclusion is legally and politically achievable. There are many countries (ex. East Timor) in the world, former colonies (ex. Namibia), and previous U.S. territories (ex. Hawaii) that serve as examples of exclusion. Voting rights in plebiscites are determined by law. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1514, states that all powers have to be in the hands of the people of Puerto Rico. International law and policies sustain that the future political status of colonies is to be determined by the nation. Puerto Rico lacks representation in the U.S. Government. When this happens the unrepresented become a separate nation. William Appelman Williams stated that “the principle of self determination when taken seriously … means a policy of standing aside for people to make their own choices, economic as well as political and cultural.” Under international law and policies of self-determination Puerto Rico can exclude non native voters. Judicial precedents make this point very comprehensible.

This research examines the legal issues arising in the inter-relationship between climate change law and policy on the one hand, and international trade regulation on the other. The focus is government procurement. It looks at “green” government procurement (GPP) policies and practices used by the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol as a tool for climate change mitigation, and as it relates to these countries’ obligations under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). GPP is government purchase practice that favours goods, services and service suppliers that are more climate-friendly and energy efficient over similar others that are less so. For example, under the EU GPP policy, for climate reasons, procurement authorities have a preference for green electricity (generated from renewable sources) as against the conventional fossil-based electricity. The two types of “electricities” are ordinarily same products as far as their performance is concerned, that is, at the consumption level. Discriminating between the two has the potential to raise serious issues of law at WTO level.Under the WTO non-discrimination disciplines (GATT Arts. I and III, and GPA Art.III) product or service standards based on non-product related processes and production methods (PPMs) such as climate friendliness should not serve to permit differentiation in treatment between “like” products. The general exceptions provisions (GATT Art. XX(b) and (g) and GPA Art. XXIII) however, may permit such climate-related differential measures if they are: (1) necessary to achieve the legitimate policy objective intended, (2) not applied in a discriminatory manner and (3) not a disguised restriction on international trade. There are two issues of major concern to this study: First, there are textual discrepancies as between the GATT and GPA provisions related both to the nondiscrimination norms and the exceptions, which may pose interpretation difficulties in the event of a dispute. Secondly, the provisions of GATT Art. XX (b) and (g) are interpreted to refer to environment in general terms. However, the current trend is to single out and address climate change separately from among other environmental problems of transboundary nature. This is in view of the urgency associated with the challenge it poses. Generally, also, in accordance with established WTO jurisprudence, the party who invokes the GATT Art. XX exceptions bears the burden to prove the measure in question as being covered under the exceptions. Some scholars suggest that this situation places at a disadvantage the subjects covered by the exception provisions (in this case climate-related procurement). Examined, therefore, is not only the extent to which GPP practices can be accommodated under these exceptions, which are also in line with the WTO’s recognition of the principles of sustainable development, but also whether climate-friendly procurement is best protected if expressly provided for as “positive norm” in the text of the GPA. The Revised GPA 2007 (not yet in force) contains a new paragraph (Art. X:6) which explicitly permits the Parties to include environmental considerations in their procurement policies. This study argues that the revision would not fundamentally address the issues observed earlier. In order to avoid the interpretation difficulties envisaged, and to promote mutual supportiveness and coherence between the climate and trade regimes further amendment would be necessary to the text of Art. XXIII of the GPA to the general exceptions, or in the alternative, to Art. X:6 of the Revised GPA. The amendment should, subject to appropriate conditions, explicitly permit discriminatory GP measures meant to address climate change subject. This amendment would effectively shift the burden of proof from the Party maintaining the measure to the one complaining against it. In the final analysis, this research will contribute to the current discourse on what role the WTO may play in the efforts to fashion out new international climate policy to succeed the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC by 2012.

<p> Law schools are criticized for graduating students who lack the skills necessary to practice law. Legal research is a foundational ability necessary to support lawyering competency. The American Bar Association (ABA) establishes standards for legal education that include a requirement that each law student receive substantial instruction in legal skills, including legal research. Despite the recognized importance of legal research in legal education, there is no consensus of what to teach as part of a legal research course or even how to teach such a course. </p><p> Legal educators struggle to address these issues. The practicing bar and judiciary have expressed concerns about law school graduates ability to conduct legal research. Studies have been conducted detailing the poor research ability of law students and their lack of skills. Although deficiencies in law student research skills have been identified, there is no agreement as to how to remediate these deficiencies. This dissertation suggests the legal research resources that should be taught in law schools by identifying the research resources used by practicing attorneys and comparing them to those resources currently included in legal research instruction at the 202 ABA-accredited law schools. </p><p> Multiple data sources were used in this study. Practitioner resource information was based on data provided by practicing attorneys responding to the 2013 ABA Legal Technology Survey. Resources taught in ABA-accredited law schools were identified through three sources: a 2014 law school legal research survey sent to the 202 ABA-accredited law schools, a review of law school syllabi from ABA-accredited law school legal research and legal research and writing courses, and the Association of Legal Writing Directors 2013 annual survey of legal research and writing faculty. The combined data from these three sources were compared to the resources used by practicing lawyers identified in the annual national 2013 ABA Legal Technology Survey. This comparison of what is taught with what is used in practice identifies a deficiency in law school instruction in the research resources used by practicing attorneys. These survey results detail distinct areas of inadequate instruction in legal research resources and provide legal educators with detailed information necessary to develop a curriculum that will result in graduating students with practice-ready competencies.</p>

Inaug.-diss.--Königsberg. / Lebenslauf. "Verzeichnis der benutzten bücher und schriften": p. i-iv.