• Stay Housed Los Angeles: Safeguarding Tenants' Rights Beyond Rent Control [Note]

  Lanzas, Susan (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)

  How is it that people become unhoused? One answer is: by getting evicted. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the United States’s ongoing affordable housing crisis but also gave way to substantial reforms aimed at preventing homelessness and protecting tenant rights. Then in 2024, as rent, eviction rates, and homelessness continued to rise, SCOTUS issued a ruling effectively criminalizing homelessness. Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, consistently ranks amongst the least affordable housing markets and has one of the highest eviction rates. How do we keep L.A. housed? This note examines the evolving tenant protection frameworks of Los Angeles and Berlin—both large, left-leaning, majority-renter cities with comparable housing policies. It traces L.A. and Berlin’s rent control policies, which offered limited and often inconsistent protections. Although both cities have experienced similar housing policy changes and challenges, Berlin boasts significantly lower eviction rates than Los Angeles. By analyzing Berlin’s model of people-driven activism, in contrast to Los Angeles’s funding-centric advocacy, the Note contemplates the strengths and limitations of each approach. Berlin’s tenant movements have influenced policies like the “Rent Price Brake” and the “Rent Cap,” while Los Angeles’s ongoing housing crisis has fueled tenant advocacy efforts, leading to measures like the “Just Cause Ordinance” and the “Tenant Right to Counsel Ordinance.” Finally, the comparative analysis explores the efficacy of current tenant protection measures and contemplates nuanced approaches to safeguarding tenants’ rights in Los Angeles. Concluding that while policy advancements mark significant progress, broader systemic changes are necessary.
• Regulatory Plinko: A New Form of Regulation to Solve an Old Problem in the United States and the United Kingdom [Note]

  Beck, Tyler (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)

  Information asymmetry has long created issues at all levels of the financial industry. The inability of consumers, financial agents, and regulators to know the information necessary to act rationally has had cataclysmic impacts on the economy. Currently, the United States still struggles to handle this problem as regulators struggle to understand necessary aspects of banks and produce regulations that are impossible to comply with. The United Kingdom struggles with information asymmetry as it tries to craft a financial regulatory framework post-Brexit. This Note will attempt to provide a new style of regulation that will reduce information asymmetry while more fairly rewarding good and bad actors in the financial system.
• The Palermo Protocol: An Ineffective Treaty for Holding Human Traffickers Criminally Accountable and Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking [Article]

  Shah, Henna (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)

  In 2003, the crime of human trafficking was defined for the first time in the “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,” commonly referred to as the “Palermo Protocol.” Touted as one of the international community’s greatest success stories, the Palermo Protocol created a “3Ps” framework that obligated States Parties to enact national legislation that prevents human trafficking, protects human trafficking victims, and prosecutes human traffickers. Yet, despite the international community’s attempt to end human trafficking via the enactment of the Palermo Protocol, every country remains affected by human trafficking as either a country of origin, transit, or destination. As evidenced by the increasing number of human traffickers and human trafficking victims worldwide, the Palermo Protocol has failed to realize all aspects of its 3Ps framework. The Palermo Protocol’s ineffectiveness can be attributed to its unclear purpose, unspecific definition of human trafficking, failure to define exploitation and creation of a power imbalance, and broad, vague, and undefined language that violates the legality principle. Moreover, the Palermo Protocol does not adequately protect human trafficking victims because its protection measures are not mandatory, and States are not held accountable for its domestic enforcement and implementation. To make the Palermo Protocol effective, its framework should shift from a criminal law to a human rights and development law approach, an international review and evaluation process should be implemented to foster greater accountability, and a new anti-human trafficking instrument based on international human rights law should be created.
• The Treatment of Immoral, Scandalous, and Disparaging Marks in Trademark Law of the United States and Turkey [Article]

  Altun, Muhammed "Yakup"; Mireles, Michael (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)

  A trademark serves as a concise mode of communication from a seller to current or prospective buyers wherein the seller signifies an endorsement of certain goods or services. This sets them apart from similar goods or services provided by competitors. However, trademarks often do not simply identify the source of a product or service, but also to convey a broader message. This creates an intersection between trademark law and the fundamental right of freedom of expression and presents challenging legal, ethical, and societal concerns that can differ significantly from one jurisdiction to another. In the United States, these concerns resulted in the cancellation of registration bars for immoral, scandalous, and disparaging marks. After more than five decades of the Lanham Act’s operation, the rule that bars disparaging marks was found unconstitutional in 2017 under the Supreme Court’s decision in Matal v. Tam. Then, the rules barring immoral and scandalous marks were found unconstitutional in 2019 by the Supreme Court in Iancu v. Brunetti. Both decisions cited viewpoint discrimination as a violation of the First Amendment’s Free Speech clause. By contrast, in Turkey and the European Union (EU), the registration bar for marks that are contrary to public policy and accepted principles of morality is still in effect, even though there have been some free speech concerns. This legal landscape offers an opportunity to perform a comparative analysis between jurisdictions and to observe how diverse legal systems address the complex interplay between commerce, speech, and societal norms. Through a detailed examination of legislative frameworks, judicial interpretations, and policies in the United States and Turkey, this paper embarks on a comparative analysis of the treatment of immoral, scandalous, and disparaging marks within these two jurisdictions. This paper makes numerous proposals concerning both the approaches of the United States and Turkey, considering policy and the results of empirical research. There are five sections. The first section provides an introduction; the second section concerns U.S. trademark law; the third section reviews Turkish trademark law; the fourth section is a comparison of these jurisdictions; and the final section offers proposals. The comparison includes a discussion of international agreements concerning the treatment of marks considered immoral, scandalous, or disparaging and includes examples from European practice.
• Lessons in Love: Comprehensive Sexuality Education as a Human Right [Article]

  Andersen, Dorothy (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)

  International and regional human rights jurisprudence has increasingly recognized the right of children and adolescents to receive comprehensive sexuality education. This education consists of a holistic approach to sexual health and wellness. It provides children and adolescents with the tools required to make healthy and informed life choices, develop respectful social and sexual relationships, and understand and ensure the protection of human rights. The right to comprehensive sexuality education is closely linked to fundamental rights such as freedom from discrimination; freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, family, and home life; the right to free development of personality; the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; and of course, the right to education. This article will argue that comprehensive sexuality education is a human right recognized under international law, and as such should be introduced as a mandatory component of educational curricula for children and adolescents. It will first explain what comprehensive sexuality education is, the benefits it provides, and why common arguments against this education are insufficient for rejecting its implementation. Second, this article will discuss the legal foundation for the recognition of the right to comprehensive sexuality education as established in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Select General Comments/Recommendations and Observations from the monitoring bodies of these treaties are included to demonstrate the path towards recognition of this right and its current status. Additionally, recent groundbreaking case law from regional human rights systems illustrates how the theoretical legal bases for comprehensive sexuality education have already been applied in practice to make this right a reality. Third, this article will provide guidance on how comprehensive sexuality education can best be implemented in schools and informal educational curricula.
• Editorial Foreword

  Lanzas, Susan (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
• Table of Contents

  The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025
• Title Page

  The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025
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  Codifying an Answer to the Major Questions Doctrine [Note]

  Roubik, Joshua (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  The Major Questions Doctrine is among the newest tools in the Supreme Court’s toolbox to limit the executive branch. The Doctrine explains that agencies addressing issues of economic and political significance must have clear congressional authorization to do so. Critics of the Doctrine see it as a tool to wield whenever the Court disapproves of the actions of the executive, while proponents insist it is a necessity to maintain separation of powers. The Doctrine, however, will likely lead to a flood of cases arguing that an agency has acted without congressional authorization. Since environmental law functions through delegation to the executive branch, it will be an epicenter for major questions litigation. The clearest solution would be for Congress to amend each authorizing statute to explain the delegation’s bounds clearly. This solution is unlikely because of the political will and time required for such a task. This leads to the question: Could Congress amend all agency delegations at once to clearly authorize them to act in the face of major questions? Court precedent suggests that Congress would have to be precise with structuring such a statute and that Congress may not be able to legislate away the Major Questions Doctrine with one statute while staying within the constitutional boundaries of the legislative and executive branches. This Note determines whether Congress can circumvent the Major Questions Doctrine and whether such a statute would require so much structure that it would be impossible to navigate and functionally useless.
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  The Right Settlement? A Comparative Analysis of the 3M PFAS and Big Tobacco Settlements [Note]

  Moshkriz, Nicholas (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, collectively known as PFAS, are chemical substances that have been used in manufacturing for many years. However, exposure to the chemicals has been linked to negative health outcomes. Because of an increasing awareness of PFAS exposure, particularly through contaminated drinking water, more lawsuits have been filed, resulting in pricey settlements. Specifically, this Note assesses the 3M PFAS Settlement to determine if the settlement is effective in addressing the PFAS exposure issue around the country. To make this analysis, this Note compares the 3M PFAS Settlement’s key provisions with the Tobacco Master Settlement of 1998. This comparative analysis helps determine the strengths and weaknesses of the 3M Settlement based on the successes and mistakes of the Tobacco Master Settlement. After making the comparison, this Note concludes that the 3M PFAS Settlement is effective in providing financial support to water providers because of its clear purpose, direct payment to water providers, and stringent enforcement of payment regardless of whether 3M files for bankruptcy or is unable to pay. These are provisions that mark an improvement from the Tobacco Master Settlement. The 3M PFAS Settlement falls short in addressing the entire PFAS issue given the costs of cleanup and health effects overtaking the settlement price. Yet, the 3M PFAS Settlement should not be deemed a failure, especially if more settlements and lawsuits follow. This trend appears to be taking place, as many more lawsuits are being filed, especially regarding health issues. What specific provisions future settlements will entail is unclear, but the 3M PFAS Settlement can be seen as a critical stepping-stone to holding major chemical companies accountable by paying to protect society from further exposure.
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  The Impact of International Investment Law on the Right to Clean, Affordable, and Accessible Water [Article]

  Songy, Madeline; Merrill, Ella (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  Water is necessary for the achievement of global sustainable development objectives and critical to sustaining life on earth. Economic activities, spanning from extractives development to water services privatization schemes, have critically impacted water resources, particularly in developing economies. While State governments endeavor to protect their water resources, regulate in the interest of their populations, or legislate to protect the environment, the current international investment law regime allows foreign investors to initiate arbitration alleging violations of investment treaties, such as inequitable treatment or expropriations of their investment projects. This arbitral process is outlined through investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in investment treaties. This Article examines the contexts and outcomes of a number of current and past ISDS cases to outline how State efforts to ensure the right to clean, affordable water and protect its environmental resources have been compromised by ISDS. States, in implementing legislation and regulation in the interest of protecting water resources and achieving sustainable development, should consider the effects that ISDS and international investment law have on domestic rulemaking.
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  Table of Contents

  The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024
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  Comparing the Centralized Government's Role in Renewable Energy Development in the United States & The European Union [Note]

  O'Sullivan, Jack F. (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  The increase in electricity consumption across the globe since the beginning of the 18th century has caused a rise in the standard of living and triggered exponential wealth generation for human societies. Many modern luxuries including, but not limited to, air conditioning, food refrigeration, permanent indoor lighting, and all our electronic gadgets were made possible because of our success at harnessing the power of electricity. The world was a much different place when Benjamin Franklin flew his kite on a stormy day in 1752, and those changes have had a drastic effect on our planet’s climate. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Earth’s temperature has risen by an average of 0.14° Fahrenheit (0.08° Celsius) per decade since 1880, or about 2° F in total.” Additionally, “the rate of warming since 1981 is more than twice as fast: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade.” This warming is a direct result of a human-induced greenhouse effect, which is caused by the trapping of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels, which have been our preferred source of energy generation for decades, have accounted for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.N. Without a societal transition away from fossil fuels for electricity generation, the runaway greenhouse effect will produce devastating climatic changes and severe weather events that will negatively affect the future generations of all life on Earth. To stave off this unwanted future, it has become imperative that our economies transition to utilizing renewable energy to power our twenty-first century way of living. The task of sufficiently transitioning away from the old sources of energy generation that our economies have depended on will require significant effort from all aspects of our society. Both governments and the private sector must work together if we are to achieve what is necessary—establishing a carbon-neutral world while maintaining global economic prosperity. This paper will analyze how the two largest federally organized central governments in the Western world, the United States and the European Union (“EU”), are enabling this critical transition through policy and law. The EU has focused on top-down mandates, while the United States has instead pursued a chaotic yet effective tax credit regime. Additionally, this paper will examine how both jurisdictions’ regulatory frameworks came to be in the politics of their respective legislative processes. Lastly, this paper will identify any successful policies that could be implemented in Arizona to further assist the state’s energy transition.
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  The Thucydides Trap on the Moon: How to Maintain Peace on the Eighth Continent? [Article]

  Lavigne, Josselin (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  Can public international law prevent the Moon from becoming a Thucydides trap amid the ambitious Sino–American projects in space exploration at present, the growing risks of the weaponization and militarization of space, and the commercial craze for material extraction from the South Pole of the Moon? This article presents an original analysis of the politico-legal factors that could lead to armed conflict between China and the United States to dominate the Moon, along with legal solutions. The United States’ competition with China is no longer a choice but now seems inevitable. The American government rejected the possibility of cooperating with China in the sensitive space sector. This places the United States in a similar situation in form to the one it faced in the 1960s with the objective of winning the space race, but similar in substance to the Seven Years’ War. If the Cold War is understood as an ideological conflict in which two economic models clashed with the Moon as an element that divided them, this new rivalry seems to have had more of the features of the intercolonial wars in America that placed France against England in the 17th century. Recent interpretations of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967 have led to the legalization of the appropriation of space resources. Space could become a Wild West involving states with the necessary technical capacities rushing to exploit space resources. What are the legal and geopolitical implications for different states targeting one lunar territory? How can we legally and practically prevent and resolve a possible conflict on the Moon between the United States, China, and their allies? To escape the Thucydides trap, international law must encourage a spirit of cooperation and, above all, rethink its structures and the legal regimes of governance in terms of the Moon’s exploitation. The United States and China have too much to lose in a confrontation for it to be worthwhile for either, and even if a Sino–American war were likely, this article takes the position that it can be avoided.
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  Nearshoring in Context: Sixty Years of Mexican Production for the United States Market [Article]

  Gantz, David A. (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  “Nearshoring,” as used here, is the relocation of production facilities currently located in China, owned by American, Chinese, and third-country firms, to North America and principally to Mexico, when low-cost labor and proximity to the U.S. market are important for many reasons. The objective of the phenomenon is to move the production of labor-intensive goods destined for the United States market to a location close to that market rather than thousands of miles away in China or elsewhere in Asia. But this phenomenon, which seems destined to continue for years or decades, is not a recent development. The need for American and foreign producers to access lower production costs for labor-intensive components and finished products is not new. It has occurred in one form or another (initially “offshoring” from the United States) for most of the past 60 years. Both the United States and third-country enterprises primarily serving the U.S. market have long chosen to use Mexico when needing a source of reliable, lower-cost, young labor. This historical review of Mexico’s use as a platform for the reception of foreign investment since 1965 to produce goods for the U.S. market, along with its ups and downs, may help potential investors, policymakers, and stakeholders to understand better the current mini-boom and perhaps the future of Mexican nearshoring as well.
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  From Compliance to Impact: Assessing the Effectiveness of Strategic Litigation in Cases of Forced Disappearance at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights [Article]

  Cruz Marin, Patricia (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  Thousands of victims of human rights violations in Latin America bring their cases to the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR), hoping for justice after all alternatives in their countries failed them. However, in recent years, data showing low compliance with IASHR decisions has triggered questions on the effectiveness of the Court in achieving social change through transformative remedies. Against this criticism, recent scholarship argues that civil society organizations continue to pursue strategic litigation at the IASHR for its capacity to generate an impact despite apparently low compliance. However, authors arguing in favor of an impact perspective have scarcely provided answers on how to define, understand, or describe impact. To fill this gap, I present a normative, empirical, and historical analysis of the impact achieved by civil society-led strategic litigation on forced disappearance in Peru, Guatemala, and Colombia, the three countries comprising 53% percent of cases of forced disappearance that have reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. I arrive at three main conclusions. First, an impact analysis presents a far more nuanced outlook of the effectiveness of the IASHR that reveals the effects of the IASHR that traditionally compliance-focused research hides. Second, civil society-led strategic litigation in cases of forced disappearance in Peru, Guatemala, and Colombia has produced an impact at the individual, social, and institutional levels. The Article concludes with the general recommendation of shifting toward an impact approach to assess the effectiveness of the IASHR.
• 

  Editorial Foreword

  Lanzas, Susan (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)
• 

  Title Page

  The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024
• 

  Table of Contents

  The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024
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  Ride the Waive: Health Data Privacy Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States and European Union [Note]

  Patel, Roshni (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2024)

  With the declaration of the end of the public health emergency, the Department of Health and Human Services waivers permitting the use and disclosure of protected health information have since expired. These waivers promoted flexibility to healthcare providers and their business associates to aid public health responses to the novel coronavirus. However, that flexibility delicately balances a patient’s right to privacy and the disclosure of limited data for the public welfare. This Note will show how the United States and the European Union adapted their health privacy laws to address the unprecedented challenges emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the efficacy of varying scopes of health privacy laws, determining that neither a broad nor narrow framework is individually successful in responding to such crises. Since the waivers, dismantling health data processing systems has had detrimental costs, given the rise of COVID-19 cases. This Note explores the potential value of standing waivers for COVID-19 health data and the next steps to expand their applicability to other highly transmissible viruses to promote public health without completely absolving a patient’s right to privacy.

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