Associate Dean Sundahl and the ICJ Judges

C|M|LAW Associate Professor and Associate Dean Mark J. Sundahl served as the co-coordinator of the 55th Annual Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space earlier this month in Naples, Italy.  This Colloquium involves leading experts in the field of space law who delivered more than 60 papers in five sessions.  The topics included the commercial use of outer space, the application of public international law to space activities, and the use in court of evidence derived from satellite systems.   Sundahl presented a paper at the Colloquium on the intersection of existing space law with the provision of the newly adopted Space Assets Protocol to the Cape Town Convention which governs asset-backed finance of satellites and other space assets.The Colloquium also hosts the World Finals of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition which is judged by three sitting judges of the International Court of Justice.  Dean Sundahl is pictured here with the three members of the International Court of Justice who attended the Colloquium: Judge Xue Hanqing (China), Judge Leonid Skotnikov (Russian Federation), and, to the left of Dean Sundahl, Judge Joan E. Donoghue (United States).

C|M|Law hosted the October meeting of the Cleveland eDiscovery Roundtable on October 17, 2012.  The group was formed by C|M|LAW Professor Brian Ray and Tim Opsitnick, founder and CEO of the eDiscovery firm JurInnov, in response to interest generated by a conference on eDiscovery at the Law School last fall.  The Roundtable is an informal group of attorneys, in-house counsel, judges and eDiscovery experts who meet monthly to discuss current issues and best practices in electronic discovery and data management.  The October meeting focused on a report of potential changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, an initiative to integrate electronic discovery processes into broader data management, and pn plans for organizing eDiscovery training/information events for local judges and attorneys.

The Roundtable’s next meeting will be on Wednesday, November 28, 2012, at C|M|Law.  Anyone interested in attending or joining the group can contact Brian Ray at brian.ray@law.csuohio.edu.

Professor Browne Lewis

C|M|LAW Professor Browne Lewis has been invited to be a visiting scholar for the first 2 weeks in July at the Hastings Center for Bioethics and for the last 2 weeks in July at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.

The Hasting Center is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit bioethics research institute located in Garrison, New York.  The Hastings Center hosts scholars from around the world to research ethical issues in the areas of health, medicine, law, and the environment as they impact individuals, communities, and societies.  The Visiting Scholars Program permits scholars to conduct research on issues in or related to bioethics.  As a part of the program, the scholars work with the Hastings Center’s staff and make presentations.  As a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center, Professor Lewis’ research will focus on the ethics of harvesting the gametes of dead people.

Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics has a teaching and research program that is broader than most bioethics programs.  Research at the Yale Center focuses on biomedical ethics, environmental ethics, animal ethics, the ethics of scientific research, business and professional ethics, and ethics issues relating to new technologies.  The Yale Center hosts scholars at Yale’s campus in New Haven.  The program permits scholars to conduct research and to interact with Yale faculty in several disciplines.  As a visiting scholar at Yale, Professor Lewis’ research will focus on the ethics issues that relate to new reproductive technologies.

There are more than 70 vacancies on the federal bench. It can take over eighteen months to fill a judicial vacancy.  Civil cases can take more than four years to resolve.  Although both major political parties agree that these facts present a crisis in the federal court system, they disagree over who is to blame.   C|M|LAW Professor Chris Sagers joined the The Civic Commons discussion on the subject.

The Civic Commons program was broadcast on WCPN 90.3 FM and is available here: http://theciviccommons.com/radioshow/crisis-in-the-courts

Former Governor of New Mexico and Libertarian Party candidate for President, Gary Johnson, has filed an antitrust law suit in federal court in California arguing that the major political parties have monopolized politics.  He argues that the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Commission on Presidential Debates have conspired to exclude other candidates in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

To read Sagers’ comments, click here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sagers/gary-johnson-antitrust-pl_b_1917570.html

C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio attended attend the 11th meeting of the U.N. Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, Working Group 2, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on September 17-18, 2012. Along with Professor Michael Scharf of Case Western Reserve University Law School, she presented to the group in her capacity as an independent academic as well as a member of the Public International Law and Policy Group, Piracy Working Group.  The professors presentation concerned juvenile pirates – the treatment of detained juvenile pirates by the capturing and/or prosecuting state, as well as the need to aggressively detain and prosecute those who recruit juvenile pirates.

To read more about Professor Sterio’s experiences at the U.N. meeting, please read her blog post on IntLawGrrls at: http://www.intlawgrrls.com/2012/09/report-from-un-meeting-on-somali-piracy.html#more

Professor Deborah Geier

C|M|LAW Professor Deborah Geier commented on capital gains tax rates and their impact on the U.S. economy in the September 25, 2012, issue of the Wall Street Journal.  Her letter responds to a WSJ editorial  “A Capital Gains Primer“, published on September 22, 2012.   The editorial argues that a differential tax rate is fair and helps the economy   In her letter, Geier makes four points arguing that this is not true.

This is Professor Geier’s second published Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor in a six week period.

To read the original editorial, click here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577452260437934858.html

To read Professor Geier’s letter, click here:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358804578016361006648802.html

Please tune in to WCPN 90.3 FM radio at 8 p.m. this Thursday, September 27, to hear Talking Foreign Policy, featuring C|M|LAW Professor Milena Sterio.  With the presidential election just weeks away, this one-hour broadcast focuses on presidential power in a war without end.  The program begins with a conversation with Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, who served as Assistant Attorney General in the George W. Bush Administration and is the author of the new book “Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency at After 9/11”.  Later in the hour, Baher Azmy, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Mike Newton, of Vanderbilt Law School, and C|M|LAW’s Sterio join the discussion hosted by Professor Michael Sharf (Case).

C|M|LAW Professor Lolita K. Bucker Inniss published a Letter to the Editor at page A13 of the September 15-16, 2012  Wall Street Journal.  The letter was a response to a essay by Paul Tough entitled Opting Out of the ‘Rug Rat Race.  In commenting on the role of nonocognitive skills such as perseverance and grit in helping a child get ahead in life, Inniss argues that “Hard work and toughness are invaluable, but strong parental support and early economic advantages are what work to get children ahead.

Professor Inniss’ letter is available here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444023704577649681287960356.html

The essay to which she responds is available here:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443819404577635352783638934.html?KEYWORDS=paul+tough

C|M|LAW Professor Susan J. Becker, who serves as President of the Ohio ACLU, participated on September 19, 2012, in a webcast sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Association (an affiliate of the ABA) . Professor Becker addressed the issue of voter suppression in Ohio, the legal challenges to voting restrictions currently being litigated in this state, and the impact of suppression laws across the U.S. on LGBT voters. Former Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Lawrence Norden, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, were the other featured speakers. The program was broadcast live to National LGBT Bar members (who participated by sending questions via email to the program) and was then sent to 10,000 additional ABA members. The webcast is available here http://www.lgbtbar.org/resources/lecture-series/.   Additional information on voting rights in Ohio is available at http://www.acluohio.org/Vote/default.asp. Information on other states and national issues is available at http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/voting_rights_elections/.