On Tuesday, March 21, Clinical Professor of Law Doron Kalir appeared on Tim Farley’s POTUS Talk, a Sirius-XM morning radio talk show, to discuss Day 1 of Judge Gorsuch nomination hearing. During the 13-minute interview  Kalir discussed issues ranging from the exercise of the so-called “nuclear option,” (eliminating the possibility of filibuster),  the similarities between Judge Gorsuch and Justice Alito, and the possible effect of Director Comey’s testimony on the confirmation hearings. 

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio published a blog post entitled ‘Somali Pirates Are Back?” on Communis Hostis Omnium, an academic blog dedicated to discussions of maritime piracy.  In this post, Professor Sterio discusses the recent successful piracy attack on Aris 13, an oil tanker which had been sailing from Djibouti to Mogadishu.  This piracy attack was the first successful attack in 2017 and it may signal a return of Somali pirates.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson’s article, When States’ Legislation and Constitutions Collide with Angry Locals:  Shale Oil and Gas Development and its Many Masters, was just published in the William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review (Volume 41, Issue 1, Fall 2016).

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio was quoted in an article by Al Jazeera entitled “Six years on: ‘Syria is an accountability-free zone,” available here.  Professor Sterio’s quotes are reproduced below:

Moving forward, the opposition “can demonstrate that it has international law on its side – that its position is legally correct and that Assad may be violating international law,” said Milena Sterio, professor of international law at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in the US state of Ohio.

“At some point, leaders become too ‘rogue’ and too isolated that it hurts them in the international community. The hope is to corner Assad, to isolate him politically and to get him to realise that if he wants any hope of participation in international relations and in the international community on behalf of Syria, he must negotiate with the opposition in good faith,” Sterio told Al Jazeera.

Professor Lolita Buckner Inniss’ article, Lolita K. Buckner Inniss, “Tricky Magic: Blacks as Immigrants and the Paradox of Foreignness,” 49 Depaul L. Rev. 85 (1999), was cited in an article published by the Washington Post, by Professor Eugene Volokh (of the Volokh Conspiracy blog), entitled Slaves as immigrants, from Ben Carson and the academy [UPDATE: and President Obama].  Professor Volokh, whose article discusses Secretary Ben Carson’s recent commentary about slaves as immigrants, cites Professor Inniss’ article as an example of academic scholarship which has already discussed slavery in terms of immigration.  He quotes the following passage from Professor Inniss’ article:

A. Slavery as Immigration

Immigration has been defined as the moving across national frontiers, as opposed to moving within borders. Immigration has also been defined as a history of alienation and its consequences — “broken homes, interruptions of a familiar life, separation from known surroundings, the becoming a foreigner and ceasing to belong.” These definitions have traditionally been applied to entrants from Europe and later, Asia. Blacks were often either explicitly or implicitly excluded from definitions of immigration, dismissed as being merely “imported slaves” whose movement lacked the complexity of later immigration to the Americas, or deemed unwilling victims of conquerors. Notwithstanding these pronouncements, black arrivals to the Americas had all the attributes of immigrants. In fact, they created the immigrant paradigm: arrivals with alien languages, cultures and customs, who enter at the bottom-most social and economic levels and labor tirelessly.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio published a blog post on Intlawgrrls regarding her recent participation in this blog’s 10th Birthday Conference at the University of Georgia.  Professor Sterio’s post, entitled “Intlawgrrls 10th Birthday Conference: A Transformative Experience,” is available here.

Professor Patricia Falk was interviewed by Channel 5 News on February 28 regarding the marital rape exception under Ohio law, in a segment entitled “In Ohio, it’s legal for a husband to drug and rape his wife.”  Professor Falk’s interview is available in this video clip.

Professor Matthew W. Green Jr.’s article entitled Same-Sex Sex and Immutable Traits: Why Obergefell v. Hodges Clears a Path to Protecting Gay and Lesbian Employees from Workplace Discrimination Under Title VII has been published in The Journal of Gender, Race & Justice at the University of Iowa College of Law. Professor Green’s article explores the ways in which Obergefell may be used to advance the rights of gays and lesbians in the area of employment discrimination.  Obergefell struck down state laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying.  Although the decision ostensibly addressed only marriage equality, the article argues that Obergefell’s identification of same-sex sexual intimacy as a fundamental right and recognition that sexual orientation is both immutable and a “normal expression of human sexuality” have the potential to protect workers from sexual orientation discrimination by significantly influencing the interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio participated in the 10th Year Anniversary Conference of the Intlawgrrls Blog, of which Professor Sterio is one of six permanent editors, at the University of Georgia School of Law on March 2-3.  Intlawgrrls is a prominent academic blog dedicated to discussions of international law and policy and open to female contributors only.  Professor Sterio presented a paper entitled “The Karadzic Genocide Conviction: Knowledge, Inferences and Intent.”  In addition, she moderated a panel on international humanitarian law.