Meat, The Future: The Role Of Regulators In The Lab-Grown Revolution

The United States is one of the largest consumers of meat globally. The production of meat contributes substantially to climate change due to the levels of greenhouse gasses emitted and the amount of land, water, feed, and other natural resources required to raise animals used for meat. Traditional meat production is another major source for the emergence of zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. Nevertheless, Americans consume more meat now than at any time in the nation’s history. Advocates for policy change aimed at addressing the risks associated with meat production have typically focused on reducing meat consumption, alternatives to meat, or improving the standards of traditional meat production. These are laudable goals, but an emerging technology now promises meat production that may avoid these risks entirely. Enter “lab-grown meat”; meat cultivated in an efficient and controlled laboratory environment without the need for fields, feed, or even animals. The technology has been in development for over 100 years but has seen exponential growth in the past 5 years. What was previously considered a science fiction fantasy became a reality in the US in 2023 when UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat receivedSuggeste

The Value of a Statistical Life: From Skin in the Game to Vision Zero

This essay discusses justice issues surrounding occupational safety and health and assesses the ethical legitimacy—the justice—of regulatory cost benefit analysis when the costs in question involve the risks and realization of workplace injury and fatalities. The current “value of a statistical life” for legal-regulatory purposes is 13.1 million dollars. While economists are careful to say that this figure does not “really” represent an attempt to value any particular life, the purpose of even calculating the number is to provide an “aggregated” statistical justification for saying “no” to rules requiring safer work. This seems acceptable until you, or someone you love, is a person at significant risk of being killed. One of the earliest moral and religious challenges, central to constructing modern employment law, was how to deal with workplace harm. Scholars have shown that the perceived inability of tort law to remedy workplace injury and fatality led to a veritable remaking of American law—through establishment of workers’ compensation—that was, in effect, the prelude to the administrative state, and therefore effectively of all employment law. The moral-ethical dilemma—of work related injury and death—remains a central problem of workplace law. The AFL-CIO estimates that in 2022—the most recent year for which data was available as of the writing of this essay—5,486 employees were killed on the job in the United States; and 120,000 workers died from occupational diseases. During a time of modern, putatively-safe working conditions, these statistics seem almost incredible. At first blush, moral policymaking suggests that the societal reaction to death and injury at work should simply be to stop killing workers. But requiring safer workplaces costs “money.” And the moral question is: how much as a society are we willing to spend to prevent death in the workplace? “Cost-benefit considerations” are inherently moral. One who—because of racial or class positioning in a society, for example—is not likely to be harmed by an activity, may have a great deal of difficulty accurately assessing the moral significance of a risk of harm for others arising from the activity; or in determining whether a certain quantity of risk should be assumed by workers in the broader social interest. Regulatory “weighing” is the province of economists, not that of workers who are actually exposed to workplace risks of harm and death. Those who argue that strong emotional responses to “fearsome risks” are irrational because of the risks’ putatively low probabilities of leading to harm are typically—perhaps predictably—not exposed to such risks and may suffer from an upper class “anti-safety bias.” It will always be possible to articulate the costs to employers of making workplaces safer, and the benefits to employers of not having to make workplaces safer. Assessment of cost on the worker’s side of the ledger is much more difficult to quantify because it involves the quasi-mystical—and not dollar expressible—question of the worth of life. And the ethical and democratic problem posed is whether the persons asking such questions have sufficient “skin in the game” to be asking the questions or evaluating the answers. The essay reflects on the EU’s “Vision Zero” goal of killing no one in the workplace. It is one thing to admit that it is presently impossible to avoid killing workers on the job. It is another thing to insist that the national goal should be killing no workers at work. Arguing for such insistence, the essay concludes by observing that employers are in fact capable of being much safer than they are

Reverberations of Magna Carta: Work Injuries, Inkblots, and Restitution

This article argues that workers in the United States have been unconstitutionally undercompensated for their work injuries for at least a century. This provocative fact, coupled with statistics showing that over 120,000 people per year die from workplace injury and occupational disease, suggests a looming post-pandemic struggle for better injury remedies and safer workplaces. Workers’ compensation, the current state-based system by which American workers receive compensation for work-related injury and death, was obtained from legislatures as a “Grand Bargain,” the value of which has significantly deteriorated over time; and the constitutional coherence of which has been impacted by the obvious inadequacy of worker remedies. The bargain, in other words, has been breached; and the article argues for a “New Bargain” driven by worker consciousness of employer unjust enrichment from the original bad bargain. A New Bargain may be contractually renegotiated by labor unions in unionized industries; or it may emerge as a series of “shock absorbers” in reaction to national emergencies, like pandemics and extreme weather events; or expanded disease coverage, which COVID-19 revealed is virtually nonexistent. The New Bargain should be aggressively sought in brusque disregard of the fiction that workplace harm is necessarily accidental and thus damnum absque injuria. This tale was built on misinterpretations of the constitution that simply will no longer do. The article discusses “unenumerated rights” and contends that they exist and include federal guarantees to adequate remedies for tortious harm. More importantly, the article asserts that worker embrace of this idea can energize a spirit of restitution: what has been taken may be regained through mandatory federal bargaining and state-specific statutes. The article takes issue with inadequate benefits like, for example, arbitrary cutoffs in which workers receive paltry sums like $155,000 (total) for a lifetime of total disability (the maximum recovery in Kansas as of this writing). Given such shocking numbers, it can only be hoped that “welfare” or “social security” will fend off worker poverty. Although partially disabled workers were originally, in the early 20th century, entitled to a weekly benefit based on a percentage of the amount of wages lost as a result of a work injury, or on some estimate of the reduction of an injured worker’s earning capacity after the injury, for the full duration of the injury, this right is no longer recognized in most states. Instead, partially disabled workers are compensated under arbitrary benefit “schedules” bearing no articulated relationship to wages lost, or even to an explicit projected loss of earning capacity. All of this, the article contends, is broadly subject to worker revision, and this article provides an outline of first steps out of the morass

Patterns of Panic

Disruptions in the constitutional order can agitate social anxiety, particularly when an out-group on the rise challenges an in-group’s political dominance and position in a constitutional regime. This has been acutely true concerning civil rights expansion, where civil rights opponents have turned to libertarian theories of law when their cultural currency is on the ropes. This essay highlights some of the similarities between libertarian ideological impulses at critical junctures of American constitutional development during Reconstruction and in resistance to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans in the twenty-first century. In these two crucial moments of constitutional development, a similar pattern of panic emerged whereby opponents to a more progressive constitutional order worked to steer civil rights jurisprudence toward a deregulatory, market-centered theory of rights, favoring live-and-let-live approaches to remedying social inequality over a state-backed right to dignity in the public square

Divine Law or Constitutional Flaw: The Clash of Religious Belief and Legal Neutrality in Missouri’s Abortion Ban

This Note explores the constitutional implications of Missouri’s recent abortion ban enacted in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This Note examines the clash of religious beliefs and the law by dissecting the legislative history and intent behind Missouri’s abortion ban. The ban, known as House Bill 126 or the “Missouri Stands for the Unborn Act,” took effect immediately upon certification by State Attorney General Eric Schmitt and prohibits nearly all abortions, except in cases of a narrowly defined “medical emergency.” Notably, the law invokes religious language, asserting that “Almighty God” is the author of life and framing the state as a “sanctuary of life.” Through an analysis of the historical background, legislative series of events, and contemporaneous statements made by lawmakers, this Note argues that Missouri’s abortion ban unconstitutionally establishes Christian beliefs into law. This Note analyzes a hypothetical Establishment Clause-based challenge to Missouri’s abortion ban, arguing that the ban infringes upon the neutrality required by the First Amendment. It scrutinizes the religious undertones in the legislative process, which seemingly favor Christian beliefs over other faith traditions or non-religious perspectives. Ultimately, this Note offers a critical examination of the implications of Missouri’s abortion ban within the context of religious freedom and constitutional law. It contends that the ban, rooted in religious ideals, violates the Establishment Clause by imposing religiously motivated legislation on all citizens, regardless of their personal beliefs or traditions

International Efforts to Collect Evidence Related to Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine

International law has been at the very center of the global response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine since February 2022. Evidence collection has become one of the core elements of this international law response. The April 2023 keynote address on which this article is based focused on international efforts to collect evidence related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Specifically, this article focuses on responses in Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, and other jurisdictions on behalf of governments, international organizations, and civil society organizations to collect evidence related to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression by all parties to the conflict

Second-Tier Marriages

This Essay interrogates the reasoning behind the retrenchment toward LGBTQ rights progress that has taken place since marriage equality. With marriage rights for same-sex couples now on the books, the Supreme Court\u27s treatment of same-sex couples in both Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm\u27n and 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis reveals the status quo\u27s hesitancy to recognize same-sex relationships on equal footing. Retrenchment, however, only describes the moment itself; it alludes to but offers no comprehensive or satisfying theory that identifies the motives behind the moves. This Essay theorizes from within the context of the Supreme Court\u27s LGBTQ rights advancement cases why such diminishment has occurred in Masterpiece and 303 Creative and what these recent decisions mean for sexual minorities. Retrenchment is not an unexpected halt to the LGBTQ rights progress of the early 2010s because of some new grievance from the status quo; rather, retrenchment is part of the ongoing establishment\u27s maneuverings involving group rights and identities that have always been at play in our democratic commitments-particularly as a settler colonial state. Specifically, from a historical-political perspective, this Essay anchors Masterpiece and 303 Creative within our American settler colonial experience to explain the persistence of retrenchment. From this anchoring, the Court\u27s motivations in 303 Creative become clearer. Ultimately, the American settler colonial experience informs the Court\u27s normative vision of queer people and relationships post-Obergefell. As this Essay reveals, these post-Obergefell decisions that involve same-sex couples allow the Court to normatively envision same-sex relationships after marriage equality—putting an imprimatur on same-sex relationships as second-tier to opposite-sex relationships as a way to ultimately preserve or privilege a discriminatory, heteronormative status quo

Immunity Through Bankruptcy for the Sackler Family

In August 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked one of the largest public health settlements in history: that of Purdue Pharma, L.P., reached in bankruptcy court. The negotiated bankruptcy settlement approved by the court would give a golden parachute to the very people thought to have ignited the opioid crisis: the Sackler family. As the Supreme Court considers the propriety of immunity through bankruptcy, the case has raised fundamental questions about whether bankruptcy is a proper refuge from tort liability and whether law checks power or law serves power. Of course, bankruptcy courts often limit liability against a distressed company, but here, the Sacklers did not themselves declare bankruptcy. Instead, they added about $6 billion to the pot—compared with$600 billion in annual costs from the opioid crisis, by some estimates—and are allowed to keep any remaining profits. The bankruptcy court justified immunity on the grounds that the Sacklers’ money was protected in offshore accounts and trusts and therefore could not be reached through tort liability—all the better to have them participate voluntarily. In other words, the Sacklers laid the groundwork for their own immunity by sheltering the money they withdrew from Purdue. We have doubts that a single court should have the enormous power of shielding the Sackler Family from all future civil liability for the opioid crisis, simply to enlarge a settlement. Public health litigation has the power to address root causes of public health crises by disincentivizing unscrupulous actors. Granting these actors immunity may insulate them from public criticism while undermining the important role of courts as an avenue of recourse. Upholding immunity for the Sackler family would lay the groundwork for future executives to ride a company into the ground, at the expense of public health, golden parachute ready and waiting

The Demanding Idea of Consent to International Law

The concept of consenting to international law is no simple idea. It rests on sophisticated discursive moves. This article seeks to unpack five of the main discursive moves witnessed in literature and case-law discussing consent to international law. This article argues that these five specific discursive moves are performed, as is claimed here, by almost anyone analyzing the question of consent to international law, be such engagement on the more orthodox side or a critique from the argumentative side of the spectrum. These five discursive moves are (1) the reproduction of a very modernist understanding of authority, (2) the constitution of the very subject that is consenting, (3) the anonymization of the author of consent, (4) the reversal of the temporality of the legal discourse on consent, (5) and the adoption of very binary patterns of thought. This article shows that discursive moves made by international lawyers regarding the idea of consent bear heavily upon the type of political legitimacy, geography, responsibility, and hermeneutics that international law serves