Realizing the Right to Food in Maine: Insights From International Law

In November 2021, Maine made history as the first U.S. state to constitutionally recognize the right to food. Maine’s right to food amendment— which sought to address widespread food insecurity and corporate control of the food supply—proclaims food as a “natural, inherent and unalienable right,” and empowers Mainers to grow and consume food of their own choosing, affirming their right to food sovereignty. This Article makes three key contributions to scholarly examinations of this historic amendment. First, it situates the amendment within the broader landscape of domestic and global struggles for the right to food and food sovereignty. Second, the Article considers how the right to food framework under international human rights law can help define the normative content of Maine’s newly affirmed constitutional right, and the state’s corresponding obligations to uphold that right. Third, the Article proposes legislative and policy reforms to help realize the right to food in Maine, while also considering potential challenges. The Article concludes that despite these challenges, the right to food amendment carries the potential to ensure lasting food security in Maine, while shifting the balance of power in the food system

Religious Queer Trans-Nationalism: A Zine and Theory

From the author: The relationship between religion and its institutions, sexuality, and gender is both historically and personally complex, and the intricacy and discourse between these constructs disproportionally affects religious queer and transgender communities. The Divine Transgender concept, embraced by a growing community of proudly religious trans and gender non-conforming people, views bodies that identify with these categories as enlightened to break down restrictive gender binaries and undergo a spiritual self-realization process in the form of transition, becoming closer to God during the journey. This zine aims to creatively and imaginatively manage these relationships and educate about the ways religions have affirmed and embraced queer identities historically.https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/student_zines/1012/thumbnail.jp

Indigenizing the Right to a Healthy Environment

The most severe impacts resulting from environmental degradation are experienced by already-vulnerable populations, including Indigenous peoples. A growing number of countries are formally recognizing the basic human right to a healthy environment, which can help realize environmental and climate justice for these communities. On July 28, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a landmark resolution formally recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The adoption of this resolution represents a pivotal moment in the understanding and implementation of a human rights-based approach to protecting the environment. However, it is important to recognize that historically, Indigenous peoples have recognized and practiced the principles that make up the contemporary concept of a human right to a healthy environment. The unique relationship Indigenous peoples have with the environment and their traditional knowledges are increasingly being recognized and can help inform further efforts to implement the right to a healthy environment by countries that have yet to do so, such as the United States. This Article begins by defining the human right to a healthy environment. The Article then outlines how the right to a healthy environment was secured at the international level. Such efforts have often involved the successful merger of Indigenous values, environmental law, and human rights, resulting in a harmony of equitable and productive environmental governance. The Article subsequently examines the potential implementation of this right within the United States and what Tribal Nations have to contribute to the dialogue. Indigenous communities have been and are instrumental in advancing laws and policies aimed at reducing environmental and climate injustices. Accordingly, the Article concludes with recommendations on how Indigenous voices can continue to be elevated and the basic human right to a healthy environment obtained for all

LGBTQ+ Individuals’ Experiences of Involuntary Disclosure

Within the LGBTQ+ community, the coming out process is not only considered a primary milestone, but also a complex, individualized experience. Researchers have found that individuals’ coming out experiences vary drastically depending on their age of coming out as well as on others’ responses, settings of disclosure, and level of comfort with one’s own sexual orientation. LGBTQ+ individuals experience their own internal coming out process to further understand their sexual orientation before they can engage in the external coming out process; all of which impacts their decision of whether to disclose their sexual orientation. A common fear within the LGBTQ+ community is involuntary disclosure. Throughout the literature, LGBTQ+ individuals, both adults and adolescents, express their concern of having their LGBTQ+ identity involuntarily disclosed. Although this is a common phenomenon within the LGBTQ+ community, there is minimal, if any, research on the experience and impact of involuntary disclosure (Eliason, 1996; Ragins, 2008; Marasco & Astramovich, 2021; Tuite et al., 2021). Thus, leading to the literary gap and research question: What are the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals whose sexual orientation was involuntarily disclosed? Members of the LGBTQ+ community (N = 14) who experienced involuntary disclosure completed in-depth, semi-structured interviews to better understand this phenomenon. While these participants’ identities and experiences were unique and varied, some of their experiences remained the same. Findings indicate that involuntary disclosure is a psychologically distressing experience of one’s LGBTQ+ identity being disclosed, questioned, or assumed without their prior knowledge, preparation or consent

THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS OR THE RIGHT TO HAVE LIFE? AN ASSESSMENT OF PROACTIVE CITIZENSHIP-STRIPPING TO FULFILL THE STATE DUTY OF NON-REFOULMENT

Especially since the collapse of the Islamic State Caliphate in 2019, a fierce debate has arisen in international legal policy and within domestic governments about what to do with citizens who have committed acts of terror abroad. While repatriation and extradition are possible solutions, many States have refused to repatriate some citizens back and have revoked their nationalities such that those individuals are unable to return to their citizenship-country to face prosecution and/or punishment. Citizenship-stripping, however, may not always be legal. But if a State contends instead that it must deprive the citizen of nationality because, in being repatriated back to the home-State to face prosecution, the citizen will be at risk of violations of due process, torture, or the death penalty, can the international duty of non-refoulement be used to validly deny the individual his right to nationality? Perhaps, but there will be a striking clash between a State’s duty of non-refoulement through proactive citizenship-stripping and its duty to respect a citizen’s right to nationality, to ensure an individual’s safety within a foreign State, and to guard against the imposition of statelessness. The ultimate tension between these elements reflects the reality that fulfilling some international legal obligations may come at the expense of others. Proactive citizenship-stripping may prevent refoulement, subsequently sparing the life and dignity of the FTF, but it may also deny the FTF various other entitlements, including the rights to nationality and repatriation and the freedom from statelessness

Digital Rite of Passage: The First Social Media Kids

Through a combination of academic research and creative storytelling, this thesis delves into the largely undocumented experiences of the “first social media kids,” an entire generation of tweens who grew up using social media in the 2010s before it was heavily moderated or imbued with age restrictions. While stories about this age of social media have been traded consistently in conversations between peers who are currently in their early twenties, there is a clear lack of academic work focused on early social media and the young users who explored it. Through the medium of an episodic and investigative podcast titled Digital Rite of Passage: The First Social Media Kids, my work captures the previously neglected narratives and reflections of this age group to share with a society that constantly raises concerns about our youth being present on social media platforms. The focus of the podcast episode is identity, and how being on social media as a tween may have influenced expression and impacted the users’ sense of self. To provide a foundation of knowledge for the relationship between identity and social media, the literature review begins with an in-depth outline of the functions and characteristics of social media that draw users to the platform for specific purposes. It then explores the practice of self expression through social media platforms and the technological affordances that they provide for users. Lastly, it introduces the relationship between tween users and social media platforms, specifically regarding identity development in children during their tween years and why they are drawn toward social media as a means of expression and identity management. This research, combined with the art of creative storytelling through podcasting, will allow young adults to become a bigger part of the conversation surrounding young social media users by drawing on their own experiences to provide input on the controversial topic

Context-Aware Query Performance Optimization for Transportation in Big Data Analytics

Transit data is stored in multiple data sources doing exploratory analytics on these datasets require querying more than one database. Users need to be updated regarding route services. Hence there is a need for a smarter query framework which can query multiple databases and retrieve the results in less time. The aim of this study is to improve a cost-based query optimizer that utilizes external optimized copy registered in a database and enhances the performance in terms of execution time of the analytical query for data analytics for public transportation datasets stored in different databases. The improvement is initiated in this study by rewriting the query plan to utilize the externally registered optimized copy of data in the relational expression tree during the analytical query execution

Administering Environmental Justice: How New York’s Environmental Rights Amendment Could Transform Business as Usual

Since New York became the latest state to pass an environmental rights amendment, there has been a great deal of analysis regarding how the judi- ciary will interpret the Green Amendment; however, state and local officials need not wait for the courts to enforce the Green Amendment. This Article explores the authority state and local officials have to carry out the purpose of the Green Amendment. Additionally, it discusses what the passage of the Green Amendment means in practice and how, and why, state officials such as the Attorney General should implement the Green Amendment

Disclosure, Greenwashing, and the Future of ESG Litigation

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) disclosure movement is expanding both voluntarily, as businesses choose to disclose this information, and mandatorily, as government agencies impose disclosure requirements. As ESG disclosure expands, so do the litigation risks. “Greenwashing” refers to presenting false or misleading environmental or sustainability (i.e., “green”) qualities of products, services, or practices. Businesses may greenwash consumers as well as investors with false and misleading ESG disclosures in advertising, securities filings, or other public statements activating greenwashing litigation from investors and consumers. This Article addresses (1) the laws and regulations that cover consumer and securities greenwashing litigation, (2) how these forms of greenwashing litigation are evolving, and (3) the synergistic relationships that do, and should, exist between these forms of litigation