Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum: Delineating the Bounds of the Alien Tort Statute

This commentary previews the upcoming Supreme Court case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., in which the Court will address questions regarding the Alien Tort Statute and its applicability to foreign conduct and foreign litigants. The case will require the Court to reexamine the bounds of a long-ago established tort doctrine in light of more modern considerations and developments in international law

Week One in the Galapagos

Postcard from Michael McGrath, during the Linfield College Semester Abroad Program at the Galápagos Academic Institute of the Arts and Sciences in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuado

Learning German Culture

While still in the midst of their study abroad experiences, students at Linfield College write reflective essays. Their essays address issues of cultural similarity and difference, compare lifestyles, mores, norms, and habits between their host countries and home, and examine changes in perceptions about their host countries and the United States. In this essay, Courtney McGrath describes her observations during her study abroad program at Nürtingen-Geislingen University in Nürtingen, Germany

"And I was a stockman myself…" Interpreting Aboriginal Women’s Work

Social historians concerned with race relations studies are confronted by enormous gaps in evidence when their research relates to non-literate peoples. Consequently, interviews, oral histories, and most valuably; life histories, are becoming increasingly recognized as essential fonns of historical evidence. C-1.tural and linguistic barrierEr~onfronted in the collection of such personal oral evidence. The most serious obstacles, however, might be overcome by resorting to an interdisciplinary approach involving the collaboration of linguists, anthropologists, and historians . This is already beginning and should greatly enrich the study of race relations in Australia. To my knowledge there has not yet appeared a substantial socio-historical analysis of post-contact Aboriginal history which utilizes oral evidence as a major source. My research into the role of Aborigines in the Northern Territory cattle industry 1911 to 1939 presents an opportunity to do so, as there are numerous o1der people living on northern settlements who worked on stations during the latter half of the period under focus. Several have already been willing to co-operate and share their pre-war reminiscences

Financial Deregulation and Economic Growth in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland

Advocates of financial regulation, Arestis and Demetriades, argue that financial liberalisation does not impact on financial market efficiency and the allocation of investment. Results in this study find that Czech, Hungarian and Polish firms are subject to scrutiny when applying for credit. The firm’s ability to provide collateral, the potential of the proposed investment project and individual financial backgrounds are all factors that are used before loans are offered, and it likely that allocational efficiency is strengthened in these circumstances, and not weakened. Stiglitz has the view that financial repression improves the quality of the pool of loans. Results here indicate that companies in these countries previously had very limited access to credit while government owned companies and government projects received the bulk of credit. After deregulation it became apparent that the quality of the pool of loans was very poor. This study supports Shaw’s assertion that financial deregulation improves financial deepening.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40190/3/wp804.pd

Are You a Boy or a Girl? Show Me Your REAL ID

Although many official documents and forms of identification contain a sex or gender identifier, gender, as a category on these documents, is not very helpful in confirming a person\u27s identity. If the purpose of the inclusion of gender on official documents is to accurately identify an individual, technological advances have given us more accurate methods of ensuring a person\u27s identity. Technologies such as fingerprinting, facial recognition and retinal scans are far superior methods of determining whether a person is who they claim to be. The use of gender or sex on identification cards does little to positively identify individuals, and instead, creates problems for people who do not fall neatly into either of the two currently accepted categories of sex or gender. As a weak identifier, gender should not appear as a category on a state issued driver\u27s license or official identification card, yet states no longer have the authority to decide whether to require its inclusion. The REAL ID Act of 2005 recently went into effect, establishing requirements for state issued identification cards and driver\u27s licenses. The REAL ID Act requires states to issue driver\u27s licenses and identification cards that meet certain requirements to ensure more accurate identification in the post 9/11 world. The nine minimum requirements for information that states must provide on these cards include a person\u27s gender. Although critics have attacked the REAL ID Act on many grounds as an affront to civil liberties, as an unwelcome federal intrusion to a state\u27s police powers, or as the dreaded creation of a national identification card, I argue that the government should remove gender as a required identifier for two additional reasons. First, by barring any state from removing gender or sex from identification cards, the REAL ID Act prevents any state from removing these categories in an effort to reduce the complications of inclusion that a gender identifier inflicts on its gender variant citizens. Second, including a description of gender or sex is not an accurate method of identification, in no small part because gender and sex are not fixed and may later change, so should not be required under a federal law that ostensibly seeks to improve the accuracy of identity cards. This Article first examines the limits of legal classifications that view human traits as dichotomous. Next, it reviews the medical, scientific, and legal problems created by imposing a binary of sex or gender and the resulting problems this creates for many sexual minorities. Finally, this Article examines the REAL ID Act\u27s requirement to include gender, critiquing its inclusion as a poor identifier in light of current identification technology, and a problematic or discriminatory identifier for certain sexual minorities