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While Waiting for Rain: Community, Law and Economy in a Time of Change
Critical Encounters with Habermas' Legal Theory
Interventions in Social Reproduction: Labor, Social Justice, and the Value of Human Life
Visionaries and Troublemakers: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at 50
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Message from Samantha Barbas, Director, The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
The Baldy Center magazine highlights recent University at Buffalo research focusing on law and social policy themes. Global research has flourished this semester with the return of faculty and students to campus, and pandemic-delayed research programs reactivated with immense productivity here in The Baldy Center.
The research highlighted in the Spring 2022 issue is global in scope, spanning four continents and diverse disciplinary arenas. In this issue, we present work that examines complexities in societal engagements with law, from the perspective of those developing and enforcing law and those responding to it.
We feature Ana Mariella Bacigalupo's work on shamanic justice and international human rights in Chile, and Ndubueze Mbah's investigation of unfree labor in colonial West Africa.
We present two Insight articles highlighting Walter Hakala's work on the language of law and bureaucracy in colonial South Asia and Linda Kahn's research about the remote technology adaptations made by drug courts during the pandemic. We look back to three legacy conferences that examined critical topics still relevant in today's context. And, we profile three University at Buffalo graduate students, who are pursuing exciting new research in law and society.
We invite you to browse our virtual magazine, and learn about the work of University at Buffalo researchers engaged in innovative work at the intersection of law, legal institutions, and social policy.
We welcome your comments.
In this edition
5/10/22 Personhood, Agency, Law, and Justice
5/11/22 Forging Autonomy in West Africa
5/11/22 Legacy Conference: Thinking beyond the Nation-State: Empires, Diasporas, and Indigeneity
5/11/22 Legacy Conference: Where Now? Moving Beyond Traditional Legal Geographies
5/11/22 Legacy Conference: Beyond Jurisdiction: Wetlands Policy for the Next Generation
6/8/22 Insight: The Language of Law and Bureaucracy
6/8/22 Insight: Remote Technology and Drug Courts
5/11/22 Insight: Scholars — Das, Khahaifa, Lebens-Higgins
Fan favorite group photo of the year
Personhood, Agency, Law, and Justice
Forging Autonomy in West Africa
LEGACY CONFERENCE
Beyond Nation-State: Empires, Diasporas, and Indigeneity
Beyond Jurisdiction: Wetlands Policy for the Next Generation
Where Now? Moving Beyond Traditional Legal Geographies
INSIGHT ARTICLE
The Language of Law and Bureaucracy
Remote Technology and Drug Courts
Scholar Profiles: Das, Khahaifa and Lebens-Higgins
FALL 2021 — SPRING 2022: MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION
THE BALDY CENTER BLOG
Post 30. Korydon Smith: Barriers (and Paths) to Achieving Universal Human Rights for People with Disabilities
Human rights have always varied from nation to nation. Disability rights are no different. The divergence widens from global to local levels – from international agreements, to national policies, to funding, to local implementation. The global strive toward equality remains uneven. Continue reading.
Post 29. Trina Hamilton: Why we can't buy our way to a more ethical diamond market
In 1998, the international NGO Global Witness published a report called A Rough Trade. This report outlined the diamond industry's role during the decades of civil war in Angola, and called on companies, such as DeBeers, to be more accountable and transparent while enforcing the embargo on conflict diamonds. Continue reading.
Post 28. Barbara Wejnert: Russian invasion of Ukraine is intricately linked to the struggle for democracy against autocracy
"Attacks on health care are part of Russian strategy, with Ukrainian civilians used as "chess pieces," explains World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on March 30, 2022. Continue reading.
Post 27. Robert Adelman: Growing Population and Diversity in Buffalo
Buffalo is more diverse in 2020 than in 2010, and immigration is a driving force in that change. Buffalo reached its peak population in the 1950 census, with the number of inhabitants declining for the next six decades. Continue reading.
Post 26. Judith Olin: Intimate Partner Violence in the Pandemic and Beyond
Dr. Jacqueline Campbell, PhD,MSN,RN, recently wrote a short piece in the Domestic Violence Report in which she reminds us that rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) homicides in the United States have been increasing since 2014. Continue reading.
Post 25. Joe Atkinson: Decision Support for Lake Ontario Water Quality Management
Current efforts are being conducted to develop models that can adequately simulate the nearshore regions of the lake, which typically exhibit algae-related problems, along with the deeper water environment, where the concern is primarily for fish. These models are continually evolving. Continue reading.
Post 24. Holly Buck: Do we need a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty?
Around the world, countries and companies are committing to net-zero targets, which are rapidly becoming a global norm. Reaching net-zero emissions by midcentury is in line with what the science says needs to be done to curb warming to safer levels. Continue reading.
Post 23. Letitia Thomas: Integrating Social Justice Theory into Engineering Practice
Engineering education has historically been limited in developing students' awareness of social justice issues, even though research tells us that students who are underrepresented (by class, race, gender, etc.) can be empowered and retained when participating in social justice projects related to engineering. Read more.
Post 22. Edward Steinfeld: Why is it so difficult to ensure equality of access to public toilets for all?
Why is it so difficult to ensure equality of access to public toilets for all? To find pleasant facilities? To implement design practices that support safety, health, and function? Public toilets have been around for over 2000 years! In recent years, restrooms have become the major spatial locus of conflict over trans* rights. But the trans* population is not the only one that has problems with restrooms. Human rights advocates recognize the importance of access to public toilets for dignity, health, and social participation. In low-income countries, providing safe and secure public toilets to reduce the spread of disease is a major public health initiative, especially important to support access to education and social participation by girls and women. Read more.
Post 21. Arabella Lyon: The Paradoxes of Precarity: Buffalo Refugees Reconsidered
Some legal scholars have responded to the liberal, autonomous subject by theorizing a vulnerable subject. In doing so, they recognize vulnerability as a universal and constant characteristic of the human condition. Alternatively, many humanists use a different conceptual frame which follows Judith Butler's distinction between precariousness as universal human vulnerability and the political state of precarity. Precarity is a useful critical tool because the rhetorical constructions of precarity demonstrate how activists and politicians create worldviews and assemble publics. Political cultures construct precarity, shifting the precarity of different people fluidly. On what days does the precarity of Afghan women exceed that of US soldiers? In an earlier study of the discourses surrounding Buffalo's refugees, I suggest that precarity is often denied or ignored, not just because people wish to be competent, but because dominant discourses obscure our ability to recognize precarity and its causes. Over a decade ago, Buffalo media occasionally worried about the precarity of refugees and their economic cost to the county. Now, it reports that refugees have stabilized the city's shrinking population, revitalized the city's West Side, and provided an inteRrnational economic network. Read more.
Post 20. G. James Lemoine: Why are so many political leaders unethical and what can we do about it?
Republicans wonder how New Yorkers could have ever supported disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, amazed that his polling among state voters remained so high throughout almost the entirety of the scandals of 2020-21. Meanwhile, Democrats are flabbergasted at the strong levels of support former President Donald Trump continues to receive from conservative voters, despite his numerous moral miscues. The rise and fall of these politicians (as well as that of countless others) offers fascinating evidence on the ethics of our elected officials, and other things that don't exist. Read the blog.
Post 19. Paul Linden Retek: 'Safe third countries' and our obligations to others
The devastating images of chaos and suffering in Afghanistan have left an indelible mark on citizens and policy-makers in the West. They have made the evacuation of those Afghans who served alongside U.S. and European militaries a moral obligation—and raised the question whether that obligation must extend, as well, to any and all Afghans who are imperiled by the return of Taliban rule. Read blog here.
Post 18. Carole Emberton: Monuments to the Enslaved
In the wake of George Floyd's murder in May 2020, a grassroots movement to remove, and in some cases reimagine, Confederate monuments has refocused national conversations about racial justice, memory, and public space. While some have lamented these removals as an effort to "erase history," others point out that these edifices represented only a mythologized past that itself erased the experiences of enslaved people and their descendants. Read blog here.
Post 17. R. Lorraine Collins: Medical and Recreational Cannabis Laws are being passed even though we do not know much about its effects
On March 31, 2021, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the New York Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act into law. The new law is designed to establish a framework for regulating the cannabis industry in New York and to providing adult access to recreational cannabis. The retail market likely will be launched in 2023, following the establishment of the Office of Cannabis Management and other necessary entities. Read blog here.
Post 16. Catherine Cook-Cottone: The Mindful Lawyer
The American Bar Association's (ABA) National Taskforce on Lawyer Well-Being released the The Path to Lawyer Wellbeing Report (2017). The report begins, "To be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer. Sadly, our profession is falling short when it comes to well-being." The report cites studies that reveal the high rates of chronic stress, depression and substance abuse among lawyers and law students, what they describe as the toxicity of the profession, and the stigma associated with help seeking behaviors. The report held as its central guiding principle that well-being is an indispensable part of a lawyer's duty of competence.
THE BALDY CENTER PODCAST
Episode 29: Anya Bernstein discusses judicial populism and the cultures of bureaucracy
Episode 29 of The Baldy Center Podcast features Anya Bernstein discussing judicial populism, the bureaucratic role of law clerks, and the dangers of exclusionary worldviews in law and society.
Episode 28: Matthew Dimick discusses wealth redistribution, income tax, Pareto optimality, and Marxism
In Episode 28, Matthew Dimick explains Pareto optimality and the differences between income taxation and legal rules for wealth redistribution. He discusses capitalism, Marxism, and how economists measure the effects various methods of redistribution may have on the economy.
Episode 27: Seth Parker Woods discusses the positioning of the cello in art performance installations
Episode 27 features Seth Parker Woods speaking about the cello and its use in classical music and performance pieces, including the ice cello. At the University at Buffalo, Dr. Woods is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar (2021-22) hosted by the Center for Diversity Innovation. In this podcast he discusses the Fluxus movement, Black composers, and using music and performance to create pieces that reflect events and social issues such as police brutality and the emotions they cause. This episode concludes with a performance by Dr. Woods of two pieces: Bach's Allemande; and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay's asinglewordisnotenough.
Episode 26: Rachael Hinkle discusses how briefs and lawyer experience can influence Supreme Court decisions
Episode 26 features Rachael K. Hinkle, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Hinkle speaks about her forthcoming book, co-authored by Morgan Hazelton, Persuading the Supreme Court: The Significance of Briefs in Judicial Decision Making. Hinkle discusses the process of analyzing tens of thousands of briefs, who's allowed to submit these briefs, and how these documents and who wrote them can influence Supreme Court decisions.
Episode 25: Victoria Wolcott discusses the Long Civil Rights Movement and utopianism
Episode 25 features Victoria Wolcott, a professor in the UB Department of History at the University at Buffalo, speaks about her upcoming book, Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement. Wolcott discusses activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Father Divine, and Howard Thurman, and how their shared belief in radical pacifism holds utopian yearnings.
Episode 24: Daniel Brantes Ferreira discusses sports betting arbitration in Brazil and beyond
In Episode 24 Daniel Brantes Ferreira, Baldy Center Research Fellow ('20-'22) discusses online sports betting and arbitration in Brazil. He describes how sports betting websites are hosted internationally, not in Brazil, and therefore those business operations are not regulated by Brazilian law. He identifies issues involving 'terms of services' on those websites. His research on mediation and other types of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) requires empirical data, as yet unavailable. He offers an insider's perspective on Brazil's arbitration process, as an 'ADR-friendly' country. Brantes Ferreira, a professor at Universidade Cândido Mendes, is an arbitrator and vice president for academic affairs at the Brazilian Center of Arbitration and Mediation.
Episode 23: Devonya Havis discusses the nature of truth and community practices for resistance
Episode 23 features Devonya Havis, PhD, a 2021-2022 UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Scholar, and, associate professor in Philosophy at Canisius College.
Episode 22: Jordan Fox Besek on climate change and life finding a way
Episode 22 of The Baldy Center Podcast features Department of Sociology Assistant Professor Jordan Fox Besek. Besek discusses his new project with Brooklyn College professor Daniel Shtob, humanity's relationship with nature, and climate change. He explores the ways in which humans effect the environment, sometimes producing poor outcomes despite green intentions, and the ripple effect those actions have.
Episode 21: John Henry Schlegel and David A. Westbrook discuss "the adventure of thinking"
From the heights of his long tenure at the University at Buffalo School of Law, in Episode 21 of The Baldy Center Podcast, Distinguished Professor John Schlegel discusses US economic history, American Legal Realism, and his lived experience with legal education over the last half century, in particular, Critical Legal Studies.
Episode 20: David Herzberg discusses repeated waves of addiction to pharmaceutical opioids and other medicines
Episode 20 features David Herzberg, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, University at Buffalo. Herzberg discusses repeated waves of addiction to pharmaceutical opioids and other medicines in the 20th and 21st century U.S.
Episode 19: Helen Drew and Marissa Egloff discuss diversity, equity, and inclusion in major sports leagues
Episode 19 features Helen Drew, Professor of Law, and Marissa Egloff, a third year JD candidate, in the University at Buffalo School of Law, discussing their research examining the number of women and minorities in executive or coaching positions in professional sports.
Episode 18: Samantha Barbas discusses her new book The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst: Free Speech Renegade
Episode 18 features Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law and Director of The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy in the University at Buffalo School of Law. Professor Barbas discusses her new book from University of Chicago Press (2021) The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst: Free Speech Renegade. In the 1930s and '40s,
THE BALDY CENTER SPEAKERS
Ehlimana Memišević (University of Sarajevo; Fulbright Scholar, Vanderbilt)
October 25, Monday, 684 Baldy Hall; 12:00 (Lunch) 12:30 p.m. (Speaker): Join us for the presentation by Ehlimana Memišević (University of Sarajevo),Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Challenges in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her research concerns the 1992–1995 war which involved systematic violence against the ethnic 'other' through the genocidal campaigns of 'ethnic cleansing and the widespread abuse of human rights. Denial of the crimes committed, including genocide, started immediately after or even during the genocide, and it changed forms over the time. Memišević will discuss how genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina is now used as an inspiration for terrorists and far-right extremists around the world. Learn more. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration.
Wang Feng (UC Irvine)
China's Age of Abundance: Origins, Ascendance, and Aftermaths
November 3, Wednesday at noon, join us for a presentation by Wang Feng, PhD (UC Irvine). Professor Wang Feng is a leading expert on Chinese demography and economic inequality. His research interests include comparative demographic, economic, and social processes, social inequality in state socialisms, and, contemporary Chinese society. The event, presented by the UB Confucius Institute, is co-sponsored by The Baldy Center. Learn more about this event.
Nicole Fox (Sacramento)
After Genocide: Memory and Reconciliation in Rwanda
February 18, 2022, 12:00pm
509 O'Brian Hall and via Zoom
Abstract: Memorials are powerful mechanisms for societies transitioning from mass atrocity to more peaceful ones. In this talk, Dr. Nicole Fox analyzes how memorials impact the aftermath of atrocity, documenting how state narratives to remember the past often marginalize financially distressed survivors, women, and orphans. Drawing on extensive interviews with Rwandan genocide survivors, and a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Dr. Fox reveals survivors' relationship to these spaces and how they impact various reconciliation processes. By analyzing the varied perspectives, decisions, and actions that create collective memories, Dr. Fox illustrates how the amplification of inequality over time shapes present-day crime, victimology, and law.
Anna Lvovsky (Harvard Law School)
March 11, 2022, 12:30pm ET
509 O'Brian Hall
"The Double Lives of Police Professionalism: Police Reform in Practice and in Court"
Ever since police professionalism rose to the center of debates about police reform in the mid-twentieth century, courts have invoked that concept as a reliable check on police misconduct. Whether trusting internal discipline to scour out misconduct or crediting professional training and norms with ensuring good judgment in the field, judges tout the central platforms of professionalism as bulwarks of legal compliance, supplanting the need for more intrusive remedies. Read more.
Michael J. Nelson (Pennsylvania State University)
April 1, 2022, 12:30pm ET
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary
Prominent explanations for appellate review prioritize the ideological alignment of the lower and reviewing courts. We suggest that interpersonal relationships play an important role. The effect of an appellate judge's ideology on her decision to reverse depends on the level of interpersonal contact between the trial and appellate judge due to information provided by social and professional interactions. Relying on a dataset of all published Fourth Amendment search and seizure decisions from 1953-2010, we find that interpersonal relationships can dampen the effect of ideology in appellate review. When an appellate and trial court judge have frequent contact, the effect of ideology on the appellate judge's decision to reverse is essentially imperceptible. These findings speak to the importance of relationships in principal-agent arrangements generally and have implications for the structure of the federal judiciary and our understanding of the limits of ideological judicial decisionmaking. Learn more.
Nate Holdren (Drake University)
April 15, 2022, 12:30pm ET
Via Zoom (only)
"Workplace Injury, Social Murder, and Law"
The United States has long been gripped by an economy which injures and kills many people in varying ways and with grim regularity, as have all capitalist societies. In the 1840s Friedrich Engels called this tendency social murder. The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest and most widely noted expression of this tendency. Legal and policy responses to the awful reality of social murder are pulled between a substantive effort to save lives, and a realpolitik aimed primarily at minimizing the consequences such killing has for institutionally powerful actors. Even when the priority of saving lives does prevail, that priority is often forced into compatibility with the imperatives of profit, resulting in people being consigned to poverty and exclusion, which has especially affected disabled people. Continue reading.
THE BALDY CENTER CONFERENCES
Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene
November 11 & 12, 2021: Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene.
Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference
LPE Workshop, June 9 & 10, 2022: Exploring The Law and Political Economy Difference. The multiple crises of the 21st century — covid, climate, financial instability, inequality, and rising authoritarianism – have spurred a new intellectual movement, Law and Political Economy (LPE).
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice
April 22 and 23, 2022: Join us online for the conference, Looking Back, Moving Forward: Law, Policy and Environmental Justice. The two-day virtual event critically examines the past, present, and potential future roles of the law and legal strategies to advance environmental justice (EJ) policy and action.
Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium
April 7, 2022: The Baldy Center is pleased to co-sponsor the 2022 Alison Des Forges Annual Symposium, entitled, Today's Socialism and Human Rights. This symposium will explore achievements and missteps in implementing socialism in China, India, Scandinavia, and Latin America. The event brings together participants who weigh socialism's value in addressing global challenges of climate change, economic inequality, and human rights abuses.
Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia
April 29 and 30: The University at Buffalo is proud to present the 2022 Rustgi Undergraduate Conference on South Asia by reflecting upon the rich history of South Asia and its connection to present-day conditions.
Workshop on Marx, Law, and the Administrative State
June 25, 2021, Marx, Law, and the Administrative State, workshop organized by Matthew Dimick. The online event is sponsored, in part, by: The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy; the University at Buffalo School of Law; and Legal Form.
Fan favorite photo of the year
Group photograph of in-person participants at The Bady Center conference, Fall 2021: Global Glyphosate: New Challenges in Regulating Pervasive Chemicals in the Anthropocene.
Standing, left to right: Fernando Ramirez (IRET, Costa Rica), Brian Williams (U of Mississippi, USA), Annie Shattuck (Indiana U, USA), Becky Mansfield (Ohio State, USA), Christian Berndt (U of Zurich, Switzerland), Marion Werner (SUNY-Buffalo, USA), Fernando Barri (Univ of Córdoba, Argentina).
Seated, left to right: Abhigya (Institute of Technology, India), Maria Soledad Castro (Autonomous Univ of Barcelona, Spain), Caitlyn Sears (SUNY-Buffalo), Poushali Bhattacharjee (SUNY-Buffalo).
Spring 2022 Multimedia Production Team
Jay Carreira
BA 2022, UB College of Arts and Sciences Honors College
Alexis Cohen
Rebecca Dingle
BA 2022, UB College of Arts and Sciences Honors College,
Caroline Funk, PhD
Associate Director of The Baldy Center
Edgar Girtain
PhD Candidate, UB CAS Department of Music
Debra Kolodczak, PhD
Website Managing Editor and UX Designer
Julia Merante
JD Candidate, 2023, UB School of Law
The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
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