Privacy law stands at the intersection of individual rights, government regulation, and societal norms, shaping the landscape of healthcare, reproductive rights, and personal freedoms. In today's world, where advancements in technology and shifts in political landscapes continuously redefine the boundaries of privacy, grasping the significance and dynamic applications of privacy law is growing increasingly crucial. This roundtable explores three distinct realms where privacy law exerts its influence: gender-affirming healthcare, abortion rights, and government surveillance.

The role of international organizations in regulating and enforcing global conventions and agreements is both potent and tenuous. On the one hand, institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union are backed by the power of legal jurisdiction over all states that subscribe to their authority. On the other hand, because this authority stems from the states themselves, the institutional capacity to meaningfully intervene and adjudicate in state matters is, to a certain extent, perpetually unsettled. This constant tension between legal mandate and practical capacity defines many international organizations. One of the many sensitive issues these organizations and conventions must tackle is the question of limits to the right to privacy, which has become a flashpoint in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic given the unprecedented level of data sharing and public health monitoring that states have undertaken to address the public health crisis.

The adjudicative capacity of human judges, and hence the outcome of a process of legal dispute resolution, can be impacted by a great number of circumstances – the judge’s reliance on intuition, their personal beliefs, and even how long ago they last ate. [1] The proposition of (metaphorically) seating Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the bench is thus, prima facie, attractive, because, surely, computers can be more objective than human beings. A commonly held view by proponents of using AI in an adjudicatory role is that algorithms are more objective because they are thought to overlook ancillary characteristics like gender and race, which are generally not relevant to the legal question at hand, and towards which humans hold implicit biases. [2] Moreover, using AI in an adjudicatory capacity could potentially help in lowering the costs of administering justice, and streamline dispute resolution; indeed, this was the motivation behind Estonia’s use of AI to resolve certain small-claims cases. [3] AI then seems like a panacea to the twin ills of inefficiency and non-objectivity in judicial decision making. However, there are compelling pragmatic and principled reasons, both pragmatic and principled, against involving AI in the judicial decision making process.

Concerning the responsibilities of medical professionals and the rights of their patients, medical law primarily covers issues of negligence, ethics, and confidentiality. [1] With its far reaching scope, medical law has long been addressed, beginning with the Hippocratic Oath in the Greek classical period. [2] This oath addresses several concerns of medicine, particularly focusing on a doctor’s duty to care for their patient to the best of their ability, uphold doctor-patient confidentiality, and instruct future generations of doctors. [3] Though the Hippocratic Oath remains valuable in the medical profession, medical law in the United States has been particularly shaped by landmark cases on negligence, medical malpractice, and confidentiality. Such cases set important precedent both for medical jurisprudence as well as for the medical profession as a whole.

In 1735, Peter Zenger was put on trial for publishing newspapers critical of the New York colonial governor. His lawyers defended him on the grounds that truth and veracity superseded libel, stating “the exposing of public wickedness…is a duty which every man owes to truth and his country.” [1] Zenger was acquitted, and thereby set a precedent for freedom of speech and liberty of the press in the annals of American history. However, at the turn of the century, anxieties over a war with France complicated the issue, and the precedent was ignored by the now-infamous Alien and Sedition Acts. Passed by the Federalist in 1798, the acts were a series of four laws designed to fracture their political opposition by criminalizing any perceived criticism or subversion of the government. The logic used to justify these civil oppressions was the exigent circumstances of a potential war—that age-old societal plague that has captivated our fascination and horror for millenia, the harbinger of revolution, empire, and atrocity.

As the mental health crisis in the United States grows, the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety have more than tripled since the coronavirus pandemic began. [1] The question of what legal protections exist for those with mental illness within the realm of healthcare is more prevalent than ever. There are certain protections in place through the ADA for individuals suffering from mental health illnesses such as blocking employers from discriminating against individuals with mental illness conditions, right to privacy of medical information, and providing accomodations when needed. [2] Since the inception of the ADA, there have been great strides in the implementation of the ADA’s provisions within covered entities. However, many barriers still existed despite the implementation of the ADA. Stemming from inadequate provisions in the policy itself, the ADA failed to mandate parity between mental and physical disability benefits.

The legal history of the recognition of labor rights consists of judicial balancing between employers’ business interests and laborers’ interests in fair labor practices. In post-revolutionary labor combination cases, union members were fined because English common laws were still in use––under which making labor combinations was an indictable offense. [1] In the case Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), seven journeymen in Massachusetts were charged for forming a union. [2] The Massachusetts Supreme Court established that labor combinations were not inherently illegal unless an organizations’ goals or practices were themselves fraudulent, false, forceful, or otherwise “criminal or unlawful.” [3] Later, The Supreme Court In re Debs (1895) upheld the federal government’s ability to use injunctions against labor strikes. [4] In 1894, employees of a railroad car manufacturer went on strike and disrupted business in the Chicago area. [5] Strike leaders refused to halt their activities after an injunction was issued in federal court. On appeal, the Supreme Court sided with the employers to protect the public’s interest in interstate commerce. [6]

Integral to a strong republic is the existence and protection of its secrets. Failing to safeguard sensitive information could endanger the safety and security of a nation, as well as that of its citizens. Throughout history, nations across the globe have kept secrets — whether they involve the preservation of military strategies, intelligence, or covert communications, making sure that a country’s secrets stay secret is critical to the establishment and conservation of their power.

In order to understand the legal means that allow us to keep our governments accountable for environmental damage, it is crucial to have a holistic perspective on the evolutions and historical foundations of environmental law.

Environmental litigation is based on a recently established legal framework. Indeed, most major environmental statutes were passed between the late 1960s and early 1980s, with the most significant pieces of legislation passed during the Nixon administration. [1] On January 1, 1970, Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, an important first step in the emergence of national environmental goals and policies. Later that year, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has since become a key institution in environmental law. Two of the most important laws governing the EPA were passed by Congress over the next two years: The Clean Air Act of 1970, which directs the EPA to set standards for what kind of pollutants may be released into the air, and the Clean Water Act of 1972, which instructs the EPA to set standards for what pollutants may be released into lakes, streams, and rivers. Although this legal framework is fairly recent, it has been quite static: the US has gone almost 30 years without major new environmental legislation. This inactivity, attributable to the growing partisanship of the environmental issues, means that while the climate crisis is rapidly accelerating—the last five years in human history were the five hottest on record—we are currently handling environmental crises with decades-old legislation.

The perception of humanitarian intervention has recently shifted from a mere subset of international law governing the use of force to a legitimate, legal reason for war. Using humanitarian intervention as a justification for foreign interference has become increasingly commonplace in the international arena. However, despite its widespread application, the use of this justification remains highly controversial; critics point out that the humanitarian label runs the risk of masking the hidden geo-political motivations of nations.

The beginning of the Biden Administration was characterized by a distinct shift away from the immigration policies of the Trump Administration. Namely, President Biden’s recent temporary guidelines for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to redefine the grounds for deportation. These provisions centered around deporting individuals who recently crossed the border, pose a threat to national security, or have committed “aggravated felonies.”

We are the only country with a written constitution that does not prohibit discrimination based on sex,” Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA-14) noted before the House of Representatives on Wednesday, March 17. Speier spoke moments before the body voted on H.J. Res. 17, an effort intended to remove the ratification deadline on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The three-sentence resolution will reach its 98th birthday this year. After Virginia ratified the amendment in 2020, it finally has the required thirty-eight states to theoretically pass.

In the midst of a global pandemic, signs of hope have started to emerge from beneath the shadow of COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 has killed millions and fundamentally changed the world, but there is cause for optimism with the development and implementation of life-saving vaccine technology. Faced with an unprecedented public health crisis, experts agree that the quickest way for the world to return to normal conditions involves vaccinating as many people as possible, establishing herd immunity, and decreasing the transmission of COVID-19.

Across the United States, states have taken steps to address homelessness, ranging from the enforcement of state supreme court decisions to the passage of sweeping legislation. At the same time, individual state legislatures have become battlegrounds for homelessness rights in states that attempt to reduce the visibility of homeless individuals rather than address the systemic issues behind the rise in homelessness. To this end, many states have resorted to indirect anti-homelessness legislation, including laws and ordinances that ban loitering and begging. This Roundtable addresses state laws on homelessness, the intersection of judicial activism and homelessness, the 19th century roots of UK law on homelessness, and the path toward decriminalizing homelessness.

Abortion is one of the most intimate and difficult choices many women make at least once in their lives. Indeed, almost one in four American women have an abortion by age 45. Opponents of abortion, however, claim that Americans have long opposed this medical practice and frame Roe v. Wade as an “anomaly.” However, the history of abortion in the United States reveals how common and necessary the procedure has been. This Roundtable explores abortion law prior to Roe v. Wade, the Roe v. Wade case itself, abortion law following Roe v. Wade, and the future of abortion law.

Diversity is an exalted concept for many reasons, ranging from its practical relevance to operational performance, to its broad promise of social inclusion. It is this latter appeal that has rendered diversity, in the eyes of many, a veritable democratic ideal. This Roundtable explores how affirmative action became such an explosive national debate, beginning with Bakke, continuing through Harvard College, and projecting into the future.

While platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have resisted being labeled as publishers, their decisions over what and what not to moderate increasingly mirror the domain of editorial organizations. Compounding the issue is these companies’ outsized influence as intermediaries, and even gatekeepers, for human expression. In general, legislators have exempted social platforms from responsibility for what their users publish. This Roundtable will explore the development of the law that cements this protection: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.