Posts by blrme

  By: Pablo Urioste Bilateral Investment Treaties (“BITs”) are agreements between two governments to afford certain protections to the investors of the other.[1] Designed to increase the flow of foreign direct investment, over two thousand such treaties are currently in force.[2] A key appeal of BITs is access to investor-state arbitration.[3] Arbitration offers impartial third…

    By: Thabiso Faith Mutumhe On March 1, 2026, China’s amended Arbitration Law took effect, marking the first substantive revision of the statute since its original promulgation in 1995 and concluding years of debate over the scope of reform.[1] The amendment was widely anticipated to align Chinese arbitration practice with the United Nations Commission…

By: Khushi Palan As cities grapple with housing shortages and rising rents, local governments are increasingly cracking down on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb.[1] Recent regulatory regimes in various countries reflect a growing effort to reclaim control over local housing markets.[2] Airbnb, however, is not a conventional hotel chain operating fixed commercial premises.[3] It is…

By: Lola Campbell On May 13, 2025, the District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered defendants, OpenAI, to “preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted.”[1] While seemingly inconsequential, this court order actually speaks to a greater conflict between U.S. and EU law.[2] In short, the issue raised…

By: Nicholas Yun The 2026 Winter Olympics brought an unexpected legal controversy to the ice rink: music copyright licensing.[1] Several figure skaters at the 2026 Winter Olympics ran into unexpected problems with the music chosen for their routines.[2] In some cases, athletes were told only days before competing that their songs had not been fully…

By: Ariana Rokneddini Traditionally, a whistleblower is a member of an organization who exposes illegal misconduct that is occurring within that company.[1] Whistleblowing has historically played a role in federal enforcement.[2] Over time, Congress and regulatory agencies have increasingly recognized that insiders are often best positioned to detect complex financial misconduct.[3] As a result, modern…

By: Jasveen Kaur Commercial surrogacy has rapidly expanded into a multibillion-dollar industry, shaped by advances in assisted reproductive technologies and exposing critical gaps in existing legal and regulatory frameworks.[1] Assisted reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer, allow intended parents to rely on gestational carriers.[2] This transforms reproduction into a service…

By: Francesca Jaubert When President Trump’s second term in office began, he issued multiple executive orders to address two separate emergencies using the IEEPA statute.[1] The first involved a threat to public health caused by the influx of illegal drugs from Mexico, Canada, and China.[2] The drug trafficking tariffs against Canada and Mexico were at…

By: Joshua Pearson The Trump Administration has taken the unprecedented step of inviting private companies to apply for permits to mine the deep seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction.[1] The Administration notes that the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, an obscure statute enacted in 1980, provides the authority to conduct the action.[2] Relying on…

By: Rashonda Harris As technology continues to revolutionize financial services, the concept of open banking has gained momentum.[1]  Open banking involves facilitating access to consumer financial data with the ultimate goal of networking that financial data across financial entities.[2]  This provides consumers with increased choice and data portability for financial products such as bank accounts.[3] …