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This Comment seeks to resolve an ongoing dispute among courts regarding the correct interpretation of “contrary to law” in 18 U.S.C. § 545, a statute that criminalizes the unlawful importation of goods. In particular, courts disagree about whether “contrary to law” includes administrative regulatory violations, which would massively expand the applicability of § 545’s severe criminal penalties.

The federal abstention doctrines govern the narrow circumstances under which a district court can decline to hear a case even though it has proper jurisdiction. One of those doctrines—Burford abstention—has generated a morass of confusion over when it applies and what goals it is meant to achieve. To find a way out of the morass, this Comment looks at contemporaneous developments in doctrines of federal court review—and at the procedural history of Burford itself—to pinpoint the precise problem that Burford abstention was created to solve.

The Supreme Court has deemed the right to exclude one of the most fundamental property rights. Accordingly, the Court has offered the right to exclude heightened protection under the Takings Clause. However, the Court has left significant uncertainty about the scope of the right to exclude that is protected under takings doctrine. For instance, does the Takings Clause require compensation if the government, pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Liability Act (CERCLA), requires a landowner to house another party’s pollutants? This Comment draws from property theory and analytical jurisprudence to offer a new approach to takings analyses concerning the right to exclude.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is in full swing, and while no one knows what the results of the games will be, we do know one thing: no matter who wins, there will be people mad at the referees.

For centuries, courts and legal commentators defined “jurisdiction” by reference to a court’s “power.” A court that lacked jurisdiction, under this conception, simply lacked the ability to bind the parties, and its resulting rulings could therefore be regarded by both litigants and later courts as void and of no legal effect.

Implementation is at the core of lawmaking in our divided government. A rich literature covers the waterfront with respect to agencies’ implementation of legislative mandates, and another equally robust line of scholarship considers Congress’s implementation of treaties. Missing from those discussions, however, is another area of implementation central to U.S. foreign relations: the implementation of transnational regulatory agreements. This Article examines how federal agencies have harnessed far-reaching discretion from Congress on whether and how to implement thousands of international agreements.

The Fair Housing Act is a groundbreaking federal law enacted in 1968 during the civil rights movement. Reflecting a policy judgment that the public’s interest in eliminating housing discrimination outweighs a prejudicial landlord’s property right to exclude, it prohibits landlords from rejecting tenants on a discriminatory basis. However, as the Act’s promises remain in the process of fulfillment, the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid has placed it into unprecedented danger: by holding that a regulation authorizing temporary occupations of private property constituted a per se taking that requires compensation under the Takings Clause, Cedar Point threatens the constitutionality of the Act, which grants tenants a similar temporary right to access rental properties. This Comment takes up the task of finding an escape valve for the Act within the current legal landscape.

Pharmaceutical litigation often begins when a generic drug company files an application to have its generic drug approved by the FDA. That application is received by the FDA in the District of Maryland. To “submit” it is a statutory act of patent infringement under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Establishing venue in subsequent Hatch-Waxman litigation can be complex because Hatch- Waxman litigation often involves simultaneous and independent lawsuits against many generic applicants. A Hatch-Waxman plaintiff might reasonably attempt to consolidate litigation in a single district court; Hatch-Waxman defendants might reasonably resist consolidation in the plaintiff’s preferred venue. Recent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit case law has narrowed venue options for Hatch-Waxman plaintiffs. This Comment argues for an interpretation of Hatch-Waxman’s statutory act of patent infringement and the patent venue rules that moves toward a centralized venue for Hatch-Waxman litigation in the District of Maryland.