Justice Partners Journal — Ten fields of United States law

Crated stone fragments on a pallet inside a customs inspection hall beside a scanner and a wheeled cart.

Import Restrictions on Cultural Property

American import restrictions on antiquities do not follow from a foreign country's ownership law. They follow from a bilateral agreement, a published list of material types, and a documentary test applied at the border to the object in front of the officer.

5 min readFederal law

Immigration & Naturalization

Automatic Revalidation for Short Trips to Canada and Mexico

Regulation permits an expired nonimmigrant visa to be treated as automatically extended to the date of application for readmission where the holder departed only to contiguous territory for thirty days or less, holds an unexpired admission record, has maintained status, and returns within the period. Students and exchange visitors may also use adjacent islands. Applying for a new visa while abroad ends the benefit, and nationals of designated state sponsors of terrorism cannot use it.

6 min readFederal law

Tribal & Indian Law

The Montana Exceptions and Civil Authority Over Non-Members

Under Montana v. United States, the inherent sovereign powers of a tribe do not extend to the activities of non-members. A tribe may regulate non-members who enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its members through commercial dealing, contracts, leases or other arrangements, and may regulate conduct that threatens or directly affects the political integrity, economic security, or health or welfare of the tribe. Both exceptions require a nexus to the regulation asserted.

6 min readFederal law

Antitrust & Competition

Second Requests and How They Reshape a Deal Timetable

Where an agency needs more than the initial waiting period, it issues a request for additional information and documentary material before that period expires. The waiting period is then extended until thirty days after both parties substantially comply, or ten days in a cash tender offer. Because the parties control the pace of production, the practical timetable is set by negotiated timing agreements rather than by the statute.

6 min readFederal law

Immigration & Naturalization

The machinery behind an immigration case — admission, presence, documents, vetting and review.

All articles

Automatic Revalidation for Short Trips to Canada and Mexico

A nonimmigrant whose visa has expired but whose status has not can leave for a few days and return without applying for anything. The provision is narrow, it is conditioned on where the traveler went, and one ordinary decision cancels it outright.

6 min readFederal law

The Ninety-Day Rule on Misrepresented Intent

6 min readFederal law

Notarial Services at an American Consulate

6 min readFederal law

The Petty Offense Exception and Its Narrow Arithmetic

6 min readFederal law

Status and Unlawful Presence Are Two Different Clocks

6 min readFederal law

Trade & Customs

What crosses the border and what it costs — classification, origin, valuation and remedies.

All articles

Substantial Transformation and Non-Preferential Origin

For most purposes the origin of an imported article is determined by the substantial transformation test: whether processing in a country produced a new and different article of commerce with a name, character or use distinct from that of the materials it came from. Codified tariff-shift rules in 19 CFR Part 102 govern marking for certain agreement partners and all textile goods, and preferential origin is governed by the rule of origin in the agreement itself.

6 min readFederal law

First Sale Valuation and Whether It Survives Audit

In a series of sales culminating in importation, the earlier sale may be used as the basis of transaction value where the importer establishes that the sale was a bona fide sale, that the goods were clearly destined for export to the United States at the time of that sale, and that the parties dealt at arm's length free of any nonmarket influences. The burden rests on the importer and is met with contemporaneous documents rather than with assertions.

6 min readFederal law

Scope Rulings and Circumvention in Trade Remedy Cases

Scope questions under an antidumping or countervailing duty order are decided by the Department of Commerce, which reads the order's language with the petition, the investigation and the determinations of Commerce and the International Trade Commission. Where those sources are not dispositive it applies criteria on physical characteristics, purchaser expectations, use, channels of trade and advertising. Circumvention proceedings extend an order to goods assembled elsewhere or slightly altered.

6 min readFederal law

Tribal & Indian Law

Sovereignty, jurisdiction and the federal trust relationship as they work in practice.

All articles

A gravel section road running between fenced pasture and a plowed field under a wide overcast sky. — A right-of-way through a reservation carries a different rule than the pasture on either side of it.

The Montana Exceptions and Civil Authority Over Non-Members

6 min readFederal law

Who Prosecutes a Crime in Indian Country

6 min readFederal and state

Taking Land Into Trust and the Objections That Follow

5 min readFederal law

Federal Acknowledgment and the Petition Process

5 min readFederal law

Public Law 280 States and What the Transfer Did

5 min readFederal and state

The Indian Child Welfare Act: Notice, Placement and Active Efforts

6 min readFederal and state

Tribal Sovereign Immunity and How It Is Waived

5 min readFederal law

Gaming Classes and the Compacts Behind Them

6 min readFederal and state

Military Justice & Veterans Appeals

Two procedural systems: the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the benefits appeal chain after service.

All articles

Total Disability Based on Individual Unemployability

A veteran whose service-connected disabilities prevent substantially gainful work may be paid at the total rate without reaching a hundred percent under the schedule. The route has fixed percentage gates, an extraschedular safety valve, and an evidentiary center of gravity in work history.

5 min readFederal law

Discharge Characterization and What It Costs Later

5 min readFederal law

The Article 32 Preliminary Hearing and What It Decides

5 min readFederal law

The Physical Evaluation Board and Medical Separation

5 min readFederal law

Appellate Review After a Court-Martial

5 min readFederal law

Mining & Mineral Rights

Who owns what is under the ground, and what the law requires before it is taken out.

All articles

Surface Mining Permits and the Reclamation Bond

Surface coal mining requires a permit from the state regulatory authority under an approved program, or from the federal office where none exists. The application carries ownership disclosures, hydrologic analysis and a reclamation plan the regulator must find achievable. A performance bond is set at the cost for a third party to complete that plan, and it is released in phases as backfilling, revegetation and the liability period are successively completed.

6 min readFederal and state

Locating an Unpatented Mining Claim on Federal Land

A mining claim is created by discovering a valuable mineral deposit on land open to location, marking the boundaries so they can be readily traced, and recording the notice of location both under state law and with the Bureau of Land Management. No agency approves the location. The claim conveys a possessory right to the minerals and to surface use reasonably incident to mining, and it remains valid only while the discovery holds.

6 min readFederal law

Abandoned Mine Liability and the Good Samaritan Problem

Liability for an abandoned mine runs to owners and operators under the environmental cleanup statute and to anyone discharging pollutants under the water statute, without regard to who caused the contamination. A volunteer who improves conditions short of meeting water quality standards can become the responsible party for what remains. The federal reclamation fund, financed by a fee on coal production, pays for official work but reaches coal sites first.

6 min readFederal law

Space & Satellite Law

A regulated industry with three licensing regimes and one treaty framework above them.

All articles

A charred metal fragment with torn edges lying on frozen ground beside a measuring tape and a numbered marker. — Recovered debris is where an abstract treaty obligation becomes a question of who compensates whom.

State Liability for a Satellite Under Treaty

6 min readTreaty and international

Registering a Space Object and Why It Matters

6 min readTreaty and international

Licensing a Launch and a Reentry

7 min readFederal law

Space Resources and the Non-Appropriation Principle

6 min readTreaty and international

Orbital Debris Mitigation and Post-Mission Disposal

6 min readFederal law

Export Control on Space Hardware: Which List Applies

6 min readFederal law

Spectrum Authorization and the International Filing Chain

6 min readTreaty and international

Licensing an Earth Station and Where It May Be Built

6 min readFederal law

Antitrust & Competition

The rules on agreements, monopoly and mergers, and who is allowed to enforce them.

All articles

Second Requests and How They Reshape a Deal Timetable

A second request converts a thirty-day pause into an open-ended investigation controlled largely by the party being investigated, because the clock does not restart until the parties themselves certify that they have finished producing.

6 min readFederal law

Private Antitrust Suits: Standing, Indirect Purchasers and Treble Damages

7 min readFederal and state

Exclusive Dealing and Tying Arrangements

7 min readFederal law

Price Discrimination Under the Robinson-Patman Act

7 min readFederal law

Proving an Agreement From Parallel Conduct

6 min readFederal law

Franchise & Distribution

Pre-sale disclosure, the relationship that follows, and how it is allowed to end.

All articles

Personal Guaranties and Who Is Left Owing

A franchise guaranty is ordinarily a continuing, unconditional, joint and several undertaking by the owners to answer for every obligation of the franchisee entity, with the usual suretyship defenses waived. It does not expire when the outlet closes or when the franchise is sold; release requires an express written instrument. Where a spouse with no ownership interest must sign, federal credit law is implicated, though courts divide on whether a guarantor is protected.

6 min readFederal law

Territory Rights, Encroachment and Reserved Channels

A franchise territory is defined by the grant clause and narrowed by the reservations that follow it. Exclusivity is usually limited to the placement of another outlet of the same brand within a described area, while the franchisor reserves alternative channels, non-traditional venues, national accounts and the right to operate acquired systems. Encroachment claims therefore rest on the implied covenant, on state relationship statutes, or on statements contradicting the disclosure document.

6 min readState law

What Makes an Arrangement a Franchise

Under the federal trade regulation rule, an arrangement is a franchise where the operator receives the right to sell under the grantor's trademark, the grantor exerts or promises significant control over or assistance to the operator's method of operation, and the operator must pay the grantor or an affiliate a required sum before or within six months of opening. All three elements must be present, and the label the parties used is irrelevant.

7 min readFederal law

Art & Cultural Property

Title, provenance and the movement of objects that countries do not want moved.

All articles

Import Restrictions on Cultural Property

5 min readFederal law

Immunity From Seizure for Works Loaned to Museums

5 min readFederal law

Stolen Art: Demand, Refusal and the Clock

5 min readState law

Repatriation of Remains and Objects Under NAGPRA

5 min readFederal law

Artist Moral Rights and Works Attached to Buildings

5 min readFederal law

Resale Royalties and Why the United States Has None

6 min readTreaty and international

Provenance and the Limits of Buying in Good Faith

6 min readState law

Authentication Disputes and Why Experts Stopped Opining

5 min readState law

Legal Ethics & Responsibility

The rules that govern lawyers themselves, and what happens when they are broken.

All articles

Imputation and Screening a Lateral Hire

A conflict held by one lawyer is treated as a conflict of every lawyer in the firm. The model rule allows a firm to keep a matter by walling off an incoming lawyer, but only on conditions, and a number of states have never accepted the mechanism at all.

6 min readState law

Fields of law

This journal

Justice Partners Journal — Ten fields of United States law