ABOUT THIS COLLECTION

The Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law is published three times annually by the students of the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. The Journal publishes articles on a wide variety of international and comparative law topics in order to provide a forum for debate on current issues affecting international legal development including international and comparative law issues and tribal/indigenous peoples law.

The Journal has three major goals: to provide an opportunity for all members to publish articles on international and comparative law topics, to serve the publication needs of the Arizona Bar Association with respect to international law, and to provide practitioners, judges, and governmental bodies with a central source of information on international topics that increasingly arise in practice.

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Recent Submissions

  • From Smoot-Hawley to the Synthetic Opioid Crisis: The United States Postal Service as a Conduit for International Fentanyl Shipments [Note]

    Sklar, Lily (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    Over the last decade, the United States postal system has become an unwitting conduit for the international trafficking of deadly synthetic fentanyl and its precursors. This form of fentanyl trafficking has been made possible by an illicit pipeline that runs through China, Mexico, and the United States postal system. This Note will explore how the synthetic fentanyl pipeline emerged from a confluence of U.S. trade policy loopholes, the rapid expansion of Chinese e-commerce, and troubled counternarcotics diplomacy with China and Mexico. This Note will then discuss how attempts by the U.S. government to interrupt the fentanyl pipeline have so far proven inadequate and, at times, capricious. Finally, this Note will advocate for comprehensive and transparent policy solutions to fortify the U.S. customs sector against international narcotics trafficking.
  • Filling the A.I. Gap: How Domestic and International Law Fails to Protect Artificial Intelligence Whistleblowers [Note]

    Kiefer, Alivia (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    As artificial intelligence (A.I.) development accelerates beyond the reach of current regulatory frameworks, whistleblowers in the A.I. sector, particularly those employed by privately held firms, face a dangerous legal void. This Note identifies a critical regulatory shortfall, termed the “A.I. Gap,” where employees seeking to expose unsafe but not explicitly illegal A.I. practices are left unprotected under both U.S. and EU law. Through a detailed analysis of high-profile whistleblower cases, including the 2024 “Right to Warn” letter and disclosures by former OpenAI and Microsoft employees, the Note demonstrates how existing laws, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, the False Claims Act, and the EU Whistleblower Directive, fail to protect individuals who raise concerns about speculative or ethical A.I. risks. The Note also examines how non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are strategically used to suppress internal dissent and limit legal recourse. Ultimately, this Note proposes a multi-step reform framework to protect AI whistleblowers across internal, governmental, and post-disclosure stages, emphasizing the need for confidential, responsive, and independent reporting channels; statutory redefinition of whistleblowing to include risk-related concerns; and robust anti-retaliation safeguards. Without these reforms, the public remains vulnerable to unaccountable A.I. development practices and the individuals best positioned to expose them remain silenced.
  • Reconceptualizing Plastic Pollution Regulation in Nigeria, the U.S., and the U.K. from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Perspective [Article]

    Nwafor, Ndubuisi Augustine (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    Plastic pollution is an escalating crisis, yet Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) remains largely voluntary in certain countries. In Nigeria, weak regulations and a lack of corporate accountability worsen the problem. While the United States and the United Kingdom have stronger sustainability initiatives, CSR in these countries is still not explicitly legally mandated, resulting in inconsistent corporate efforts. Despite growing advocacy for stricter environmental policies, businesses are not legally required to take responsibility for plastic waste. This article explores how CSR can go beyond voluntary commitments to become a structured, enforceable approach to addressing plastic pollution. By comparing CSR models in Nigeria, the United States, and the U.K., the article assesses best practices that could help Nigeria develop stronger corporate sustainability policies. Ultimately, it advocates for a clear CSR framework that holds businesses accountable and ensures they actively contribute to reducing plastic waste and safeguarding the environment.
  • Balancing Innovation and Integrity: Australia's AI Ethics and Trust Regulation in Global Context [Article]

    Rahim, Mia Mahmudur; Chakraborty, Subrata (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in society, ensuring its ethical use and public trust is a global imperative. This paper critically examines Australia’s approach to regulating AI ethics and trust, comparing it with frameworks in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. While these jurisdictions adopt varied strategies—ranging from risk-based and sector-specific to principle-driven models—Australia relies primarily on voluntary standards, such as the AI Ethics Principles and the Voluntary AI Safety Standard. Despite their intent, these frameworks lack enforceability, leading to inconsistent adoption and limited accountability. The paper highlights key ethical challenges, including privacy breaches, algorithmic bias, and the absence of legal safeguards in high-risk AI applications. It argues that Australia’s current regulatory landscape is insufficient to address the rapid evolution of AI technologies. To bridge this gap, the authors propose a meta-regulation approach—one that integrates legal oversight with organizational self-regulation, fostering both innovation and ethical responsibility. This model offers a flexible yet accountable framework for embedding ethical principles into AI development and deployment. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for Australia to adopt a more robust, enforceable, and adaptive regulatory strategy to ensure trustworthy AI.
  • Editorial Foreword

    Diamond, Evan (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
  • Table of Contents

    The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025
  • Title Page

    The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025
  • Safeguarding American Ingenuity: A Comparative Analysis of International Trade Regimes in Mitigating Chinese Intellectual Property Theft [Note]

    Urban, Bella (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    The ever-present tension between the United States and China has heightened in recent years due to a rise in the theft of American intellectual property from Chinese semiconductors. Pharmaceutical intellectual property is at the crux of this issue, as a hit to this valuable market comes with severe penalties for the United States. Neither legislation from the World Trade Organization nor the more recent Phase One Trade Deal can present a viable solution for this issue, resulting in the need for a structural rebirth in international trade legislation. Previous discussions on this issue have touched on the need to rebalance the TRIPS Agreement and reassess the United States’ trade relationship with China. These arguments do not clarify the need to reformat the WTO as a whole and recognize the institution for what it is—a system that was not created to support the levels of innovation and technology that exist today; a system that certainly did not account for China’s contrasting market structure. This paper examines a new dynamic goal that would require 1) the WTO to hold China fiscally and criminally responsible for its unfair market practices; 2) the United Nations to create a new, encompassing multilateral trade agreement in the future; and 3) the United States to develop a concrete plan to decouple from China.
  • Contrasting the Republic of Cuba's "Codiga de las Familias" with Outcomes in the United States of America [Note]

    Madrid, Gabriel (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    The Republic of Cuba’s “Códiga de las Familias,” passed in 2022, marked a watershed moment in the country’s history, both in the mass involvement in the Code’s creation and in the Code’s enshrinement of rights for the island’s gay, disabled, women, elderly, and youth populations. Most prescient are the “alimentos,” or “nourishments” in this context, that citizens owe one another. This recent triumph is ripe for comparison with the country approximately 90 miles to Cuba’s north: the United States of America. Case law and material conditions for analogous populations in the United States are troubling. Jurisprudence in the United States rests upon a common notion of individual rights being asserted, a “bundle of sticks” from which one may exclude others rather than a series of duties one owes to their fellow countrymen. The scope of this paper is to argue that the Cuban Family Code and Cuba’s institutions provide greater exercise in the democratic process for its citizens than the United States through mass organizations, leading to better outcomes for Cuba’s LGBTQI+, elderly, youth, and disabled populations. A conclusion will follow and discuss prospects for how to improve both procedural and substantive outcomes for these marginalized groups in the United States.
  • Understanding the Scope of Protections Against Domestic Violence Available to Immigrant People in the United States and Other Countries Based on Relationship Status Versus the Nature of the Abuse [Note]

    Ramirez, Rachel Bunning (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    Relationships and immigration status have always been closely intertwined in our nation’s history. The relationship one is in can determine the types of immigration visas one can access and what protections they might be afforded. A foreign spouse of an American citizen gets priority for a visa and is extended protections should their American spouse abuse them. However, for immigrants with insecure status and no formal relationship with an abuser, these protections are much harder to obtain. By limiting protections based on one’s relationship status to their abuser rather than by focusing on the nature of the abuse itself, America is hindering domestic violence victims from accessing the help they need. This note looks at the domestic violence protections in America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden for immigrants with insecure status who are not married to their abusers and argues that when countries take a narrow approach in defining domestic violence and limit its protections to spouses, they are not protecting victims of abuse as they claim they want to. It also argues that by broadening the definition of domestic violence and removing relationship status requirements, more people will seek protection against their abusers.
  • The Rise of Distinct "Common Law" Financial Zones in Islamic Countries [Article]

    Huang, Flora; Yeung, Horace; Sa’dievich Narziev, Otabek; Kholmirzaev, Utkirbek (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    This article investigates four instances of the transplantation of English commercial law (broadly defined) into a different legal environment. The financial centers in Dubai (UAE), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Doha (Qatar), and Astana (Kazakhstan) have adopted a legal regime based on English Common Law, despite their national civil law and Islamic traditions. This choice on the face of it seeks to create an attractive business environment through optimal protection of market participants’ rights. This research appraises comprehensively, through a comparative perspective, the unique institutional and regulatory model adopted and practiced by the four zones: the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), Qatar Financial Center (QFC), and Astana International Financial Center (AIFC). There are three dimensions of comparison: (1) comparing the centers’ rules and regulations with their U.K. counterparts to reveal the degree of legal transplantation; (2) comparing the centers’ rules and regulations with their domestic counterparts to explore a potential regulatory gap between the two systems; and (3) comparing the four different regimes to reveal their potentially different experiences. Through a rigorous comparative examination of the experiences of the four zones, this research provides fresh perspectives to the need for robust law in economic and financial development, through legal transplantation to achieve such purpose. The four zones have provided an excellent natural experiment for these enduring theoretical debates.
  • Foreign Investments, Trade, and Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa and North America Under the West African Economic and Monetary Union and The United States-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreements [Article]

    Kouame, N’Guessan Clément (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    Many scholars have commented on free trade, foreign investment, and sustainable development. The three concepts are intertwined and underlie global trade and economic and legal discussions on countries' development. The multilateral trade system gave leeway to countries for regional integration under Regional Trade Agreements (“RTAs”), shaped as customs unions or Free Trade Areas. These agreements aim to maximize free trade within specific regions. Facilitating free trade brings more benefits in different ways and is a strong incentive for foreign investments. Foreign investments generate jobs and wealth and are fuel for development. However, free trade has downsides. Corporations are in the “race to the bottom” to take advantage of lax environmental, human, and worker rights regulations to increase their benefits and profit. Here comes sustainability to mitigate free trade's adverse effects on vulnerable countries and, more broadly, humanity. This study will comprehensively analyze the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the United States, Mexico, and Canada (USMCA), two major Regional Trade Agreements. The WAEMU treaty was signed in 1997 and amended once in 2003, while the USMCA, building upon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), entered into effect in 2020. The purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis to, in fine, show the WAEMU treaty's shortcomings regarding free trade, foreign investment policies, and sustainability, and how the USMCA, a more recent and innovative free trade agreement, can fill its gaps. Thus, this comprehensive and comparative analysis will have three parts. As a background and to set the scene, we will explain (I) the global logic of free trade agreements, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) representing the multilateral trade system and Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) in global trade. Then, (II) the USMCA and the WAEMU treaties will be sketched out individually before (III) our final comparative analysis and assessment of both treaties regarding free trade, foreign investments, and sustainability, followed by critiques, recommendations, and suggestions for improvements.
  • Ecocide: A Critical and Constructive Approach to Establishing a Fifth Crime Against Peace [Article]

    Ellenbeck, Clara (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
    Current legal frameworks fail to adequately criminalize international environmental destruction, necessitating a clearly defined international crime against the environment. While the Stop Ecocide Foundation’s proposed Article 8ter aims to establish “ecocide” as such a crime, its formulation remains flawed. This essay is both critical and constructive: it not only analyzes the limitations of Article 8ter but also seeks to resolve them by developing and proposing a new crime of ecocide.
  • Editorial Foreword

    Lanzas, Susan (The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025)
  • Table of Contents

    The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025
  • Title Page

    The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law (Tucson, AZ), 2025