Below is the design specification for this site:
if you are interested in working on this site, either the web design or the legal content, email patrick.williams@idealdemocracyproject.com
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"to find and reward..." and "search site box" and "sign in"
Social Justice Moot Court Competition H1
four buttons: all h2 links [large buttons that drop down menus with a max of 7 items that are all h3 links, except what is a moot court, which is h2]
1. Moot court competition/...banking/ (...FHB ...BH ...blog)...criminal-justice (sentencing-inequity-inequality-minorities war-on-drugs) ...international law ...native-aboriginal-rights ...consitutional-law-and-reform...submit-your-topic ...root/What is a moot court? root/mock-trial (...what is a mock trial?)[7 links]
2. What is social justice?/ ...civil rights ...criminal justice ...environmental justice ...legal justice ...social justice policy ...environmental justice ...economic justice ...global justice (...social justice issues in ~ [America, Latin America, Japan, etc])
3. Social responsibility/ ...social problems and social change [main overview page] (...root/what is social injustice? ...root/social rights and social equality) ...activism (...two-week-Apple-boycott ...about-Tibet ...Tibet-map) ...advocacy ...social justice curriculum
4. Get involved now/ ...donate (site development; prizes; curriculum development; activism/advocacy, ...help with website design... join a competition ...contribute content (to site and social justice curriculum)...be a faculty advisor, curriculum developer, or judge ...activism-advocacy
paragraph description, in three or four columns (so it works on the iphone): three headings:
1. this will be a collaborative community project,
2. how the whole thing works (with FHB as first topic)
3. lots of small details (submit topics, become a sponsor, donate, work on site)
links at bottom: link to us, donate, contact us, socially media links, our sponsors (TrustPlanning.com), site map, resources (links, books, organizations, etc.) join newsletter, student blogs, student videos, student resumes, competition submissions, competitions results, faculty web pages (with resume--faculty needs career advancement too), site in French, Chinese, Spanish, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, etc (use flags and language for links)
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all above should be above the fold for a large laptop. and should display well on an iphone. simple, clean, not a lot of text. it should be dig-able, like-able, tweetable and inviting.
Also need design of second page and all other aspects (sign up, search engine, wikipedia-like article and content creation, donation, contact, student blogs and resumes, file submission by students, video library of student submissions, page where students can identify what they would like to make public and have their own home page for job seeking and identity building, etc. etc.)
find some place to use socialjustice as one word on the site, perhaps on a URL/link (70k searches)
put a lot of work on the mock-trial sub page as it gets 60k searches and moot court gets only 27k
picture in background of law students, executives talking in groups or meetings, courts in sessions, legal documents, and awards (paper with ribbon being handed out, could be graduation). Alternatively: scenes of non social justice--war, poverty, technology, civil rights, women suffrage, war on drugs, etc.--hard to show
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add content about how this is a collaborative, experimental effort to redefine how lawyers and other experts work together as teams to change the world for the better.
The social justice moot court and mock trial competitions will be held online. This competition presents an alternative to traditional moot court competitions. As with traditional moot court, each moot court team consists of small teams. However, the online component allows more flexibility in the inclusion of experts and collaboration between schools, such as LLM (masters in taxation), CPA programs, public policy departments and even different law schools. This mirrors more the reality of dealing with complex, real-world cases.
link: The moot court competitions will involve drafting a brief, and then arguing that brief before a team of judges. The oral argument will be conducted via internet video call, thereby allowing student teams to participate from the comfort of their home or school.
Social Justice Moot Court competitions will be based on similar moot court competitions, such as the World Human Rights Moot Court Competition and the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Moot Court Competition. However, the activities and research topics will extend beyond the basic moot court competition, to address larger issues: the effective transformation of society through legislation; and the effective design and implementation of public policy. The Social Justice Moot Court does not just offer a training exercise for future lawyers, but also offers training and competition for social and governmental leaders, as well as public policy advocates and researchers.
Link: How will this moot court work? How is it different from other moot courts?
There are three inter-related aspects to consider: 1) social justice, 2) legal reform, 3) public policy. Therefore, participants in Social Justice Moot Court activities will examine the law in three stages:
1. Evaluation of an real-life individual case, such that participants can see, fully contextualized, why there may be systemic injustice. This will be a traditional moot court.
2. Legislation forms the basis of the common law, thus in the next stage (after the moot court) participants in the next level of the competition seek to understand what specific changes in the law are needed to reform the laws to more fully meet the needs of society. There can be quick fixes, local fixes (as in state law or temporal- or regional-specific issues), national legislation, right on up to the sacred alter of constitutional reform, and even beyond to what... if one were to write a manual for newly created nations (such as South Sudan), or newly democratizing nations.
3. Finally, the guiding principles of public policy are examined for that area of the law and society. This includes not only traditional public policy areas—economics and funding priorities, extra-judicial regulation and regulatory bodies, and so on, adopted by the government—but also include the broader sociology of public attitude (levels of collective consciousness, eduction and awareness of the people) and the interaction of individuals and special interest groups as they seek to advocate their causes and agendas. All this needs to be seen in a historical perspective. An example of why such meta analysis is critical can be seen in an any attempt to meaningfully answer the question, "Why does the United States have the world's highest rates of incarceration?" and also in answering the question, "Why are African Americans—and others, such as Native Hawaiians—so over represented in prisons?"
The initial plan is to examine one topic/case a year. At each stage, hopefully there will be prize money and scholarships (as a part of the Social Justice Scholars program). Link Donate now...
Initial topic to be examined:
We will start the Social Justice Moot Court competitions with banking reform, using a case involving First Hawaiian Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of what, by assets, may be the world's largest corporation, the French-based bank, BNP Paribas. This case will interleave with other topics... theft of natural resources, sovereignty issues of native peoples, corporate responsibility to its people, appropriate remuneration of corporate leaders, etc.
Link:We will examine the need for a shift from corporate-centered laws to a society that protects individual rights. We will look, as a starting example, at the abuse of power by large corporate trustees in the area of personal trusts. This could broaden out to discuss issues of corporate power and identity and world bank financing and control of developing nations. A local bank (First Hawaiian Bank) located in what until recently was an independent kingdom or republic (Hawaii), being an example case study of the issues involved with international banking—in sovereign developed nations, in developing nations, and in nations that are (or were until very recently) colonies.
This topic welcomes submissions and comments.
Subsequent topics will include:
3 links:
1. Native/aboriginal sovereignty. The focus will move from specific topis such as land and mineral rights to the larger question of return of self-rule. The case of Hawaii will be used as a starting point as it is a recent enough event that it is clearly documented (there is even a legislative apology). It also nicely meshes with the first moot court competition involving First Hawaiian Bank (BNP Paribas). First Hawaiian Bank gained its foothold as a dominant force in the colonization of the Kingdom of Hawaii by its founder, Charles Bishop, who promoted the trading the port of Pearl Harbor to the United States in exchange for a favorable sugar importation treaty. This is a deal that favored Bishop's sugar plantation owners, but was obviously detrimental in the long run to the native Hawaiians self-rule and traditional, sustainable agrarian systems of land management and land ownership and rights. This is an interesting and complex topic with applications to international law, land rights, mineral and water rights, and environmental law. This topic welcomes submissions and comments.
2. The United States' lack of participation in international law (land mine treaty, world court). What would happen if our political leaders were tried under the same rules as the rest of the world leaders? Is it an international human rights violation for the United States to not contribute to the elimination of land mines? Could our signing this treaty have had any impact on IEDs deployed in Iraq against US service personnel? Joint Chief of Staff General Shelton's recommend to President Clinton that the U.S. not join the World Court. President Clinton did not forwarding his signed agreement onto congress, thus preventing our joining the World Court (ref. Sheltons' book). General Shelton states emphatically that the war in Iraq was not only unnecessary, it destroyed our ability to be successful in Afghanistan (and one assumes prolonged the Afghanistan war, caused more bloodshed in A--not to mention Iraq). If Clinton had This topic welcomes submissions and comments.
3. Inequity in sentencing for drug-related offenses, the criminalization of drug abuse (without treatment), the efficacy of the US war on drugs and its (we hope) unintended effect in other countries. It is estimated that over 60% of the Mexican economy is drug-related and that 20% of the economy of the united states is related to illegal drug use (think not just of end-user purchase of illicit drugs, but also: drug manufacture and distribution, the domestic and intentional war on drugs (e.g. the long-term US military presence in Columbia and foreign aid), drug abuse treatment programs, local and federal law enforcement, bank activity involved in money laundering, etc.).
A huge part of this is the criminalization of being black. See The New Jim Crow by attorney Michelle Alexander. Cite Statistics here:
This topic welcomes submissions and comments.
Users are invited to submit topics for consideration for future moot court competitions.
Donate to this program and support Social Justice Moot Court competitions.
Become a Social Justice Sponsor (individual, professor, corporate, or law school).
The program will be set up such that one's submission can be used as a part of a law student's inevitable search for a well-paying, meaningful job and career.