The Madrid Protocol: Filing International Trademarks Is Realistic

By Lauren Salatto-Rosenay

Lauren Salatto-Rosenay graduated from Albany Law School in July of 2023 (summa cum laude), completing law school in an accelerated two-year academic track. She received her undergraduate degree from Quinnipiac University (summa cum laude) in 2020 with degrees in Theater and Media Studies.

While at Albany Law School, Lauren was an editor for the Albany Law Review.

Prior to law school, Lauren worked as the Company Manager for the Legacy Theatre in Branford, CT. All her life, she has enjoyed being involved in theater productions, whether as a performer, stage manager, director, set designer, playwright, working on the administrative side, or as a theater critic with the CT Critics Circle. Most recently, Lauren co-wrote and co-directed “Joan Joyce! The Musical,” a musical about the greatest female athlete in history. It premiered at the Legacy Theatre in 2021, and just had another great run at the Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury, CT in October of 2023.

Lauren also just completed a summer associate position with Reitler, Kailas & Rosenblatt LLP in NYC, working in their entertainment law department. Lauren is pursuing a career in entertainment law. 

As companies and markets globalize, it is beneficial to trademark and business owners to learn how they can easily and realistically extend protection for their trademarks in various foreign nations. This paper explains how the Madrid Protocol (the “Protocol”), an international trademark registration treaty, can be utilized by United States trademark owners to extend protection of their marks to other member countries of the Protocol. This paper breaks down the process, costs and benefits of filing international trademarks through the Madrid Protocol. Additionally, this paper considers how foreign applicants can seek to extend protection of their trademarks within the United States through the Protocol under §66 of the Lanham Act.

The Protocol creates a centralized filing system that streamlines the process of applying for trademark protection in multiple countries. Now, the international application can be filed in one language, one currency and with one fee. While still growing, the Protocol currently has 114 members and covers 130 countries.

____________________________

To read the paper, open HERE.

“If I Could Change the World, I’d Have World Peace”: The Inevitability of War and Sovereignty’s Influence

By Megan M. Tylenda*

Megan Tylenda is a 3L and will graduate from Albany Law School in May 2024. Prior to law school, Meg graduated summa cum laude from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, a Bachelor of Science in Sociology, and a double minor in Global Engagement and Peace Studies/Violence Prevention.

At Albany Law, Meg has served on the Student Bar Association as a 1L Senator and 2L Senator and is currently the Executive Treasurer. She is the Executive Editor for Miscarriages of Justice for Albany Law Review. Additionally, she has worked for Dean Rosemary Queenan and Professor Christine Chung as a Research Assistant and interned with the NYS Third Judicial District Office of Court Administration and the SUNY System Administration’s Office of General Counsel.

Also, Meg is also a Lifetime Girl Scout and enjoys baking desserts and spending time with her cat, Beans. Following graduation, Meg hopes to practice in the education and employment law fields.

* J.D. Candidate, Albany Law School, 2024; B.A., Philosophy, B.S., Sociology, Virginia Tech, 2021. Many thanks to Professor Vincent M. Bonventre, Justice Robert H. Jackson Distinguished Professor of Law, Albany Law School, for a terrific International Law of War & Crime Seminar in 2022. Thank you to the staff of International Law Studies for your work.  All views and errors are my own.

World peace is an optimistic and sought-after concept.  However, no matter how desirable, world peace is unattainable. This is blunt, but it is the truth. Given the innate human nature to wage war, the use of sovereignty to create and sustain war, and the international rules that govern any and all action towards war-driven states, world peace is but a mere dream.

This Paper addresses the prospect of world peace through the lens of sovereignty, specifically with regard to the role sovereignty has played in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The notion of sovereignty has been invoked throughout this conflict in a way that has disrupted traditional United Nations mechanisms that exist to mitigate conflict. 

By examining the inherent loopholes in this aspect of international law, it is reasonable to believe that world peace –or, more pointedly, the absence of global violence and injustice; “positive peace”– will never come to fruition. 

_________________________

To read the paper, open HERE.

The U.N.’s “Responsibility to Protect”

By Alexandra Galus

Ali Galus is a 2023 Albany Law School graduate. She grew up in Buffalo, NY, and received Bachelor's degrees in Political Science and International Studies from SUNY Cortland.

While in law school, Ali was a member of the Government Law Review, serving as their Managing Editor for Research and Writing in her 3L year. She was also heavily involved in the Moot Court program and served as the Domenick L. Gabrielli Appellate Advocacy Competition Chair in her 3L year as well.

Ali has done several internships within the New York State government, including at the New York State Department of Health, the Office of the Attorney General, and the New York State Assembly. She will be pursuing a career in civil litigation, starting at Napierski, Vandenburgh, Napierski, and O’Connor this fall.

The official purpose of the United Nations is “[t]o maintain international peace and security; to achieve international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; [and] to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these common ends.”  The United Nations (“UN”) places a strong focus on international peace and security, as the catalyst to the development of the UN was an international conflict.

However, despite that being one of the UN's basic principles, the organization hasn't always been successful in achieving that goal. In the seventy-seven years since the UN was founded, there have been several armed conflicts, wars, and genocides that have occurred on its watch. The UN has fundamentally restructured how to approach sustaining international peace and security as a result of some startling failures. Some of these failures were not the organization's fault directly. But they were still perceived as contributing to the catastrophes in some way.

What was the UN’s response to the disastrous failures? The introduction of the “Responsibility to Protect” Doctrine. To determine whether the "Responsibility to Protect" Doctrine was the correct response to address the UN’s earlier failures, this paper will examine the UN's most significant errors in carrying out its previous missions, as well as the adoption of the doctrine and its overall success.

___________

To read the paper, open HERE.

Operation Paperclip of World War II

The Allied Control Council, Arthur Rudolph, and the Great Brain Drain 

By Lukas Moller 

Lukas Moller is a 2023 graduate of Albany Law School. He grew up in Altamont, NY. He received his Bachelor of Arts, Summa Cum Laude, in Honors History from SUNY Albany. While at Albany Law School, Lukas interned for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, Goldman Sachs Ayco Personal Wealth  Management, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.Lukas will be joining Goldman Sachs Ayco Personal Wealth Management, focusing on tax, trust and estates and securities matters. Lukas wrote this paper for Professor Bonventre’s International Law of War and Crime Seminar.

A night out in Huntsville, Alabama may involve a Huntsville Havoc hockey game, a concert, or a rodeo at the Von Braun Center, a multi-purpose facility located in the middle of downtown Huntsville. [See Best Places to Live in the U.S. in 2023–2024, U.S. NEWS, https://realestate.usnews.com/places/rankings/best-places-to-live.] The Von Braun Center is named after Wernher Von Braun, a German rocket scientist who spearheaded the NASA space program that sent astronauts to the Moon in 1969. [See National Aviation Hall of Fame, Wernher Von Braun, https://nationalaviation.org/enshrinee/wernher-von-braun/.]

Although his name is enshrined in a popular event destination, Wernher Von Braun had a very checkered past as a member of the Allgemine-SS branch of the Nazi party throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. In the summer of 1945, the United States Army transferred Von Braun and his associates to America and commissioned them to work in the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. Von Braun was not alone, and the covert operations to resettle German scientists in the wake of World War II is now known as Operation Paperclip.

Not only was the operation covert from the American public, but it was covert from the Legislature (and the Judiciary) to keep government agencies and even President Truman from delaying or canceling the program. This essay will address the possible international law implications if the operation was made public prior to 1984, and if the “interest of national security” outweighed the harboring of possible war criminals.

___________________

To read the paper, open HERE.

International Law Studies Staff, 2023 - 2024

Director   Vincent M. Bonventre

Student Editorial Board, 2022 - 2023
Editor-in-Chief

Edad Mercier is a 3L at Albany Law School. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College, where she majored in History. Edad is also a Law Clerk with the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York and a student member of the National Lawyers Guild. She is interested in human rights law, international law, and prisoners' rights. Her work has been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, and the Journal Of Anthropological And Archaeological Sciences. She is also on the editorial board of the Middle Eastern Journal of Research in Education and Social Sciences.

Executive Editor

Priscila Galambos is a rising 3L at Albany Law School and is originally from Sarasota, Florida. She hopes to focus her studies on international law and human trafficking in particular. She is the Student Editor-in-Chief of the New York State Bar Association's Environmental Lawyer Journal, as well as the Vice President of the Latin American Law Students Association at Albany Law School. She is dedicated to representing disadvantaged populations and learning more about international criminal law.

Executive Editor

Joseph A. Anias is a third-year student at Albany Law School. He grew up in Westchester, New York, and graduated from SUNY The College at Brockport, studying Political Science and Philosophy.  

Throughout his time in Albany Law School, Joe has served as the Associate Board Member for Moot Court, Subeditor for Government Law Review, and Teaching Assistant for Criminal Law and Introduction to Lawyering I & II. He is currently serving as the Competition Chair for the Karen C. McGovern Senior Prize Trials Competition and as Associate Editor for Government Law Review.  

Joe has interned with the Third Judicial District of the New York State Unified Court System, New York State Office of the Attorney General Litigation Bureau, Albany District Attorney's Office, and New York District Attorney’s Office. After graduation, Joe hopes to work as a criminal law attorney.

Executive Editor

Rachael Brown is a second year JD candidate at Albany Law School.  She graduated from SUNY New Paltz where she majored in International Relations and minored in Disaster Studies. At Albany Law she is a member of Government Law Review and the Women's Law Caucus. 

She spent the summer following her first year at Albany Law as an intern with the Honorable Daniel J. Stewart in the Northern District of New York. 

______________________

For previous years' staffs, click HERE.