The Pilmaiquén River is named after the swallow. Like the bird, the turquoise river makes a few quick and sporadic turns as it winds its way down from the Andean mountains toward the Pacific Ocean. In southern Chile, the Mapuche-Williche people hold the river as sacred to their culture. On We tripantu, the Mapuche new year which occurs on Austral winter solstice (June), the spirits of those who have died that year are known to travel up to the Wenumapu (the land above) when the river unites with the river of the sky, the Milky Way. Until We tripantu comes each year, these spirits live on animals in the river like birds and fish.

Call for Abstracts and Sessions. The first critical legal geography conference brings together transdisciplinary scholars to discuss the mutual constitution of space and law, broadly conceived. The conference in February 2024 (in Turin, Italy) will be the first of a series of annual meetings on critical legal geography.

We invite book chapter proposals of up to 500 words for an edited collection on the Legal Geographies of Intellectual Property. Proposals for theoretical chapters, literature reviews, empirical research findings, and case studies, and from across jurisdictions are all welcome. Please email your book chapter proposal by the deadline of 15 September 2023.

It will come as no surprise that cities in Southern California depend on water that originates far away. But a new change to the Colorado River compact, an agreement that divides the Colorado River’s water among the states that border it, threatens a quarter of Southern California’s water supply, driving residents’ source of water—as well as legal battles over access to this water—underground.

Bilateral negotiations to amend the Compact of Free Association (COFA) between the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the United States are currently underway. While frequently framed in terms of U.S geopolitics of the Pacific, we share lesser-known legal outcomes of the ongoing relationship between the RMI and the U.S.

Legal geography is a growing field. Cross-disciplinary efforts between geography and law abound, and scholars working at this juncture can now build on the previous work of key thinkers that have elaborated multiple theoretical and methodological foundations for future research. Yet in recent years there have been growing calls to more precisely define legal geography’s theory, methods, and research agendas (O’Donnell et al. 2020; Orzeck and Hae, 2020). Matteo Nicolini’s new book on legal geography answers this call and will be of considerable interest to legal geographers as well as a wide range of critical social scientists, philosophers, and academics in the legal professions.

Although economic development in countries in Latin America is often viewed as a strategy for reducing immigration to the United States, research shows that foreign investments are not necessarily the most effective strategy for reducing migration. In fact, economic investment may even fuel migration. Instead, the US should increase opportunities for legal labor migration by increasing and diversifying the labor visas available each year. Doing so could help address labor shortages, while also ensuring the safety of migrants who may otherwise take dangerous routes into the country.