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Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the difficulties involved in translating the social model of disability into the idiom of constitutional law. The immediate focus is University of Alabama v. Garrett. Both parts of this Article consider how disability rights claims collide with a discourse of legitimacy in constitutional law. Part I focuses on the arguments presented in several major Briefs filed in support of Garrett. Constitutional doctrines are conceived as paring tools and it is shown how the Court used these doctrines to easily pare down the body of evidence Garrett's lawyers sought to claim as relevant in justifying the ADA …

Environmental Certification Systems And U.S. Environmental Law: Closer Than You May Think, Errol E. Meidinger

Journal Articles

Many industrial organizations are committing to achieve improved environmental performance through non-governmentally instituted environmental certification programs. Such programs typically define the environmental standards that firms must meet as well as the organizational mechanisms required to achieve and "certify" compliance. Well known examples include the chemical industry's "Responsible Care" program, the International Organization for Standardization's "ISO 14000" environmental management program, and the Forest Stewardship Council's well-managed forests program.

Because of their ostensibly private and voluntary nature, environmental certification programs are often presumed to be separate and distinct from law. In fact, however, they are deeply intertwined with law, and seem likely …

The Anatomy Of An Institutionalized Emergency: Preventive Detention And Personal Liberty In India, Derek P. Jinks

Michigan Journal of International Law

Despite many indications of an emerging transnational consensus on the scope of human rights law, fundamental disagreements persist. These disagreements are, in many respects, structured around important cleavages in the international community such as: North/South, East/West, and capitalist/socialist. Whether these cleavages are understood as cultural, economic, or political, international lawyers must develop a better understanding of the specific practices that generate divergent interpretations of human rights standards. Without such an understanding, these factions seem to underscore an irreducibly political conception of human rights. Indeed, the prospects of a global "community of law" turn on the degree to which fundamental differences …