Arts and Humanities Commons^™

What Personal Rules Can Teach Us About Basic Institutions, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A National Issue: Segregation In The District Of Columbia And The Civil Rights Movement At Mid-Century, Wendell E. Pritchett

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Varieties And Vicissitudes Of Lochnerism, Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

This article is a contribution to the Lochner Centennial Symposium at Boston University School of Law. Until recently, a consensus appeared to be emerging among constitutional historians concerning how best to interpret Lochner-era decisions involving Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment challenges to state and federal economic regulation. After decades during which the Court's jurisprudence had been characterized as the product of a reactionary judiciary's commitments to Social Darwinism and laissez-faire economics, more recent scholars had come to see the Court's police powers decisions as animated by what Professor Howard Gillman has called the principle of neutrality. On this view, the Court's …

Managing Gerrymandering, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

Last spring, in Vieth v. Jubelirer, the Supreme Court addressed a claim of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering for the first time since having held such claims justiciable, 18 years earlier, in Davis v. Bandemer. Vieth was a fractured decision. All nine Justices agreed that partisan gerrymandering is of constitutional moment, a substantial majority declaring that excessive partisanship is unconstitutional. The Justices also united in rejecting the particular gerrymandering test advanced in Bandemer. There agreement ended. Four Justices proposed three tests to replace the unmeetable Bandemer standard. A four-member plurality would have overruled Bandemer more completely by holding that partisan gerrymandering claims …

The Pimple On Adonis's Nose: A Dialogue On The Concept Of Merit In The Affirmative Action Debate, Tobias Barrington Wolff, Robert Paul Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

Efforts at progressive educational reform in general, and affirmative action in particular, frequently encounter a rhetorically powerful objection: Merit. The story of merit proclaims that high-achieving applicants - those who have already made effective use of educational opportunities in the past and demonstrated a likelihood of being able to do so in the future - enjoy a morally superior claim in the distribution of scarce educational resources. Past achievement, in other words, entitles an applicant to a superior education. This moral framework of merit serves as a constant counterpoint in debates over affirmative action, including those contained in the Court's …

Responsibility For Unintended Consequences, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

The appropriateness of imposing criminal liability for negligent conduct has been the subject of debate among criminal law scholars for many years. Ever since H.L.A. Hart’s defense of criminal negligence, the prevailing view has favored its use. In this essay, I nevertheless argue against criminal negligence, on the ground that criminal liability should only be imposed where the defendant was aware he was engaging in the prohibited conduct, or where he was aware of risking such conduct or result. My argument relies on the claim that criminal liability should resemble judgments of responsibility in ordinary morality as closely as possible. …

The Protestant Revolutions And Western Law, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward A Rule Of Law Society In Iraq: Introducing Clinical Legal Education Into Iraqi Law Schools, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

This Article details my experience introducing clinical legal education into three Iraqi law schools. I highlight some of the cultural, legal and logistical obstacles that existed, and the means my colleagues and I used to circumvent them. By and large we considered our project at least modestly successful and certainly garnered the interest of many faculty and nearly all students who participated. Nevertheless, the extent of our success depended largely on the cooperation of the faculty and administration at the law schools with which we worked, and we were able to achieve the most at those institutions where cooperation was …

The Lugano Case In The European Court Of Justice: Evolving European Union Competence In Private International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

On October 19, 2004, the European Court of Justice held its first en banc hearing since the 2004 enlargement to twenty-five Member States. The case was Opinion 1/03, involving a request by the Council of the European Union on whether the Community has exclusive or shared competence to conclude the Lugano Convention. While the case on its face deals only with a single convention, it has far broader implications and is likely to influence the development of private international law and private law on a Community level for years to come. This brief article traces the origins of the issues …

The Ten Commandments As Secular Historic Artifact Or Sacred Religious Text: Using Modrovich V. Allegheny County To Illustrate How Words Create Reality, Ann N. Sinsheimer

Articles

In his essay, The 'Ideograph: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology', Michael Calvin McGee proposes that our system of beliefs is shaped through and expressed by words. We are consciously and unconsciously conditioned and controlled by the words we hear and use. Words carry ideology and convey and create meaning. Like Chinese characters, words are 'ideographs that 'signify' and 'contain' a unique ideological commitment', that is frequently unquestioned. McGee also suggests that by understanding that a single word can carry ideology and that ideology can be expressed in a single word, we are better able to expose and evaluate ideology …

The Rule Of Law: China's Skepticism And The Rule Of People, Pat K. Chew

Articles

The West believes that without formal legal rules (the rule of law), how society operates is not transparent. This opaqueness in how things get done discourages trade, including foreign investment, which in turn makes overall economic development more difficult. Instead of predictable legal rules, the fear is that the void will be filled with unpredictable and arbitrary human indiscretions. Furthermore, the West believes that the absence of the rule of law makes the basic protection of human and civil rights problematic.

However, the Western view of the rule of law is not the only model. Alternative cultural assumptions about the …

The Dignity And Humanity Of Bruce Springsteen's Criminals, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this essay, I discuss Springsteen's criminals by focusing on two albums, Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, and Springsteen's title song to the movie soundtrack Dead Man Walking. These are classic albums about criminals and prisoners, and "Dead Man Walkin’" may be one of the best songs ever written about being on death row. Before getting into the music, I first note the historical context - Springsteen's career has taken place during a particularly hostile time for lawbreakers - and offer a brief biographical sketch of Springsteen.

Mary And Isis, Lorin Geitner

Lorin C. Geitner

An examination of the degree to which the modern conception of the Virgin Mary was affected and influenced by the cult of Isis.

Imaginatively Public: The English Experience Of Art As Heritage Property, Joseph Sax

Joseph L. Sax

No abstract provided.

Vrijheid En Straf. Ontstaan En Ontwikkeling Van Straf En Strafrecht In Het Denken Van P.W.A. Immink (1908-1965), Mireille Hildebrandt

Mireille Hildebrandt

Internationaal terrorisme en ander vormen van grensoverschrijdend geweld roepen oude en nieuwe vragen op ten aanzien van de relatie tussen wraak, straf, vete en oorlog. Waar houdt het strafrecht op en wat wacht ons daarna: een rechtsvrije ruimte, oorlog(srecht) en/of alternatieve geschillenbeslechting? In hoeverre kunnen de instrumentele en rechtsbeschermende aspecten van het strafrecht vorm krijgen in crisissituaties die de macht van de nationale staat lijken uit te hollen? In hoeverre beschermt het strafrecht onze vrijheid en (hoe) kan die vrijheid vorm krijgen buiten het gezag van de staat? In 'Vrijheid en straf' wordt studie gemaakt van het werk van de …

Tradition, Tech, And Transformation: Information Technologies And The Intellectual Property Of Indigenous Peoples, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Changes brought about by the globalization of laws and markets, and the geometric expansion of technological innovation, make intellectual property issues nebulous and mercurial, to the point that keeping pace with changes in the field is a full-time pursuit requiring a high degree of skill and dedication. For nations-within-nations, as is the status of most Native groups worldwide, intellectual property presents a particularly difficult legal and political problem, as indeed intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes challenge the sovereignty of even the strongest and most 'modern' of nation-states. Authorities on the protection of traditional knowledge (TK), resources, and cultural expressions assert …

Tattoos On Our Digital Skin: Anonymity, Privacy, And Accountability In Cyberspace, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

While it may be oddly flattering that Chapters, Amazon or HMV knew you would like the new Johnny Cash compilation album, you may be less than thrilled to discover that they also knew about your prescription drug addiction, your crabs, your bankruptcy, or your having skipped out on the rent one month back in 1993. When you add the possibility of your favourite e-retailer sharing your personal information- for a profit- to the frank probability of their having known it in the first place, what you initially found flattering may begin to appear more offensive and ominous. Simply put, there …

The Opacity Of Transparency, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

Waiting For Some Angel: Indigenous Rights As An Ethical Imperative In The Theory And Practice Of Human Rights, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

This article uses the stalled Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the impetus for an examination of arguments championing and opposing the framing of Indigenous rights as human rights. Failings both theoretical and practical – in the conceptualisation, promulgation and interpretation of human rights – have long left Aboriginal peoples at a disadvantage. The dual focus of Indigenous claims is unique in the rights lexicon, asserting the right to be simultaneously different from and equal to the majority population. Yet Indigenous rights are often perceived, by governments with the power to block their progress, as a threat …

Desafios Da Constituição Europeia À Teoria Constitucional, Paulo Ferreira Da Cunha

Paulo Ferreira da Cunha

The project of the “Treaty that establishes a Constitution for the Europe”, beyond its political consequences, puts some challenges to the classical constitutional theory. At first sight, it seems completely heterodox towards canon constitutional tendencies, and first of all in what concerns the constituent power classical theories. However, a more rigorous analysis of the history of the modern constitutionalism and its founding texts, mainly French, can lead us to detect very revealing bridges between the liberal modern constitutionalism of the XVIIIth century and the present constitution making of a codified European Constitution. The “treaty” formula that was adopted also represents …

Present Moment: A Zen Reflection On Indian Law Doctrine, Frank Pommersheim

Frank Pommersheim

No abstract provided.