Law Commons^™

The Syracuse Conference On A World Rule Of Law: American Perspectives An Introduction, Malcolm M. Feeley

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

The working group was charged with exploring virtually all facets of democracy and the rule of law, as they pertain to established constitutional democracies, societies undergoing "transitions to constitutional democracies," and those societies where democracy remains little more than a hopeful wish. Papers and much of the discussion during the two days probed beneath the structural formalities that are obvious and important requisites of democracy, to explore the subtexts of and cultural conditions for democracy and the rule of law, those features that may be so taken-for-granted that they usually go unacknowledged, let alone unexplored in discussion of democratic theory. …

Fighting International Crime And Its Financing: The Importance Of Following A Coherent Global Strategy Based On The Rule Of Law, Herbert V. Morais

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Roads To Democracy, Lawrence M. Friedman

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

Of course, "democracy" is not a simple concept; and no two systems that claim to be democracies are exactly the same. The "rule of law" is if anything an even more contested concept. For the purposes of this paper, we do not really need to define democracy rigorously. A society with a reasonable dose of freedom of speech and the press, freedom of religion, more or less fair elections, and the customary package of basic human rights, respected (on the whole) by the government, qualifies as a democracy. These will also tend to be societies that respect the rule of …

The Tension Between Legal Instrumentalism And The Rule Of Law, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

At the heart of the United States legal culture lie two core notions that exist in deep tension with one another: the idea that law is an instrument, and the rule of law ideal. Although they continue to coexist despite this tension, there are indications that the instrumental view of law is putting a serious strain on the rule of law ideal. The substantive version of the rule of law is the idea that there are legal limits on the government: there are certain things the government cannot do, even when exercising its sovereign lawmaking power. This version of the …

American Society And The Rule Of Law, Philip Selznick

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

I am here to bring some thoughts about my own country's experience in trying to understand the meaning of the rule of law and to make good on its promise. I will have to take up some issues in jurisprudence, and also some aspects of American legal history. I do not apologize for combining jurisprudence and sociology of law, for that combination faithfully reflects what we are trying to achieve in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program (JSP) in the Boalt School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. I begin with some comments on the meaning of the …

Regional Economic Arrangements And The Rule Of Law In The Americas: The Human Rights Face Of Free Trade Agreements, Stephen Powell

Stephen Joseph Powell

In past studies, we explored the more visible and controversial linkages between international trade law and non-trade issues that span a broad range of vital interests we may collectively describe as human rights law. We have addressed the widespread criticism that international trade rules are insensitive to basic human rights and that globalization has done little with its enormous power to preserve exhaustible natural resources and otherwise promote sustainable development, to alleviate the gap between rich and poor, to encourage states to grant their citizens basic human rights contained in U.N. treaties, to resolve the often conflicting policies underlying essential …