Law Commons^™

Promises To Keep: Diplomatic Assurances Against Torture In Us Terrorism Transfers, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

“Diplomatic assurances” are promises not to torture. They are sought when transferring a detainee from the custody of one government to another. Not surprisingly, they are sought from governments that typically torture.

This report surveys the law and practice of assurances in the US and, comparatively, in Canada and Europe. It is the culmination of a long-term engagement by Columbia’s Human Rights Clinic and its faculty to research and support advocacy on diplomatic assurances. That process has involved advocacy with Swedish NGOs, support for research by Human Rights Watch, FOIA requests with the ACLU and collaborative efforts with UN mechanisms. …

Investment Promotion Agencies And Sustainable Fdi: Moving Toward The Fourth Generation Of Investment Promotion, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, World Association Of Investment Promotion Agencies

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In April and May 2010, CCSI supported WAIPA to conduct its annual survey. This report, Investment Promotion Agencies and Sustainable FDI: Moving toward the Fourth Generation of Investment Promotion, benchmarks the responses of IPAs regarding sustainable FDI and its four dimensions (economic development, environmental sustainability, social development, governance) and finds, among other things, that these are unevenly addressed by investment promotion strategies and investment incentives. The report also draws attention to the desirability of attracting sustainable FDI, rather than focusing on volume of investment alone.

In 2017, CCSI also helped the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) to conduct …

United States Response To Questionnaire Concerning The Terms Of Protection In The Field Of Copyright And Related Rights, June M. Besek, Jane C. Ginsburg, N. Orly Leventer, Joshua L. Simmons

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Human Rights And Domestic Violence: An Advocacy Manual, Human Rights Clinic

Human Rights Institute

Though international law is traditionally called “the law of nations,” it governs far more than relations between the countries of the world. International human rights law pushes the boundaries of State responsibility and allows individuals to directly demand accountability for both governmental action and inaction that violates basic human rights. International human rights treaties declare the minimum standards by which States (i.e. nation-states, or countries) are expected to comply. The theme of the 2010 Fourteenth Annual Domestic Violence Conference at Fordham Law School, “Expanding Our Vision: Human Rights, Victims’ Rights, and Approaches to Diverse Families,” for which this manual was …

"Petitions Without Number": Women’S Petitions And The Early Nineteenth-Century Origins Of Marriage-Based Entitlements, Kristin Collins

Studio for Law and Culture

Between 1792 and 1858, Congress enacted approximately seventy-six public law statutes granting cash subsidies to large classes of military widows. War widows’ pensions were not wholly unknown in Anglo-American law before this time, but the widows’ pension system of the early nineteenth century was distinctive in both scope and kind: Congress rejected the class-based approach that had characterized war widows’ pensions of the eighteenth century by pensioning widows of rank-and-file soldiers, not just widows of officers, and by extending pensions to widows of veterans. This significant equalization and expansion of widows’ pensions resulted in the creation of the first broad-scale …

Knowledge Games, Truth Seeking, And Organ Transplants Regulation, Marie-Andrée Jacob

Studio for Law and Culture

In this paper, I examine how different relations to knowledge are enacted among experts working in the governance of kidney transplants. Using fieldwork material gathered in transplant hospital and bureaus, I analyse how legal knowledge transacts with expert and lay knowledge in the context of very pragmatic tasks: detect the "intention to donate" and the "altruistic motivations" of those who procure a kidney to someone in need. My focus is on the management and circulation of knowledge, rather than the object of knowledge - transplants. Here, the law assigns its regulatory power onto experts, and the committees of experts in …

Rca V. Whiteman: Contested Authorship, Copyright, And The Racial Politics Of The Fight For Property Rights In Musical Recordings In The 1930s, Kurt Newman

Studio for Law and Culture

Between the Progressive Era and World War II, African American jazz music became the source of big profits for some white entrepreneurs in the United States. The encounter between whites and jazz was both a propertization and a privatization of African American group resources. While new technologies of recording and radio broadcasting were critical factors facilitating these cultural enclosures, the sine qua non was the embeddedness of American intellectual property law in the logic of white supremacy. In this paper, I focus on the popular jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman, best known to most contemporary legal scholars as the defendant in …

“Wife Beating” And “Uninvited Kisses” In The Supreme Court And Society In The Early Twentieth Century, Elizabeth Katz

Studio for Law and Culture

This paper challenges the conventional narrative that domestic violence victims were ignored by both law and society in the early 1900s. It begins by questioning the dominant position a single Supreme Court tort case, Thompson v. Thompson, holds in the domestic violence discourse. Far from being a strong or unified statement in favor of family privacy or against battered women’s legal rights, the case was decided by a four-Justice majority that pointed victims toward two very public alternative remedies: divorces with alimony and criminal prosecutions. The paper then proceeds to evaluate whether these proffered remedies were available and sufficient. …

Hobbes And Wolf-Man: Melancholy And Animality In Modern Sovereignty, Diego Rossello

Studio for Law and Culture

Homo homini lupus, man is a wolf to man, remains one of the most well-known and often quoted dictums in the tradition of political theory. Political theorists take this phrase by Thomas Hobbes in the Epistle Dedicatory of De Cive to illustrate the brutish, anarchical and violent condition of man in the natural condition, prior to the establishment of a civil state. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I suggest that this brief passage directs our attention to lycanthropy: an acute melancholic syndrome which 17th century physiologists thought could turn humans into animals. I suggest that Hobbes’s political theory stands for a …

The End Of Al Qaeda? Rethinking The Legal End Of The War On Terror, Adam Klein

National Security Law Program

As the war on terrorism approaches its second decade, the open-ended nature of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) has given rise to the legal question of when, and how, the conflict will end. The indeterminate nature of the conflict has raised fears that the war powers will continue to be exercised indefinitely-a prospect noted with concern by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush. The prevailing view among legal scholars is that under existing precedents, the AUMF and the concomitant war powers will continue indefinitely in force until the political branches officially declare the …

The Road To Rights: Establishing A Domestic Human Rights Institution In The United States, Leadership Conference Education Fund, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

While human rights are often discussed as international standards, they are realized first and foremost at home. Respect for human rights is a domestic endeavor — the promotion, protection and fulfillment of these rights falls to national and local governments, not to international bodies. Because the front line of human rights is domestic, full realization of these rights requires coordination and dialogue between civil society, national policy-making bodies and local institutions.

U.S. human rights advocates have continually emphasized that “human rights begin at home,” and it is only when the full spectrum of rights are recognized and protected in local …

Contracts Confidential: Ending Secret Deals In The Extractive Industries, Peter Rosenblum, Susan Maples

Human Rights Institute

The laws of contract and international commercial relations generally suppose two corporate entities doing business with each other, both seeking profits and answering to shareholders. This makes sense, unless one of the parties is not a corporate entity, but rather a government, answerable to citizens. Even as they conduct business, governments have duties, obligations and interests that go well beyond pure profit maximization. As such, the same secrecy afforded to contracting parties in commercial law is out of place in such contracts. Governments must be held accountable for all contracts they enter, be they for the provision of roads or …

Epa's Impending Greenhouse Gas Regulations: Digging Through The Morass Of Litigation, Gregory E. Wannier

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

As the U.S. Congress has failed to pass meaningful climate legislation, the EPA has initiated a series of regulations under the Clean Air Act designed to recognize greenhouse gases as endangering human health and welfare, and set greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicle fleets and for major stationary sources. Unsurprisingly these efforts have been challenged in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This paper discusses both the substantive and procedural issues surrounding the cases, all of which merit attention: in the absence of viable climate legislation these decisions will have important bearing on the extent to which the United States …

"It's Not Easy Being Green": Local Initiatives, Preemption Problems, And The Market Participant Exception, Michael Burger

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This Article considers whether the market participant exception should be interpreted to exempt local climate change and sustainability initiatives from the "ceilings" imposed by existing environmental laws and pending federal climate change legislation. In the decades-long absence of federal action on climate change, local governments – along with the states – positioned themselves at the forefront of climate change and sustainability planning. In fact, state and local actions account for most of the nation's greenhouse gas reduction efforts to date. Yet, front-running localities are being limited by a preemption doctrine that fails to account for both the motives behind their …

Colorado’S Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act: Encouraging Conversion Of Coal Plants To Natural Gas, Jonathan Talamini

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The State of Colorado's recently-enacted Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act (CACJA) requires utilities to create plans that reduce NOx emissions by 70% at a specified portion of their coal-fired electricity generation facilities by the end of 2017. It allows utilities to use many different methods to achieve those reductions, but encourages and incentivizes the replacement of coal-based generation with natural gas. Utilities must seek approval for their plans from state agencies and must work closely with those agencies in designing the plans. This paper discusses the legal, political, and economic context for CACJA, and highlights the bill's advantages and disadvantages as …

Preemption And Alteration Of Epa And State Authority To Regulate Greenhouse Gases In The Kerry-Lieberman Bill, Bradford Mccormick, Hannah Chang

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The recently-released discussion draft of the Kerry-Lieberman bill (KL), officially titled the American Power Act, contains numerous provisions that affect the role of states in addressing climate change as well as the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA). Preemption has been the subject of intense debate and speculation since the passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill (WM) in June 2009, and commentators have questioned whether KL’s preemption measures would (and should) have the effect of “a scalpel or a sledgehammer” on existing state and EPA authority. The following paper contributes to the discussion by summarizing …

Municipal Green Building Ordinances In The U.S., Marne Sussman

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Numerous municipalities in the U.S. have created green building ordinances over the past few years. These ordinances are cataloged and examined in the municipal green building ordinance spreadsheets on the website of the Center for Climate Change Law. To better understand the decisions that need to be made in developing a model green building ordinance, this paper discusses the different choices made by the municipalities that developed the ordinances identified in the spreadsheets and notes areas of consensus among municipalities.

Cap-And-Trade Under The Clean Air Act?: Rethinking Section 115, Hannah Chang

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, addressing international air pollution, is widely-dismissed as a viable avenue for mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) because of a misplaced assumption that National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) must be established for GHGs before Section 115 authority can be exercised for GHGs. This paper explores the statutory language and legislative history of Section 115 to refute this conventional view, and argues that Section 115 can play a role in facilitating the establishment of a cap-and-trade program for GHGs without the establishment of NAAQS for GHGs.

State And Local Human Rights Agencies: Recommendations For Advancing Opportunity And Equality Through An International Human Rights Framework, Human Rights Institute, International Association Of Official Human Rights Agencies (Iaohra)

Human Rights Institute

State and local human rights agencies can play a critical role in promoting and protecting human rights close to home. State and local human rights and human relations commissions already operate every day to prevent and eliminate discrimination. These institutions have multiple functions that include enforcing anti-discrimination laws, engaging in community education and training and advocacy. Central to their mission is encouraging and facilitating institutional change to eradicate discrimination and promote equal opportunity. Thus, advancing human rights protections intersects with and, in fact, supports the work of state and local human rights and human relations commissions to encourage and ensure …

Missionaries, Moral Advocacy, And The Transformation Of Police Court Procedure In London, 1876-1930, Sascha Auerbach

Studio for Law and Culture

This paper examines how informal courtroom negotiations transformed formal trial procedures, significantly expanded the social roles of local courts, and helped shape discourses of class, gender, race, and nationalism in British courtrooms. Specifically, it explores the origins, development, and impact of London’s first unofficial probation officers, the Police Court Missionaries. The introduction of these missionaries, who were paid agents of the Church of England Temperance Society (CETS), into the courts of the metropolis represented a watershed in the relationship between the state, private philanthropy, and working-class men and women. From the evolving dialogue between missionaries, working-class defendants, and magistrates emerged …

Kernochan Center News - Summer 2010, Kernochan Center For Law, Media And The Arts

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

No abstract provided.

The Epa’S Proposed Transport Rule: Implications For Climate Change Regulation, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

On July 6, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a Clean Air Act rulemaking to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from power plants in the eastern United States. If it survives legal scrutiny, the rule will impose a hybrid cap-and-trade program with state-specific SO2 and NOx emission budgets and limited interstate trading. This paper discusses the rule's requirements, how it compares to its predecessor (the Clean Air Interstate Act), the projected impact on air quality and public health, and implications for future climate change policy.

Justice Stevens' Temperance, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

On the last opinion day of the last of his 35 Terms on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens issued his valedictory opinion, a 57-page dissent in McDonald v. City of Chicago. Justice Stevens laid out an expansive vision of constitutional interpretation that Justice Alito aptly called "eloquent" in his plurality opinion. Not one for sentimental farewells, Justice Scalia was less generous: "Justice Stevens' approach," he wrote in the last line of his concurring opinion," puts democracy in peril."

Why Lingle Is Half Right, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. is a highly unusual decision in that it repudiated a legal doctrine that the Supreme Court itself had created. The Court was able to do this without overruling any prior decision because the repudiated doctrine-which condemned as a taking any regulation of property that fails to "substantially advance legitimate state interests" – had taken hold in the lower courts but had never been applied by the Court itself in support of a judgment. Lingle is also unusual in that there is no indication that the Court was motivated to jettison the doctrine because it was …

On The Guise Of The Good, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis of intentional actions, and of action for a (normative) reason, followed by a consideration of a number of objections to the thesis of the Guise of the Good force various revisions and refinements of the thesis yielding a defensible version of it. It is argued that the revised thesis is supported by the same argument that inspired the Guise of the Good from the beginning and …

Social Welfare And Fairness In Juvenile Crime Regulation, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

The question of how lawmakers should respond to developmental differences between adolescents and adults in formulating juvenile crime policy has been the subject of debate for a generation. A theme of the punitive law reforms that dismantled the traditional juvenile justice system in the 1980s and 1990s was that adolescents were not different from adults in any way that was relevant to criminal punishment – or at least that any differences were trumped by the demands of public safety. But this view has been challenged in recent years; scholars and courts have recognized that adolescents, due to their developmental immaturity, …

Rescuing Jerry From (Basic) Principles, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

I will say something on two or three related but distinct topics. First, something on the grounding of normative beliefs, a topic – as I see it – in moral epistemology, and then after a brief remark on explanation, something against a certain understanding of basic principles. My observations were prompted by reflection on Jerry’s desire to rescue justice from the facts.

Corporate Political Speech: Who Decides, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Robert J. Jackson Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court spoke clearly this Term on the issue of corporate political speech, concluding in Citizens United v. FEC' that the First Amendment protects corporations' freedom to spend corporate funds on indirect support of political candidates. 2 Constitutional law scholars will long debate the wisdom of that holding, as do the authors of the two other Comments in this issue.3 In contrast, this Comment accepts as given that corporations may not be limited from spending money on politics should they decide to speak. We focus instead on an important question left unanswered by Citizens United: who should have the …

Legislation That Isn't – Attending To Rulemaking's "Democracy Deficit", Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Philip Frickey's commitment to practical legal studies won my admiration early on in his career. In this welcome celebration of his extraordinary career, it seems fitting to essay something "practical" – to attempt a constructive approach to an enduring problem – that has some bearing on his lifelong attention to the problem of "interpretation." If it will not make the problem go away, perhaps it will provide a basis for understanding its inevitable tensions, and in that way will help us step past theoretical exegeses suggesting the possibility of simple answers.

"The Sole Right ... Shall Return To The Authors": Anglo-American Authors' Reversion Rights From The Statute Of Anne To Contemporary U.S. Copyright, Lionel Bently, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

The rise in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of a professional class of writers stimulated authors' demands for better remuneration from their writings. The increase in authors who sought to live from their work, rather than from patronage or personal fortune, likely provided at least one impulse for the author-protective provisions of the 1710 Statute of Anne. Under the regime of printing privileges that preceded the Statute of Anne, authors generally received from publisher-booksellers a one-time payment, made when the authors surrendered their manuscripts for publication. Authors whose works enjoyed particularly high demand might negotiate additional payments for new editions …