Law Commons^™

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Michigan Law Review

It has become popular to identify a “consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This Article argues that the purported consensus is much more limited than it initially appears. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society.

The Article maps two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of criminal law: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Article 9 Of The Constitution Of Japan And The Use Of Procedural And Substantive Heuristics For Consensus, Mark A. Chinen

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article’s purpose is to examine the revision debates through the lens of recent scholarship on constitutional decisionmaking to see what lessons might be drawn about constitutionalism in Japan and elsewhere. In Part I, the author discusses Article 9's text and interpretation and focus on three controversies: first, Japan's ability to use force to defend itself and the related issue of the constitutionality of the Japan Self Defense Force (SDF); second, Japan's ability to engage in collective self-defense, which impacts the state's security relationship with the United States under the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Agreement; and finally, Japan's ability to participate …

Reply To Andreas L. Paulus Consensus As Fiction Of Global Law, Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Gunther Teubner

Michigan Journal of International Law

Andreas Paulus reminds us correctly that narratives "of a world of sovereign states loosely cooperating in 'coalitions of the willing' no longer tell the whole story." One of the achievements of the 20th century has been the insertion of a vertical dimension within horizontal international law; a dimension created by the ICJ's Traction decision and the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, and within which we can observe "obligations arising for states without or against their will." Any narrative that characterizes these legal norms as a simple product of interstate consensus is particularly thin if analysis focuses upon the …

Administering Justice In A Consensus-Based Society, Koichiro Fujikura

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Authority Without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox by John O. Haley

Reconstructing Public Philosophy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Reconstructing Public Philosophy by William M. Sullivan