Law Commons^™

The Challenge Of Regulatory Excellence, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Regulation is a high-stakes enterprise marked by tremendous challenges and relentless public pressure. Regulators are expected to protect the public from harms associated with economic activity and technological change without unduly impeding economic growth or efficiency. Regulators today also face new demands, such as adapting to rapidly changing and complex financial instruments, the emergence of the sharing economy, and the potential hazards of synthetic biology and other innovations. Faced with these challenges, regulators need a lodestar for what constitutes high-quality regulation and guidance on how to improve their organizations’ performance. In the book Achieving Regulatory Excellence, leading regulatory experts …

Newsroom: 'Champions For Justice' Honored 12-19-2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Gift Supports Diversity Programming 12-15-2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Jenna Hashway's Blog: Blocking Women's March From Key D.C. Sites Risks Infringing On First Amendment Rights 12-12-2016, Jenna Wims Hashway, Roger Williams University

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: David Logan's Blog: When Facts And News Diverge 12-2-2016, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

From Land Grab To Agrarian Transition? Hybrid Trajectories Of Accumulation And Environmental Change On The Cambodia–Vietnam Border, Timothy Gorman, Alice Beban

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In recent years, thousands of Vietnamese migrant farmers have crossed the border into Cambodia and leased land for export-oriented rice and shrimp production. Based on case studies in two Cambodian border provinces, we argue that these land transfers represent an intersection of broader processes of agrarian change that is re-shaping the Cambodian borderlands into a hybrid socio-ecological zone. Cambodian landlords and intermediaries use unequal access to politico-legal authority and the exclusionary power of the border to leverage control over their migrant tenants, thereby capturing a significant portion of the surplus from the migrants’ high-value commodity production systems and potentially creating …

Race And Criminal Justice In Canada, Charles E. Reasons, Shereen Hassan, Melinda Bige, Christianne Paras, Simranjit Arora

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The relationship between race and crime has long been a subject of study in the United States; however, such analysis is more recent in Canada. A major factor impeding such study is the fact that racial/ethnic data are not routinely collected and available in Canada, unlike the United States. The collection of such data would arguably undermine the multi-cultural mosaic of Canada as a place of acceptance and tolerance. However, the lack of such data bellies research suggesting that race plays a role in the Canadian criminal justice system. Using available, albeit, limited research studies and their data, the role …

A Structural Etiology Of The U.S. Constitution, Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln Iv

Student Scholarship

This article offers an interpretation of the problems addressed by and the eventual purpose of the United States government. Simultaneously, it seeks to analyze and explain the continued three-part structure of the United States federal government as outlined in the Constitution. Subsequently I define the three parts of the federal government—judiciary, executive, and legislative—as explained through the lens of the Platonic paradigm of (logos = word = law), (thymos = external driving spirit = executive), and (eros = general welfare = legislative) extrapolated from Plato’s dialogues.

First, the article establishes Plato’s theory of the three-part Platonic soul as a major …

The Dna Default And Its Discontents: Establishing Modern Parenthood, Katharine Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

Most contemporary family law scholarship assumes that propriety of a DNA default for establishing parenthood - a presumption that, in the absence of marriage, whoever had the sex with the mother that resulted in the child should be the father of the child. This article problematizes that DNA default. It demonstrates how the DNA default necessarily magnifies the legal and social importance of sex, discounts the legal significance of women's reproductive labor, and marginalizes all children living outside the binary, heteronormative norm that a genetic regime necessarily edifies. When scrutinized, the DNA default looks just as moralistic and exclusionary as …

Newsroom: Horwitz On The Trump Effect 12-1-2016, Amanda Milkovits, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Reproduction Reconceived, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Pet Keeping Industry In The American City, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Two years ago, my now nine-year-old daughter decided that she, too, wants in on the American dream. A family without a dog is incomplete, so the dominant narrative around us seems to dictate – and that narrative was readily picked up by my daughter and, subsequently, by her younger sister as well. The pressure is now fully on for us to “adopt” a dog who would fill our days with laughter and fun. A dog who would make us belong. Despite my initial urge to satisfy my daughters’ passionate desire, I cannot help but to contemplate the broader role of …

1911 Triangle Factory Fire — Building Safety Codes, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Can a crime make our world better? Crimes are the worst of humanity’s wrongs but, oddly, they sometimes do more than anything else to improve our lives. As it turns out, it is often the outrageousness itself that does the work. Ordinary crimes are accepted as the background noise of our everyday existence but some crimes make people stop and take notice – because they are so outrageous, or so curious, or so heart-wrenching. These “trigger crimes” are the cases that this book is about.

They offer some incredible stories about how people, good and bad, change the world around …

Protecting One's Own Privacy In A Big Data Economy, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

Big Data is the vast quantities of information amenable to large-scale collection, storage, and analysis. Using such data, companies and researchers can deploy complex algorithms and artificial intelligence technologies to reveal otherwise unascertained patterns, links, behaviors, trends, identities, and practical knowledge. The information that comprises Big Data arises from government and business practices, consumer transactions, and the digital applications sometimes referred to as the “Internet of Things.” Individuals invisibly contribute to Big Data whenever they live digital lifestyles or otherwise participate in the digital economy, such as when they shop with a credit card, get treated at a hospital, apply …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Deborah Johnson's Post: Now "Defamation" Matters More Than Ever 11-16-2016, Deborah Johnson

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Recovering Socialism For Feminist Legal Theory In The 21 St Century, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a significant strand of feminist theory in the 1970s and 1980s — socialist feminism — has largely been ignored by feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialist feminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, and Iris Young, as well as their predecessors in the U.K., and in the …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Dean Yelnosky's Post: "Getting Proximate": October 22, 2016, Michael Yelnosky

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Brief Amici Curiae Of Professors Of History, Political Science, And Law In Support Of Respondent, Kristin Collins, Catherine E. Stetson, Jessica K. Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

Sex-based laws premised on archaic presumptions about the proper roles of men and women run afoul of established constitutional principles, especially when they interfere with the parent-child relationship. Amici write to explain the history of the federal government’s use of sex-based classifications in the regulation of citizenship. In its regulation of intergenerational and interspousal citizenship transmission, the federal government has perpetuated outdated gender-based norms concerning proper parental roles, even when those norms have been rejected in other legal and social contexts. In addition, the laws governing derivative citizenship have significantly encumbered the ability of American fathers to transmit citizenship to …

The Nonexceptionalism Thesis: How Post-9/11 Criminal Justice Measures Fit In Broader Criminal Justice, Francesca Laguardia

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Contrary to the assumption that ‘‘9/11 changed everything,’’ post-2001 criminal justice practices in the area of terrorism show a surprising consistency with pre-2001 criminal justice practices. This article relies on an analysis of over 300 terrorism prosecutions between 2001 and 2010, as well as twenty full trial transcripts, content coding, and traditional legal analysis, to show the continuity of criminal justice over this time in regard to some of the most controversial supposed developments. This continuity belies the common assumption that current extreme policies and limitations on due process are a panicked response to the terror attacks of 2001. To …

The Complex Combatant: Constructions Of Victimhood And Perpetrator-Hood In Gulu District, Northern Uganda, Kyra Fox

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the wake of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) conflict in Northern Uganda, both the local and international community struggle to define the “victims” and “perpetrators” of a conflict that transformed ordinary civilians into combatants. Made up primarily of child soldiers, the LRA forcefully abducted and conscripted children across Northern Uganda to fight in a guerilla war against the Ugandan government. LRA members were forced to murder their own families and terrorize their home villages in an attempt to disorient and desensitize them to lives of violence. Some became willing, even eager fighters; others struggled daily to live with their …

Legislating Tolerance: Article 976 Of The Civil Code Of Quebec And Its Application To Mixed-Income And Mixed-Use City Redevelopment Projects, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

I first examine the increasing need for tolerance required for the cultural sustainability of city redevelopment projects that seek to establish communities of a mixed-use or mixed-income variety. Next, some difficulties that arise in terms of inequality, clashing differences, and a lack of inclusion felt by those within these redeveloped spaces in the urban cores of our cities are discussed with reference to Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s notion of cosmopolitan legal struggles and the subaltern cosmopolitan contact zones generated within the small social spaces of mixed-use and mixed-income developments in the urban core. I then undertake a discussion of article …

An Argument Against Civil Marriage, J. David Bleich

Articles

No abstract provided.

Whole Other Story: Applying Narrative Mediation To The Immigration Beat, Carol Pauli

Faculty Scholarship

If Donald Trump, kicking off his campaign for the White House, was saying “what everyone is thinking,” about illegal immigration, it must be that his message mirrored a narrative that already existed in the minds of his audience. That fearful story of criminals invading the U.S. borders has long been a dominant theme in the mainstream news immigration story. Like all news stories, this one focuses attention on some facts at the expense of others. Like many news stories, it draws its power from earlier, well-known tales — some as old as the Flood. This article recommends that the news …

The New Labor Law, Kate Andrias

Articles

Labor law is failing. Disfigured by courts, attacked by employers, and rendered inapt by a global and fissured economy, many of labor law’s most ardent proponents have abandoned it altogether. And for good reason: the law that governs collective organization and bargaining among workers has little to offer those it purports to protect. Several scholars have suggested ways to breathe new life into the old regime, yet their proposals do not solve the basic problem. Labor law developed for the New Deal does not provide solutions to today’s inequities. But all hope is not lost. From the remnants of the …

Newsroom: Horwitz Addresses Rally For Homeless 09/15/2016, Amanda Milkovits, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu's New 'Rising Tide' Of Educational Opportunity 9-8-2016, Roger Williams University

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty Considerations And Social Change In The Wake Of India's Recent Sodomy Cases, Deepa Das Acevedo

All Faculty Scholarship

American constitutional law scholars have long questioned whether courts can really drive social reform, and this position remains largely unchallenged even in the wake of recent landmark decisions affecting the LGBT community. In contrast, court watchers in India — spurred by developments in a special type of legal action developed in the late 1970s known as “public interest litigation,” or “PIL” — have only recently begun questioning the judiciary’s ability to promote progressive social change. Indian scholarship on this point has veered between despair that PIL cases no longer reliably produce good outcomes for India’s most disadvantaged, and optimism that …

The Role Of Personal Laws In Creating A “Second Sex”, Rangita De Silva De Alwis, Indira Jaising

All Faculty Scholarship

The cultural construction of gender determines the role of women and girls within the family in many societies. Gendered notions of power in the family are often shrouded in religion and custom and find their deepest expression in Personal Laws. This essay examines the international law framework as it relates to personal laws and the commonality of narratives of litigators and plaintiffs in the cases from the three different personal law systems in India.

Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Far too many reporters and pundits collapse law into politics, assuming that the left–right divide between Democratic and Republican appointees neatly explains politically liberal versus politically conservative outcomes at the Supreme Court. The late Justice Antonin Scalia defied such caricatures. His consistent judicial philosophy made him the leading exponent of originalism, textualism, and formalism in American law, and over the course of his three decades on the Court, he changed the terms of judicial debate. Now, as a result, supporters and critics alike start with the plain meaning of the statutory or constitutional text rather than loose appeals to legislative …

The Monopoly Myth And Other Tales About The Superiority Of Lawyers, Leslie Levin

Faculty Articles and Papers

The legal profession’s control of much of the market for legal services is justified by the claim that only licensed lawyers can effectively and ethically represent clients. This article challenges that claim. A review of a number of studies suggests that experienced nonlawyers can provide competent legal services in certain contexts and in some cases, can seemingly do so as effectively as lawyers. There is also little evidence that lawyers’ legal training, the bar admission requirements, or lawyers’ psychological characteristics make them more trustworthy than nonlawyer legal services providers. The article considers some recent initiatives, such as Washington’s approval of …