Law Commons^™

The Us Veto Over Palestine's Un Membership, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

While the United Nations is in debate over Palestinians’ request for UN membership, the US has already announced their decision to veto. But the over two thirds of Americans who are neither Jewish nor Evangelical should consider saying yes. It may not solve every problem but it could increase the prospects for successful negotiations between Palestine and Israel.

Religious Truth, Pluralism, And Secularization: The Shaking Foundations Of American Religious Liberty, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this Essay, I recount John Locke’s 1689 Letter Concerning Toleration and explain how religious liberty continues to rest on Lockean and related justifications. These various justifications depend in part on religious-moral reasoning (both Christian and non-Christian) and in part on political-pragmatic considerations. I then discuss recent and ongoing developments in the American religious landscape, including a radical increase in religious diversity, the modernization of traditional faiths, the individualization or "spiritualization" of religion, and the increasing secularization of individual belief structures. I suggest that these developments, over time, may seriously threaten the underlying religious-moral and political-pragmatic foundations of religious liberty …

Partial Patents, Michael Mattioli, Gideon Parchomovsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this Article, we propose a way to improve the workings of the patent system. Unlike most extant reform proposals that focus on the USPTO and the Federal Circuit and the procedures they employ, our proposal is conceptual in nature. We introduce two new intellectual property forms—“quasi-patents” and “semi-patents.” Quasi-patents, as we define them, would avail only against direct business competitors of the inventor, but not against anyone else. Semi-patents would have the same scope as traditional patents, but their grant would be conditioned on an applicant’s consent to publish all research information pertaining to the protected invention. These two …

Judicial Activism And The Interpretation Of The Voting Rights Act, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

From the moment the U.S. Supreme Court first confronted the difficult constitutional questions at the heart of the Voting Rights Act, its posture has been one of deference. This posture has continued to this day. In contrast, the Court has interpreted the language of the Act dynamically, often in total disregard to the text of the law or the intent of Congress. But as this Article explains, the Roberts Court appears poised to unsettle this longstanding narrative. The Act is in serious constitutional danger. One way to explain this move on the part of the Court is by invoking the …

Promoting Employee Voice In The American Economy: A Call For Comprehensive Reform, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

It has become apparent that there are serious deficiencies in the American model of production. Our model of corporate governance has recently come under intense scrutiny in the academic literature and the popular press. There are increasing concerns that American corporations are too focused on short-run profits and stock prices, at the expense of long-term strategies and investments that would benefit the long-run value of the firm, employees, and the American economy at large. In the pursuit of short-run shareholder interests, American corporations have bestowed on senior executives enormous compensation packages that seem increasingly divorced from any notion of rationality, …

Rehabilitating Territoriality In Human Rights, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

For many years, territorial principles anchored an international system organized around nation-states. Recently, however, the human rights movement has sought to change the state-centric focus of international law and overcome the limitations of a system where the territorial state is the primary actor. The field of human rights has promoted a new legal orthodoxy that places the person at the center of the international legal system. Within this orthodoxy, non-state actors play a prominent role, unilateral domestic lawsuits are promoted, and territorial borders give way when necessary for humanitarian intervention. In contrast, territorial conceptions of international law are viewed as …

Symposium Introduction – Beyond Borders: Extraterritoriality In American Law, Austen L. Parrish

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Statutory Reform To Protect Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, W. William Weeks, Jeffrey B. Hyman, Andrea Need

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Animal migrations capture the human mind and heart like few other natural phenomena. Migrations provide ecological, psychological (e.g., aesthetic), cultural, and economic benefits. Increasingly, though, migrations are being recognized as threatened phenomena-that is, spectacular aspects of the life history of animal species often involving large numbers of individuals, but which are threatened with impoverishment or demise, even though the species per se may not be in peril. Migration phenomena are themselves worthy of protection, as a category of biodiversity Yet, conserving migratory populations and their migrations is particularly problematic. Migratory animals are especially vulnerable to a variety of threats because …

Tribute To David Stras: Under The Microscope, Ryan W. Scott

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Professor Scott's tribute to long time collaborator David R. Stras.

Interstate Recognition Of Parent-Child Relationships: The Limits Of The State Interests Paradigm And The Role Of Due Process, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

How secure are the legal relationships between gay or lesbian parents and their children when those families move from one state to another? What happens when a non-biological parent who has been legally recognized as a full parent under the laws of one state moves with her same-sex spouse and their child to a different state where public policy is unfriendly toward same-sex relationships? Or what happens when a same-sex couple adopts a child, thus becoming its full legal parents, then seeks recognition of their parental status in a different state?

In this Article I argue that the traditional doctrines …

Three Generations Of U.S. Lawyers: Generalists, Specialists, Project Managers, William D. Henderson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A simple framework for understanding the U.S. legal profession is a gradual progression through three generations of lawyers: the generalist, the specialist, and the project manager. The transition from one generation to the next is driven by the familiar story of supply and demand. The generalist era (colonial period to the end of World War II) gave way to the specialist era (post-War to early 2000s) because of a shortage of sophisticated business lawyers capable of serving the needs of large, growing, and increasingly regulated industrial and financial clients. Over a period of several decades, leading local practitioners with business …

Should Black Immigrants Be Favored Over Black Hispanics And Black Multiracials In The Admissions Processes Of Selective Higher Education Programs?, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since the origin of affirmative action, selective higher education institutions' have generally lumped all blacks into a unified Black/ African/African American category. However, this practice of treating all blacks alike has now changed. The Department of Education ("DOE") issued the Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the United States Department of Education ("Guidance") in October 2007, which had a final implementation date for the reporting school year of 2010-2011. The Guidance marked the first time that the federal government dictated the procedures that educational institutions, including selective higher education programs, must follow when collecting …

Morrison V. National Australia Bank: Defining The Domestic Interest In International Securities Litigation, Hannah Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This articles uses the lens of the Morrison v. National Australia Bank to look at domestic and international securities regulation.

Outside The Wire: American Exceptionalism And Counterinsurgency, David Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Global Health Terrain: Mapping Global Health Diplomacy, David Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article engages in mapping thinking and practice on global health diplomacy. Increased interest in “global health diplomacy” and “health diplomacy” heightens the need for more rigorous descriptive, conceptual, analytical, and practical approaches to these phenomena. This article discusses why more rigor is needed with respect to global health diplomacy, provides a way to describe global health diplomacy that provides a foundation for further analysis, explores conceptual underpinnings of global health diplomacy to deepen the mapping exercise, and offers a simple but flexible analytical template for use in mapping different aspects of global health diplomacy. The article concludes with thoughts …

Justice Kennedy To The Rescue?, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Why Judicial Disqualification Matters. Again., Charles G. Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Unpacking The Apprenticeship Of Professional Identity And Purpose: Insights From The Law School Survey Of Student Engagement, Carole Silver, Amy Garver, Lindsay Watkins

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Drawing on data from the Law School Survey of Student Engagement, this paper investigates the ways in which law students develop a sense of professional identity and purpose, the third apprenticeship identified by the Carnegie Foundation in its report, Educating Lawyers. The data offer only a first step toward unpacking how students learn about professional identity and purpose. Generally, the findings point to the importance of law school classes for effective learning about legal ethics, and to the role of clinical legal education as a means for deepening the effectiveness of lessons about ethics, professional identity and purpose.

Paradigm Shift, William D. Henderson, Rachel M. Zahorsky

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Moving Forward Together, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Christopher Millard, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Christopher Millard, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Cracks In The Firmament Of Burma's Military Government: From Unity Through Coercion To Buying Support, David C. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Despite holding recent elections, Burma’s military government does not intend to relinquish power; its new constitution guarantees the army the right to do whatever it wants. Democracy will therefore not come to Burma through legal, peaceful, incremental steps. Instead, democracy will come to Burma outside the legal process, because the basis for the regime’s power has changed, becoming markedly weaker. When it first seized power in 1961, the military was united and therefore able to rule through coercion alone. In the past several decades, by contrast, the generals have increasingly sought to purchase support by giving income and resource streams …

Book Review. Degradation: What The History Of Obscenity Tells Us About Hate Speech By Kevin W. Saunders, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Louis D. Brandeis And The Making Of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932 By Gerald Berk, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Domestic Face Of Globalization: Law's Role In The Integration Of Immigrants In The United States, Alfred C. Aman, Graham Rehrig

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article applies a global perspective to immigration in the United States, focusing in particular on law’s role in the integration of immigrants into U.S. society. The global perspective illuminates the relationship of immigration to other forms of transnationalism, as well as to the situation of non-immigrant minorities and the working poor. We review the history of immigration law in the United States as well as the main elements of current debate. Drawing on the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection, as well as the preemption doctrine, we suggest specific ways in which immigration law might optimally evolve in the future. …

Military Forces, Global Health, And The International Health Regulations (2005), David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Security, economic, development, and humanitarian threats created by infectious diseases have heightened the importance of military forces to national and global public health responses. This article explores the increasing need for military involvement in public and global health surveillance and response to infectious disease threats, and focuses on how military forces can more effectively support implementation of the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR (2005)). The article explains the major changes made in negotiations that produced the IHR (2005) and the importance of these changes to military-to-military activities and civilian-military cooperation. It identifies five areas in which military …

Book Review. European Copyright Law: A Commentary., Marshall A. Leaffer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Corporate Social Responsibility And Firm Compliance: Lessons From The International Law-International Relations Discourse, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There has been a long and fruitful discourse between and among legal academics and political scientists, known as international law (IL)-international relations (IL) scholarship. A great deal of that scholarship has discussed the effectiveness of particular IL regimes, usually as part of a larger discourse regarding the question of compliance with IL or international institutions, more generally, including agreed norms and soft law. This field of IL-IR scholarship has taken a fairly Westphalian and Weberian view of international law and of international relations, viewing states as the subjects of international law and, thus, seeing states as its subjects of study. …

Regulating Information Flows, Regulating Conflict: An Analysis Of United States Conflict Minerals Legislation, Christiana Ochoa, Patrick J. Keenan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The connection between conflict and commercial activity is the focus of this paper. In particular, it focuses on the ongoing conflict in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that is funded, in large part, by the sale of conflict commodities – minerals, metals and petroleum that fund violent groups at their source and then enters legitimate markets and products around the world. Recently, attention has turned to how to regulate conflict commerce as a tool for divesting from violent conflict. In the United States, for example, the recently-adopted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act include a provision …

Ethnicity, Elections, And Reform In Burma, David C. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.