Law Commons^™

A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, And The Privatization Of Religion, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The government exempts religious associations from taxation and, in return, restricts their putatively political expression and activities. This exemption-and-restriction scheme invites government to interpret and categorize the means by which religious communities live out their vocations and engage the world. But government is neither well-suited nor to be trusted with this kind of line-drawing. What's more, this invitation is dangerous to authentically religious consciousness and associations. When government communicates and enforces its own view of the nature of religion - i.e., that it is a private matter - and of its proper place - i.e., in the private sphere, not …

Contracting With Electronic Agents, Anthony J. Bellia

Journal Articles

Established contract doctrine provides no clear answer to the question whether exchanges arranged by the interaction of electronic agents are enforceable. This Article explores whether the law should enforce exchanges arranged by the interaction of electronic agents. It examine how normative theories of contractual obligation inform the issue, with an eye toward the strengths and weaknesses of each theory. The theories that most strongly support the enforcement of exchanges arranged by electronic agents, this Article explains, are those that ground contractual obligation in protecting the ability of individuals to pursue their reasonable objectives through reliable arrangements.

Jews, Christians, Lawyers, And Money, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Years ago, when I was the resident guru in legal ethics at Washington and Lee University, in the little mountain town of Lexington, Virginia, a reporter from the daily newspaper in Roanoke asked me to identify the most serious ethical issue for American lawyers. My answer: "Money."

Part of that answer reflected the fact that American lawyers make about twice as much money as lawyers in other "developed" countries. And American lawyers make, on the average, fifty percent more than average Americans do. (Reference to averages and means here do not reflect how steep the incline is from the middle …

Trouble Preserving Paradise?, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

Election day 2000 was not a good day for proponents of suburban growth controls. The overwhelming initial support for initiatives that proposed state-wide growth management plans in Colorado and Arizona withered in the face of vigorous opposition campaigns. And, pro-planning forces in Oregon woke up on Wednesday morning to learn that voters had approved a little-noticed initiative amending the state constitution to require compensation for partial takings - that is, for any reduction in the fair market value of property resulting from government regulation - thus throwing into question the future of the State's widely touted model controlled-growth scheme.

These …

Feminism And Child Custody Under Chapter Two Of The American Law Institute's Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

The Chief Reporter of the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution wrote in his introduction; "Children are necessarily at the heart of any set of principles of family law." My favorite chapter of the Principles is Chapter Two, entitled "Principles Governing the Allocation of Custodial and Decisionmaking Responsibilities for Children." As of this writing, Chapter Two holds the distinction of being the only portion to have been adopted by a state legislature. While other Chapters had Reporters who were women, Chapter Two not only had a feminist Reporter, but the "allocation principle" that forms the substantive …

The Practical Impact Of The Common Good In Catholic Social Thought, John J. Coughlin

Journal Articles

As an introduction to the general panel discussion, I would like to pose the following question. Is the notion of the common good in Catholic social thought merely a nice sounding theory, or does it have any real and practical impact?

The Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes offers this definition of the common good: "the sum of those conditions" which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily. This notion of the common good places a primacy on the flourishing of individual human beings-spiritually, intellectually, culturally, and financially-through participation in …

Elihu Root And Crisis Prevention, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Elihu Root pursued two themes relevant to international law and crisis. He believed firmly in the value of arbitration and adjudication to prevent crisis. He also worked toward the codification and greater specificity of international law so that judges and arbitrators would have more law available to apply in aid of crisis prevention. When crisis had not been prevented, as in the case of World War I, Root did not in fact believe international law-either process or substance-had much to offer. In his view, the Kaiser started World War I because he was bent on hegemony. Arbitration would not stop …

Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

Any effort to achieve voluntary campaign finance reform raises two questions: Is it really voluntary, and does it really work? In Part I of this Essay, I examine the voluntariness of "voluntary" campaign finance reform. Agreements like that reached by Clinton and Lazio last year—what I term "purely voluntary agreements"—satisfy most legal tests for voluntariness. By contrast, the voluntariness of spending limits and other campaign restrictions that are imposed as a condition for receiving government funding of a political campaign—what I term "governmentally induced agreements"—is more doubtful. The extant jurisprudence recognizes that Buckley prohibits governmental actions that are more coercive …

Empowering United States Courts To Hear Crimes Within The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

United States courts have only incomplete and uneven jurisdiction, most acquired piecemeal and only in recent years, to prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed outside our borders. Recent developments in international law and practice-especially the heightened commitment of democracies including the United States to end impunity for atrocities, and the imminent prospect of a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) with worldwide jurisdiction-suggest the need to expand and rationalize the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to make it coextensive with that of the ICC.

It now appears all but certain that the ICC will come into being in the …

The Influence Of Marvin V. Marvin On Housework During Marriage, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

When Michelle Marvin was forced to leave the home she shared with what today we would call her partner, Lee Marvin, she had a number of problems. The first ones, of course, were legal: she had no marriage with Lee and no written contract that could distinguish their relationship from "mere cohabitation." Nor had she contributed directly to his career or other assets. What she alleged was his express promise to "take care of her" (for some time period that was not altogether clear) and, less obviously, a promise implied by all she had done with and for him during …

Transgressing The Border Between Protection And Empowerment For Domestic Violence Victims And Older Children: Empowerment As Protection In The Foster Care System, Susan Vivian Mangold

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Re-Interpreting The Effect Of Rights: Career Narratives And The Americans With Disabilities Act, David M. Engel, Frank W. Munger

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.