Law Commons^™

Due Process Erosion: The Diminution Of Live Testimony At The Icty, Megan A. Fairlie

Faculty Publications

Shortly after its creation in 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) adopted an adversarial construct and advocated a preference for the presentation of direct evidence, or live witness testimony, in its criminal trials. In the wake of that decision and under considerable pressure to expedite its proceedings, the ICTY judges responded with efforts to streamline the trial process, amending the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence so as to incrementally increase the admissibility of written evidence. This article tracks the relevant rule changes and questions the merit of the decision to move away from live testimony. …

Einstein On The Bench?: Exposing What Judges Do Not Know About Science And Using Child Abuse Cases To Improve How Courts Evaluate Scientific Evidence, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

It has been a decade since the Supreme Court made judges the arbiters of scientific validity through Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Although this decision was intended to improve how courts use science, recent empirical evidence reveals that judges continue to struggle with scientific evidence and that Daubert has failed to yield accurate or consistent decisions. This also means that judges have received little useful guidance from ten years of academic literature expounding on the science-law chasm.

If the academic discourse is not helpful, it may be because non-scientists too often try to tame science by treating it as …

Translating Visions Of Rationality Into Specific Legal Reforms, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Shadow Government, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Surprised By Sin: Human Rights And Universality, Tawia Baidoe Ansah

Faculty Publications

International human rights law's claim to universality, at the level of normative formation, has been shaped by conceptions of the self over time. The metaphysical reconfigurations of the self, from the Enlightenment to the present, have marked the human rights narrative in particular ways. This essay will suggest that since World War II, a conception of the self within a narrative of rights has been replaced, or at least countermanded, by a conception of sacral evil, with profound implications for the normative claim to universality of the human rights discourse. The essay begins with a synoptic analysis of the rise …

Affirming Brahimi: East Timor Makes The Case For A Model Criminal Code, Megan A. Fairlie

Faculty Publications

In August of 2000, the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (the “Brahimi Report”) considered the issue of transitional civil administration as an element of United Nations field operations. The Brahimi Report recommended the creation of an interim legal code as part of a U.N. justice package so that any future UN transitional administrations would be able to address the issue of “applicable law” in the early stages of its mission. Using the experience of the United National Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) as a case study, this article establishes how and why a complete model …

Civil Rights Plaintiffs And John Doe Defendants: A Study In § 1983 Procedure, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Accountants Make Miserable Policemen: Rethinking The Federal Securities Laws, Jerry W. Markham

Faculty Publications

This Article describes the background of the federal securities laws and the assumptions about full disclosure that where made to justify the intrusive legislation. It also considers the problems encountered by the SEC in the nearly seven decades that have passed since the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and then reviews the market meltdown over the last three years and describes how full disclosure regulation failed. Finally, the author focuses on a principal flaw in the system – the misguided effort to turn accountants into policeman.

War: Rhetoric And Norm-Creation In Response To Terror, Tawia Baidoe Ansah

Faculty Publications

Everything is very simple in war," said Carl von Clausewitz, "but the simplest thing is difficult." This essay will suggest that the resort to the language of war, as "natural" and "starkly simple" as it is, nevertheless has a profound impact on how the law's intervention is shaped, or how the laws governing the transnational use of force are interpreted to accommodate a "war" on terrorism. I argue that although "war" is absent from the principal international legal instruments by which states are guided (and obligated) in their relations with other states, the concepts suppressed by this elision have an …

Latcrit Vi, Outsider Jurisprudence And Looking Beyond Imagined Borders, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

The Sixth Annual LatCrit Conference (LatCrit VI) titled "Latinas/os and the Americas: Centering North-South Frameworks in LatCrit Theory," was the latest installment of the leading progressive scholarly movement addressing nonwhite critical jurisprudence.3 The goals of the conference were to explore the ties that bind Latinas/os residing in the United States to their homeland's societies and cultures, and to examine the impact of globalization on critical jurisprudential discourse.4 The conference was attended predominately by straight and gay law professors of color, including Latinas/os, African Americans, Asian Americans, and indigenous persons, most of whom describe themselves as LatCrits or more whimsically, LatCritters. …

Continuing Fictions Of Latin American Law, Jorge L. Esquirol

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Eyes Wide Shut: Hidden Problems And Future Consequences Of The Fact-Based Validity Standard, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.