Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

Is A Science Of Comparative Constitutionalism Possible?, Madhav Khosla

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly a generation ago, Justice Scalia and Justice Breyer debated the legitimacy and value of using foreign law to interpret the American Constitution. At the time, the matter was controversial and invited the interest of both judges and scholars. Foreign law had, after all, been relied on in significant cases like Roper v. Simmons and Lawrence v. Texas. Many years on, there is still much to be debated — including the purpose and potential benefits of judicial engagement with foreign law — but “comparative constitutional law” has unquestionably emerged as a field of study in its own right. We …

Anti-Modalities, David E. Pozen, Adam Samaha

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional argument runs on the rails of “modalities.” These are the accepted categories of reasoning used to make claims about the content of supreme law. Some of the modalities, such as ethical and prudential arguments, seem strikingly open ended at first sight. Their contours come into clearer view, however, when we attend to the kinds of claims that are not made by constitutional interpreters – the analytical and rhetorical moves that are familiar in debates over public policy and political morality but are considered out of bounds in debates over constitutional meaning. In this Article, we seek to identify the …

Cyberattacks And The Constitution, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Contrary to popular view, cyberattacks alone are rarely exercises of constitutional war powers – and they might never be. They are often instead best understood as exercises of other powers pertaining to nonwar military, foreign affairs, intelligence, and foreign commerce, for example. Although this more fine-grained, fact-specific conception of cyberattacks leaves room for broad executive leeway in some contexts, it also contains a strong constitutional basis for legislative regulation of cyber operations.

Beholding Law: Amadeo On The Argentine Constitution, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus, Erin F. Delaney

Faculty Scholarship

This essay introduces an online edition of Santos P. Amadeo’s Argentine Constitutional Law to be published by the Academia Puertorriqueña de Jurisprudencia y Legislación. Tracing the book to its origins in a paper Amadeo wrote for a seminar in comparative constitutional law at Columbia Law School in the 1930s, we discuss the intellectual context that gave rise to the book and assess its author’s methodological choices. We then examine one particular substantive choice: Whereas the paper specifically draws attention to the importance of understanding every form of political subdivision in a federalist system – identifying Argentina’s as the provinces, the …

War Powers: Congress, The President, And The Courts – A Model Casebook Section, Stephen M. Griffin, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

This model casebook section is concerned with the constitutional law of war powers as developed by the executive and legislative branches, with a limited look at relevant statutes and federal court cases. It is intended for use in Constitutional Law I classes that cover separation of powers. It could also be used for courses in National Security Law or Foreign Relations Law, or for graduate courses in U.S. foreign policy. This is designed to be the reading for one to two classes, and it can supplement or replace standard casebook sections on war powers that are shorter and offer less …

India’S First Period: Constitutional Doctrine And Constitutional Stability, Madhav Khosla

Faculty Scholarship

Studies on constitutional stability and endurance rarely gesture toward the role of legal doctrine. While the workings of courts are often considered in understanding how a constitutional order might be sustained, this is almost variably achieved by examining the relationship between courts and other institutions. This chapter takes a different approach and studies the way in which constitutional consolidation might also be shaped by the doctrinal orientations and forms of reasoning that courts adopt. It does so by considering the first period of Indian constitutionalism. The focus is on two specific areas: the place of the Directive Principles in India’s …

Legislatures, Executives And Political Control Of Government, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines how political control over government is exercised today in the UK, the US, and France, focusing on control of the executive branch by the legislature and control of the administrative executive by the political executive. These three jurisdictions were chosen because they are paradigmatic examples of different political regimes: parliamentarism, separation of powers presidentialism, and semi-presidentialism. In theory, these different institutional structures should affect how political control is understood and wielded. In the traditional Westminster parliamentary model, for example, the government is formed from the leadership of the majority party in Parliament and it is the government …

Japan's Constitution Across Time And Space, Carol Gluck

Center for Japanese Legal Studies

Constitutional reform is a matter of time, the time when the original and the revisions were drafted; and of space, the global context which comprises the transnational constitutional expanse that influenced all modern constitutions from the late eighteenth century on. Of the some 198 written constitutions now in force, more than half were promulgated during the past sixty years. The U.S. Constitution of 1787 is the oldest, and if one counts the 1947 Constitution as an amendment of the Meiji Constitution of 1889 – which formally and technically it was – Japan’s is the world’s tenth oldest written constitution still …

Rhetoric And Realism: The First Diet Debates On Japan's Military Power, Sheila A. Smith

Center for Japanese Legal Studies

Article 9 has been the focus of legislative debate since Japanese leaders concluded the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, ending the U.S. Occupation of their country. Conservatives and progressives alike sought to consider what this new constitution meant for Japan’s postwar defenses, and how it was to be translated into a rearmament policy. Until a new law was passed to create the Self Defense Force in 1954, these Diet debates offer a fascinating window on the effort to define what Article 9 meant, and the issues that provoked contention among political parties.

Most of the critical questions regarding how …

Implications Of Revision Of Article 9 Of The Constitution Of Japan On The Defense Policy Of Japan, Hideshi Tokuchi

Center for Japanese Legal Studies

On December 20, 2018, a P-1 patrol aircraft of Japan’s Maritime Defense Force was flying within Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Sea of Japan as part of ordinary intelligence collection and warning and surveillance activities, when it observed a destroyer, and a patrol and rescue vessel of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). While photographing the Korean vessels, the Japanese P-1 patrol aircraft was suddenly irradiated by a fire-control radar from the Korean destroyer. A crew member of the P-1 aircraft tried to communicate with the Korean ship in English, saying, “This is Japan Navy. This is Japan …

Separation Of Powers In Comparative Perspective: How Much Protection For The Rule Of Law?, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter discusses the separation of powers. The point about traditions, or shared social norms, is a central one for this chapter. At a time of growing pessimism about the fate of democracy worldwide, adherence to norms of political behaviour may have an importance transcending formal provisions for the allocation of governmental power. As such, this chapter first presents a brief account of ‘separation of powers’ under American presidentialism; then the contrasting system of Westminster parliamentarianism; third, the increasingly prevalent mixed regimes, often semi-presidential, that can be described as ‘constrained parliamentarism’; and, finally, international institutions. As the chapter shows, in …

Comparative Approaches To Constitutional History, Jamal Greene, Yvonne Tew

Faculty Scholarship

An historical approach to constitutional interpretation draws upon original intentions or understandings of the meaning or application of a constitutional provision. Comparing the ways in which courts in different jurisdictions use history is a complex exercise. In recent years, academic and judicial discussion of “originalism” has obscured both the global prevalence of resorting to historical materials as an interpretive resource and the impressive diversity of approaches courts may take to deploying those materials. This chapter seeks, in Section B, to develop a basic taxonomy of historical approaches. Section C explores in greater depth the practices of eight jurisdictions with constitutional …

Vermeule Unbound, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

My book asks Is Administrative Law Unlawful? Adrian Vermeule answers “No.” In support of his position, he claims that my book does not really make arguments from the U.S. Constitution, that it foolishly denounces administrative power for lacking legislative authorization, that it grossly misunderstands this power and the underlying judicial doctrines, and ultimately that I argue “like a child.”

My book actually presents a new conception of administrative power, its history, and its unconstitutionality; as Vermeule has noted elsewhere, it offers a new paradigm. Readers therefore should take seriously the arguments against the book. They also, however, should recognize that …

The Constitutionalization Of Indian Private Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the relationship between private law and constitutional law in India, with particular emphasis on tort law. It considers the Indian Supreme Court’s expansion of its fundamental rights jurisprudence over the past thirty years, as well as its effort to transcend the public law/private law divide. It also explains how the Court’s fusion of constitutional law and tort law has affected the independent efficacy, normativity, and analytical basis of equivalent private law claims in India. It argues that the Court’s efforts have only undermined the overall legitimacy of private law mechanisms in the country, and that this phenomenon …

On The Origins Of Originalism, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

For all its proponents' claims of its necessity as a means of constraining judges, originalism is remarkably unpopular outside the United States. Recommended responses to judicial activism in other countries more typically take the form of minimalism or textualism. This Article considers why. Ifocus particular attention on the political and constitutional histories of Canada and Australia, nations that, like the United States, have well-established traditions of judicial enforcement of a written constitution, and that share with the United States a common law adjudicative norm, but whose political and legal cultures less readily assimilate judicial restraint to constitutional historicism. I offer …

Foreign Authority, American Exceptionalism, And The Dred Scott Case, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

At least since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1831, the idea that America is distinctive from other nations has permeated much political and social commentary. The United States has been variously perceived as unique in its history, its culture, its national values, its social movements, and its social and political institutions. While the term technically refers only to distinctiveness or difference, "exceptionalism" may have positive or negative aspects – what Harold Koh has called "America's Jekyll-and-Hyde exceptionalism." In the legal realm, claims of exceptionalism have been offered to support what Michael Ingnatieff identifies as "legal isolationism" – or refusal by …

Constitutional Lessons From Europe, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Given his range of interests, a tribute to Francis Jacobs could appropriately address just about any area of contemporary legal concern. But Francis Jacobs is one whose writings on and off the bench have, for an American, been especially illuminating, due to his unique capacity to translate fundamental issues of European constitutional law into terms that we can grasp. And so, notwithstanding the quantity of writing on the recent constitutional adventure of the European Union ("EU") that has already accumulated, I add yet one more set of reflections on this theme in Francis Jacobs' honor, this time on the possible …

Marbury V. Madison And European Union "Constitutional" Review, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Marbury v. Madison specifically raises the question of the legitimacy of a "horizontal" species of judicial review, that is, review by courts of the exercise of powers by the coordinate branches of government. The same question could be asked with respect to judicial review in the European Union. More particularly, how problematic or contestable has "horizontal" judicial review been within the European Union as a matter of principle? And, irrespective of its contestability, how have the courts of the European Union exercised "horizontal" review? We will find, however, that it is not the "horizontal" …

Impeachment As A Technique Of Parliamentary Control Over Foreign Affairs In A Presidential System, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

The central inquiry for this essay is the proper use of the impeachment tool in foreign relations contexts, including war powers. In Part I, the essay begins with a brief review of British impeachment practice (limited to war and foreign policy concerns) known to the Founding generation and reflected in certain fundamental texts of the Founding; this treatment does not betoken any originalist orientation on my part (au contraire) but will set the context for later developments. Part II then turns to the travails of President Andrew Johnson as seen through the eyes of Walter Bagehot, the author of …

The Political Economy Of Recognition: Affirmative Action Discourse And Constitutional Equality In Germany And The U.S.A., Kendall Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

This paper undertakes a comparative exploration of affirmative action discourse in German and American constitutional equality law. The first task for such a project is to acknowledge an important threshold dilemma. The difficulty in question derives not so much from dissimilarities between the technical legal structures of German and American affirmative action policy. The problem stems rather from the different social grounds and groupings on which those legal structures have been erected. Because German "positive action"' applies only to women, gender and its cultural meanings have constituted the paradigmatic subject of the policy. The legal discussion of positive action has …

Recent Legislation: Constitutional Law – Congress Imposes New Restrictions On Use Of Funds By The Legal Services Corporation – Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions And Appropriations Act Of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Fierce political battles have raged about the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) for much of its twenty-three year history. Critics have attacked LSC for pursuing a "radical agenda" and for "engaging in dubious litigation that is of no real benefit to poor people," while supporters have termed LSC "the one program in the entire war on poverty that made a difference" and have decried the "campaign to deny the right of legal representation to the poor." Last year, in the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996 (OCRAA), Congress reduced LSC funding by thirty percent – to $278 million in …