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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Custom In Our Courts: Reconciling Theory With Reality In The Debate About Erie Railroad And Customary International Law, Nikki C. Gutierrez, Mitu Gulati
Custom In Our Courts: Reconciling Theory With Reality In The Debate About Erie Railroad And Customary International Law, Nikki C. Gutierrez, Mitu Gulati
Faculty Scholarship
One of the most heated debates of the last two decades in U.S. legal academia focuses on customary international law’s domestic status after Erie Railroad v. Tompkins. At one end, champions of the “modern position” support customary international law’s (“CIL”) wholesale incorporation into post-Erie federal common law. At the other end, “revisionists” argue that federal courts cannot apply CIL as federal law absent federal legislative authorization. Scholars on both sides of the Erie debate also make claims about the sources judges reference when discerning CIL. They then use these claims to support their arguments regarding CIL’s domestic status. Interestingly, neither …
Can The Law Meet The Demands Made On It?, George C. Christie
Can The Law Meet The Demands Made On It?, George C. Christie
Faculty Scholarship
This is my contribution to a festscrift in honor of Professor Don Wallace on his retirement from the Georgetown University School of Law. My essay points out the problems and dangers of the increasing delegation to international and domestic courts, in broad and vague value-laden language, the responsibility of making basic moral and policy decisions for society. It saddles courts with a task that they are not particularly suited to perform and it is certainly not the way a democratic society should function.
Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington
Checks And Balances: Congress And The Federal Court, Paul D. Carrington
Faculty Scholarship
This essay was published as a chapter in Reforming the Supreme Court: Term Limits for Justices (Paul D. Carrington & Roger Cramton eds, Carolina Academic Press 2006). Its point is that Congress has long neglected its duty implicit in the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers to constrain the tendency of the Court, the academy and the legal profession to inflate the Court's status and power. The term "life tenure" is a significant source of a sense of royal status having not only the adverse cultural effects noted by Nagel, but also doleful effects on the administration and enforcement of …
Personal Rights And Rule Dependence: Can The Two Co-Exist?, Matthew D. Adler
Personal Rights And Rule Dependence: Can The Two Co-Exist?, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
Constitutional doctrine is typically "rule-dependent." Typically, a constitutional litigant will not prevail unless she can show that a particular kind of legal rule is in force, e.g., a rule that discriminates against "suspect classes" in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, or that targets speech in violation of the First Amendment, or that is motivated by a religious purpose in violation of the Establishment Clause. Further, the litigant must typically establish a violation of her "personal rights." The Supreme Court has consistently stated that a reviewing court should not invalidate an unconstitutional governmental action at the instance of a claimant …