Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh

Shubha Ghosh

The Federal Circuit was established in 1982 as an appellate court with limited jurisdiction over patent claims. However, the Federal Circuit has used this limited jurisdiction to expand its reach into contract law, developing a federal common law of contract. Given the growing importance of patent litigation in the past three decades, this creation of an independent body of contract law creates uncertainty in transactions involving patents. This troublesome development received attention in Stanford v Roche, a 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Circuit's invalidation of a patent assignment to Stanford University. This Article documents the development of …

U.S. Supreme Court Justices And Public Mood, Isaac Unah

Isaac Unah

Does public mood influence the decisions of U.S. Supreme Court Justices? Under what conditions might Justices vote against their typical ideological leanings and in favor of public opinion? We employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to address these questions. For the quantitative portion, logistic regression analysis indicates a strong relationship between public mood and Supreme Court Justices’ votes both in the aggregate and for a number of liberal and conservative Justices individually during the 1946 to 2011 Court terms. Justices respond less strongly to public opinion when the Court is highly polarized and when legal issues to be decided are …

Between Politics And Science: The Dilemma Of Reason, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker, Zoran S. Nikolić

Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

Curiosity, our deepest inner intellectual need and concern brought about what we today call science. This Article will try to address the problem of the interrelation between politics and science. There is no need to discuss which of the two came first, but rather the real question is to what extent can science influence the political process? Can it help proper decision-making and, if it can, to what extent? Decision-making is most often prefixed with the term political. Can the intellectual class representing the world of science have an influence on political decision-making? As C. Wright Mills rightly noticed, if …

A Theory Without A Movement, A Hope Without A Name: The Future Of Marxism In A Post-Marxist World, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Just as Marx's insights into capitalism have been most strikingly vindicated by the rise of neoliberalism and the near-collapse of the world economy, Marxism as social movement has become bereft of support. Is there any point in people who find Marx's analysis useful in clinging to the term "Marxism" - which Marx himself rejected -- at time when self-identified Marxist organizations and societies have collapsed or renounced the identification, and Marxism own working class constituency rejects the term? I set aside bad reasons to give on "Marxism," such as that the theory is purportedly refuted, that its adoption leads necessarily …

Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum

Angela Goodrum

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Julie Dickson And Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Philosophical Foundations Of European Union Law, Arthur Dyevre

Arthur Dyevre

Change in the legal academy tends to be spurred by changes in the legal reality itself rather than by methodological and conceptual innovation emerging from within the discipline. In that sense, legal developments in the real world habitually seem to be ahead of the scholarship. A new phenomenon emerges, which legal scholars then try to apprehend via the established tools and categories of legal thought, soon to discover that these fail to capture the essence of the new reality. The first to experience the changed legal world are usually the scholars who are closest to practice; those who are intimate …

Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Neoliberalism can be understood as the deregulation of the economy from political control by deliberate action or inaction of the state. As such it is both constituted by the law and deeply affects it. I show how the methods of historical materialism can illuminate this phenomenon in all three branches of the the U.S. government. Considering the example the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that began with the housing bubble developing from trade in unregulated and overvalued mortgage backed securities, I show how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which established a firewall between commercial and investment banking, allowed this …

A Noble Cause: A Case Study Of Discrimination, Symbols, And Reciprocity, In: Diversity And European Human Rights, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

This chapter is part of a volume dedicated to rewriting human rights cases issued by the European Court of Human Rights. It uses the case of De La Cierva Osorio De Moscoso v. Spain (1999) as a platform to discuss the inherent tension typifying signs such as nobility titles – as merely symbolic or as carrying substantive content. The problem of one’s ownership of signs is especially acute in the case of women. I will argue that the distinction between form and substance collapses in this case, as in many other cases that involve allocation of allegedly merely symbolic signifiers …

After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman

Simon Chesterman

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …

¿Quién Fue El (La) Gran Ausente En El #Debate2012?, Norma E. Pimentel

Norma E Pimentel

Reflexión personal sobre el "debate" del día 06.05.2012

Argumentación Constitucional, Leonardo García Jaramillo

Leonardo García Jaramillo

No abstract provided.

El Tribunal De Los Militantes: El Control Judicial De Los Conflictos Intrapartidistas En México, Javier Martín Reyes

Javier Martín Reyes

The Party Members’ Court: Judicial Control over Intraparty Disputes in Mexico.

This paper explains how the Electoral Court of the Federal Judicial Branch (TEPJF) of Mexico, without a supporting legislation, was able to establish a direct and far reaching control over intraparty disputes such as the election of party leaders, the selection of candidates, or the punishment of party members. Following a strategic behavior approach, I will provide empirical evidence to prove that there was a negative correlation between the level of judicial control over the parties’ internal life, on the one hand, and the vulnerability of the TEPJF from …

It Ain’T Necessarily So: The Misuse Of “Human Nature” In Law And Social Policy And Bankruptcy Of The “Nature-Nurture” Debate, 21 Tex. J. Women & L. 187 (2012))., Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Debate about legal and policy reform has been haunted by a pernicious confusion about human nature: and the idea that it is a set of rigid dispositions, today generally conceived as genetic, that is manifested the same way in all circumstances. Opponents of egalitarian alternatives argue that we cannot depart far from the status quo because human nature stands in the way. Advocates of such reforms too often deny the existence of human nature because, sharing this conception, they think it would prevent changes they deem desirable. Both views rest on deep errors about what kind of thing a “nature” …

Godsdienst Als Hype, Wouter H. De Been

Wouter H. de Been

No abstract provided.

The Right To Be Fat, Yofi Tirosh

Yofi Tirosh

Policy discussions on the increasing weight of Americans, portrayed as a problem of monumental and grim outlook, preoccupy public health experts, scientists, economists, and the popular media. In the legal field, however, discussions have tended to focus on whether weight should be a protected category under antidiscrimination law and on cost-benefit models for creating incentives to lose weight. This Article takes a novel approach to thinking about weight in the legal context. First, it maps the diverse ways in which the law is recruited to “the war against obesity,” thus providing an unprecedented account of what it means to be …

The Rubber Bands Are Broken; Opening The ‘Punctualized’ European Administration Of Justice, Paul Van Den Hoven

Paul van den Hoven

In this paper the speculative thesis is explored that in our era of digital connectivity, the remarkable capacity of a legal institution to absorb a huge amount of social dynamics as if it is a priori already present in a closed, ‘punctualized’ institution , leads to a serious loss of public legitimacy. The main argument is that such response to alternative, ‘rich’ narratives isolates the institution in an era in which digital technology creates actants that make such isolation untenable.

Unanswered Questions Of A Minority People In International Law: A Comparative Study Between Southern Cameroons & South Sudan, Bernard Sama Mr

Bernard Sama

The month July of 2011 marked the birth of another nation in the World. The distressful journey of a minority people under the watchful eyes of the international community finally paid off with a new nation called the South Sudan . As I watched the South Sudanese celebrate independence on 9 July 2011, I was filled with joy as though they have finally landed. On a promising note, I read the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying “[t]ogether, we welcome the Republic of South Sudan to the community of nations. Together, we affirm our commitment to helping it meet its …

Heidegger And The Essence Of Adjudication, George Souri

George Souri

This paper presents an account of adjudication based on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. As this paper argues, we can only hope to better understand adjudication if we recognize that adjudication is a socio-temporally situated activity, and not a theoretical object. Heidegger’s philosophical insights are especially salient to such a project for several reasons. First, Heidegger’s re-conception of ontology, and his notion of being-in-the-world, provide a truer-to-observation account of how human beings come to understand their world and take in the content of experience towards completing projects. Second, Heidegger’s account of context, inter-subjectivity, and common understanding provide a basis upon …

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …

La Democracia Deliberativa A Debate, Leonardo García Jaramillo

Leonardo García Jaramillo

No abstract provided.

American Legal Realism: Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing?, Wouter H. De Been

Wouter H. de Been

No abstract provided.

Psychopathy And Culpability: How Responsible Is The Psychopath For Criminal Wrongdoing?, Reid G. Fontaine Jd, Phd

Reid G. Fontaine

Recent research into the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of psychopathy has raised the question of whether, or to what degree, psychopaths should be considered morally and criminally responsible for their actions. In this article we review the current empirical literature on psychopathy, focusing particularly on deficits in moral reasoning, and consider several potential conclusions that could be drawn based on this evidence. Our analysis of the empirical evidence on psychopathy suggests that while psychopaths do not meet the criteria for full criminal responsibility, they nonetheless retain some criminal responsibility. We conclude, by introducing the notion of rights as correlative, that …

Distributive Justice Before The Eighteenth Century: The Right Of Necessity, Siegfried Van Duffel, Dennis Yap

Siegfried Van Duffel

Until recently, few people would have doubted that the idea of distributive justice is old, indeed ancient. Several authors have now challenged this assumption. Most prominently, Samuel Fleischacker argued that distributive justice originates in the eighteenth century. If accurate, this would upset much of what we have taken for granted about an important part of the history of Western political thought. However, the thesis is manifestly flawed. And since that it has already proven influential, it is important to set the record straight. We will focus on the principle of extreme necessity, developed in twelfth and thirteenth century canon law, …

Law In High Heels: Performativity, Alterity, And Aesthetics, Monica Lopez Lerma

Monica Lopez Lerma

Pedro Almodovar's High Heels (the original Spanish title, Tacones Lejanos, literally means "distant heels") is a 1991 postmodern film that celebrates performance, fluidity, and fragmentation as ways of being in and understanding the world. In a generic combination of melodrama, comedy, musical, and film noir, High Heels tells the story of a turbulent mother-daughter relationship, and a judge's criminal investigation following the murder of the daughter's husband (who also happens to be the mother's former lover). In recent years, Almodovar's film has received the attention of Orit Kamir, a law-and-film feminist scholar who opens up a refreshing line of inquiry. …

A Propósito Del Giro Historiográfico En Derecho Internacional, Ignacio De La Rasilla Del Moral

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral, Ph.D.

Illiteracy rate in Spain at the turn of the 20th century was of 63.8% and 16.000 students - out of a total Spanish population of 18.6 million - attended the 10 existing Spanish universities. 2.000 university titles were accorded, half of which in Law in 1900, and 200 students obtained their doctorates by the Central University of Madrid which held the academic monopoly of doctoral studies at the time. In 1902, the Bulletin of the Institution of Free Teaching published a chronicle signed by Aniceto Sela y Sampil on the didactic methods he employed to teach Public and Private International …

Why The Demands Of Formalism Will Prevent New Originalism From Furthering Conservative Political Goals, Daniel Hornal

Daniel Hornal

Proponents of New Originalism propose that their modifications solve the indeterminacy and predictability problems inherent in early conceptions of originalism. This paper argues that excluding extrinsic evidence and relying only on the formal implications of the text merely switches one indeterminacy and predictability problem for another. Rules inherently carry implications unknown to rule writers. In the case of open-textured rules such as those in the Constitution, a broad reading can occupy whole fields of law, whereas a narrow reading can have almost no real-world effects. Because they must ignore extrinsic evidence, new originalists are almost unbound in their choice of …

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

Cancun Climate Negotiations, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, held from November 29 to December 11, 2010, in Cancún, Mexico, relaunched the United Nation's multilateral facilitation role.

American Constitutional Law, Otis Stephens

Otis Stephens

No abstract provided.