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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

A Distributive Theory Of Criminal Law, Aya Gruber Jan 2010

A Distributive Theory Of Criminal Law, Aya Gruber

Publications

In criminal law circles, the accepted wisdom is that there are two and only two true justifications of punishment-retributivism and utilitarianism. The multitude of moral claims about punishment may thus be reduced to two propositions: (1) punishment should be imposed because defendants deserve it, and (2) punishment should be imposed because it makes society safer. At the same time, most penal scholars notice the trend in criminal law to de-emphasize intent, centralize harm, and focus on victims, but they largely write off this trend as an irrational return to antiquated notions of vengeance. This Article asserts that there is in …


Energy Justice And Sustainable Development, Lakshman Guruswamy Jan 2010

Energy Justice And Sustainable Development, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

Sustainable Development ("SD")--an expression of distributive justice--is the foundational premise of international energy and environmental law. It posits that international answers to environmental and energy problems cannot be pursued as independent and autonomous objectives but must be addressed within the framework of economic and social development. SD has been politically institutionalized in the Millennium Development Goals and a plethora of significant international instruments. Perhaps more importantly from a legal standpoint, SD is unequivocally codified, in the most widely accepted international energy and environmental treaties. This Article affirms the importance and continuing applicability of SD to the "other" third of the …


Hard Times, Hard Time: Retributive Justice For Unjustly Disadvantaged Offenders, Stuart Green Dec 2009

Hard Times, Hard Time: Retributive Justice For Unjustly Disadvantaged Offenders, Stuart Green

Stuart Green

Criminological studies consistently indicate that a disproportionate percentage of crimes in our society, both violent and non-violent, are committed by those who are impoverished. If we assume that at least some of the poor who commit crimes are poor because they fail to get from society what they “deserve” in terms of economic or political or social rights, the question arises whether this fact should affect the determination of what such people “deserve” from society in terms of punishment. The question is all the more pressing given recent Census Bureau figures indicating that the economic recession that began in 2008 …