Legal History Commons^™

Weeds In The Gardens Of Justice? The Survival Of Hyperpositivism In Polishlegal Culture As A Symptom/Sinthome (Forthcoming), Rafal Manko

Dr. Rafał Mańko

After 1989, the Polish legal elites embraced a transformation discourse, presenting modern Polish legal history as a circular journey from Europe to the dystopia of “Communism” and back. As a con­sequence, links with the state-­socialist past are repressed from the col­lective consciousness of the legal community and presented as post­-Soviet “weeds” in the Polish gardens of justice. However, the repressed weeds return in the form of symptoms – legal survivals, which lawyers tend to ignore or conceal because they subvert the dominant ideological narrative. In this paper, I focus on metanormative survivals of the So­cialist Legal Tradition in Poland which …

The Ministerial Exception And The Limits Of Religious Sovereignty, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This paper explores the scope of independent religious sovereignty in the context of the ministerial exception.

Ratings Contre Etats, Gregory Lewkowicz

Gregory Lewkowicz

Interview of Gregory Lewkowicz on credit rating agencies by I. de Laminne for the newspaper "La Libre Belgique"

The Basics Of Us Criminal Justice System, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

The criminal justice system is complex. It is also bureaucratic by design and has evolved over the years from simple unstructured peacekeeping units to the large complex crime-fighting system that it is today. Many of those who work within it find it challenging and unwieldy. Many of those who are accused of an offense find it confusing and intimidating. This goes for citizens and foreigners whether they are competent in the English language or not. For most members of ethnic minority groups, the experience can be harrowing and often fatal.

University Of Baltimore Symposium Report: Debut Of “The Matthew Fogg Symposia On The Vitality Of Stare Decisis In America”, Zena D. Crenshaw-Logal

Zena Denise Crenshaw-Logal

On the first of each two day symposium of the Fogg symposia, lawyers representing NGOs in the civil rights, judicial reform, and whistleblower advocacy fields are to share relevant work of featured legal scholars in lay terms; relate the underlying principles to real life cases; and propose appropriate reform efforts. Four (4) of the scholars spend the next day relating their featured articles to views on the vitality of stare decisis. Specifically, the combined panels of public interest attorneys and law professors consider whether compliance with the doctrine is reasonably assured in America given the: 1. considerable discretion vested in …

Bridging The Divide: Finding Common Ground On The Modern Chevron Debate, Nicholas C. Stewart

Nicholas C Stewart

Traditionally, when reviewing an administrative agency’s adjudication or rulemaking under National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U.S. 111 (1944), courts would ask whether the question before them was one of law or a mixed question of law and fact. While the former was accorded no deference, the latter received a great deal. Despite this seemingly simple construct, courts persistently confused questions of law with mixed questions, and vice versa, resulting in the inconsistent application of standards of review. In Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the U.S. Supreme Court drastically …

The (Re-) Constitution Of The Public, Gianluigi Palombella

Gianluigi Palombella

This article deals with the prospect of public law in global governance. It analyses firstly the foundations of modern public law and considers what is left of them in the global setting. Are they still holding through States’ de-centering practices, detached from the legitimating grounds of the modern ‘idea of publicness’? What is called here the duality of public law (in its State-related political and juridical strands) fades and decouples in the sphere where inherently ‘global’ legalities originate of a deracinated type: the distinctively global ‘public’ only provides a ‘suspended public law’ and politically unsaturated. The Constitution of the Public …

Godsdienst Als Hype, Wouter H. De Been

Wouter H. de Been

No abstract provided.

Leaking By The Bucketload: The Nature Of Database Leaks, Wouter H. De Been, Khaibar Sarghandoy

Wouter H. de Been

The British expense account scandal, the revelations by Wikileaks, and the Palestine papers are all database leaks. Such leaks were not impossible before, but they have become much simpler. Through global communication networks everybody can now leak on an industrial scale. The question addressed in this paper is: How to understand and regulate such database leaks? The notion that they will empower democratic publics is problematic. Databases, typically, are not easily intelligible. At best they provide the raw data for an understanding of an institutional culture or attitude. Experts and specialists remain essential intermediaries for the interpretation of the raw …

Correos Electrónicos De Autoridades Públicas: En Torno A Una Mala Caracterización Jurídica, Fernando Muñoz

Fernando Muñoz

Tal como una adecuada caracterización jurídica puede reportar grandes ventajas desde el punto de vista de la sistematicidad y coherencia del sistema jurídico, una mala caracterización puede significar desde una oportunidad perdida hasta un traspié con graves consecuencias.

The Modalities Of Constitutional Argument: A Primer, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

This piece is a contribution to Linda Edwards upcoming book Readings In Persuasion: Briefs That Changed the World (forthcoming Wolters Kluwer). In it I offer a short primer on the modalities of constitutional argument, as Philip Bobbitt has described them. As someone who teaches Constitutional Law with the primary goal of educating future practitioners, I have always brought Bobbitt’s very practical (while also very theoretical) work into my classroom discussions. I have regularly used the first chapter of Bobbitt’s Constitutional Interpretation as introductory text on the subject, but I have sometimes found the reading to be too long and/or theoretical …

Constitutional Value Judgments And Interpretive Theory Choice, Ian C. Bartrum

Ian C Bartrum

Philip Bobbitt’s remarkable work describing the ‘modalities’ of constitutional argument is an immense contribution to the study of constitutional law. He describes a typology of six forms of argument alive in our interpretive practice, and offers a limited account of how these modalities interact, and sometimes conflict, in actual constitutional decisions. One of the persistent puzzles Bobbitt’s description leaves open, however, is how we should account for the choice between conflicting modalities in cases where that choice is likely outcome-determinative. Because the modalities are ‘incommensurable’—a term’s meaning in one modality may not be fully translatable into another—there is no internal …

Iqbal & Twobly: Will Plausibility Requirments Influence The Supreme Court's Analysis Of Affirmative Action?, Colin W. Maguire

Colin W. Maguire

The U.S. Supreme Court seems intent on taking another look at affirmative action in higher education. What could this mean for colleges and universities? This blawg post offers no definitive answers, but points out that arguments exists for both sides of the issue through a recent legal development: Iqbal & Twobly's Plausibility Doctrine. If the Doctrine forces a transative duty on case law, then affirmative action programs' legal rationale - long decried for not making logical sense - could suffer. Conversely, the Court appears to have already used plausibility as a factor in promoting a different type of affirmative action …

La Voluntad En Los Contratos De Adhesión: Sociología Y Crítica Jurídica, Con Énfasis En El Análisis Económico Del Derecho / The Consent Theory Critique And Standard Form Contracts In Civil Law (With Special Reference To Law And Economics), Andres Palacios Lleras

Andrés Palacios Lleras

El presente artículo tiene como propósito sugerir los elementos básicos para (re)construir una doctrina diferente sobre la interpretación de los contratos de adhesión en Colombia, basada en las ideas de Josserand y en literatura contemporánea sobre análisis económico del derecho. La tesis que se argumenta sugiere que dichos contratos deben interpretarse teniendo en mente tanto las característias cognitivas de los adherentes, como el desequilirio de poder negocial que subyace su relación con los oferentes, y sugiere que las normas potestativas sólo puedan ser cambiadas a favor de la parte adherente.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections …

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 …

A Theory Of The Perverse Verdict, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

The concept of a perverse verdict is one that pervades the Criminal justice system of nearly all common law jurisdictions. The English Criminal Justice system is no exception and the concept has become institutionalised as if it were a true occurrence. This paper challenges the idea and argues that it is, technically, a legal non-event given the system of trial by jury. The theory is that besides the jury, no one else is invested with the power and authority to declare a verdict and this position is supported both by legal custom and the mechanism of the criminal justice system. …

Curtains, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

This is the story of life in all its glory and eternal ramifications. This is the story of us.

I Wept, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

It is not always what we expect to find in love but sometimes, we look in the worng places. We fail to notice that what we always wanted and sought was always in front of us.

Vanity Of Vanities, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

All that we see and all that we do are emptied into the eternal abyss of nothingness and vain glory. All the we have and all own us are intertwined in the great deception of man. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, all is vanity

A Criminal Moment In Time, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Criminal law jurisprudence considers the concepts of motive, intent and the forbidden act integral to the justice process. Throughout the common law jurisdictions, this trio overshadows a central theme that is a precursor to all criminal acts – the idea of a social responsibility continuum or cognitive dependency. While motive is dispositional on a wider application, intent is situational and is a product of one’s socio-cultural experience. The forbidden act, though central to the process, constitutes ‘a faithful mirror of thought’ – the consummation of a deliberate and manipulated cognition. The nexus between the three subjects extends beyond the Cartesan …

Jury Deliberations – How Do Reasoning Skills Interplay With Decision-Making?, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

We may well wonder how the Casey Anthony reached its verdict in spite of what many of us thought was a raft of compelling evidence. In order to understand some of the nuances at play, it is important to understand some of the issues that confront a jury and how the criminal justice system ensures or attempts to ensure a fair outcome in our trial by jury system

Jury Continuum, Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Bethel G.A Erastus-Obilo

Jury deliberations – how do reasoning skills interplay with decision-making?We may well wonder how the Casey Anthony jury reached its verdict in spite of what many of us thought was a raft of compelling evidence for conviction. In order to understand some of the nuances at play, it is important to understand some of the issues that confront a jury and how the criminal justice system ensures or attempts to ensure a fair outcome in our trial by jury system. At the risk of stating the obvious, one of the most enduring features of our criminal justice system is the …

The Books And The Gavel: Law's Image And The Theory Of American Sublime, Pier Giuseppe Monateri

Pier Giuseppe Monateri

No abstract provided.

El Derecho De Sucesiones Se Debe Atemperar A Los Cambios De La Sociedad Del Siglo Xxi, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Rule Of Law In Global Governance: Its Normative Construction, Function And Import, Gianluigi Palombella

Gianluigi Palombella

What does the Rule of law contribute in the frame of global governance? While addressing metamorphoses of law and the multiple legalities in the global context, this paper shows that the rule of law can consistently be extended externally being cherished internally. It takes seriously the concurrence of different legalities in their diverse ‘formats’, and the challenge of the “global administrative law” theoretical and empirical model. At the meta-level of the relations among legalities, the Rule of law has an essential role to play: it affects interactions and interdependence,and can cause content-dependent assessments to develop, without supporting self-closure or monistic …

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

Wouter H. de Been

No abstract provided.

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, …

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 …

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.