Legal History Commons^™

Off-Reservation Treaty Hunting Rights, The Restatement, And The Stevens Treaties, Ann E. Tweedy

Washington Law Review

The underdevelopment of the law of off-reservation treaty hunting and gathering poses challenges for treatises like the groundbreaking Restatement of the Law of American Indians (“Restatement”). With particular attention to sections 83 and 6 of the Restatement, this Article explores those challenges and offers some solutions for dealing with them in subsequent editions of the Restatement. Specifically, this Article explores the potential usefulness of historical law in interpreting treaties, the need to tie treaty interpretation to the language of the treaty when an explicit right is at issue, the proper application of the reserved rights doctrine and the Indian canons, …

Compulsory Terms In Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Northwestern University Law Review

The state’s imposition of compulsory terms in property relations—such as habitability warranties binding landlords and tenants and minimum wages binding employers and employees—has long been conceived by analysts generally situated on the political right as an affront to individual freedom and inevitably harmful to the terms’ intended beneficiaries. This critique, though, seems to have special purchase in public discourse today not only within its traditional circle of supporters on the right but, at least in some instances, for a sizable number on the left as well. The bipartisan acceptance of this critique is serving as a substantial roadblock to a …

American Courts' Image Of A Tenant, Nadav Shoked

Northwestern University Law Review

What is the core of current American residential landlord–tenant law, and how was that core formed? This Essay argues that in the past few decades courts have settled on a two-pronged landlord–tenant law regime. The law provides tenants with assurances respecting the quality of the units they rent. It does not, conversely, provide them with any assurances respecting the price of the rental units—and, therefore, respecting their ability to remain in those units.

The first component of the regime was established through the well-known judicial creation and endorsement of the warranty of habitability. The second component’s entrenchment is often attributed …

Compulsory Terms In Property, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

The state’s imposition of compulsory terms in property relations—such as habitability warranties binding landlords and tenants and minimum wages binding employers and employees—has long been conceived by analysts generally situated on the political right as an affront to individual freedom and inevitably harmful to the terms’ intended beneficiaries. This critique, though, seems to have special purchase in public discourse today not only within its traditional circle of supporters on the right but, at least in some instances, for a sizable number on the left as well. The bipartisan acceptance of this critique is serving as a substantial roadblock to a …

Redressing The Past To Repair The Present: The Role Of Property Law In Creating And Exacerbating Racial Disparities In Wealth And Poverty In Nova Scotia, Melissa Marsman

LLM Theses

For over 200 years African Nova Scotians have been fighting to confirm legal title to the land on which their ancestors were settled. In 2020, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court remarked “the lack of clear title and the segregated nature of their land triggered a cycle of poverty for black families that persisted for generations.” Nova Scotia has a long history of obscure land titles; however, the ensuing cycle of poverty appears to have disproportionately impacted African Nova Scotians. This thesis reframes the African Nova Scotian land titles discourse into a broader understanding about systemic anti-Black racism and White supremacist …

The Restitution Of Nazi-Looted Art In The United States: A Legal And Policy Analysis, Katharine J. Namon

Senior Theses and Projects

Restitution of Nazi-looted art in the United States is a complicated legal and policy issue. Victims and their heirs seeking restitution of their stolen art frequently encounter inconsistent legal standards at the state, federal, and international levels. Moreover, there are many different parties involved in these cases, including countries, museums, private collections, auction houses, heirs, and individuals who may have an interest in the particular work of art. Ethics must also be considered, and in the past, international principles for nations have been established to guide the process of delivering victims of wartime looting justice. Unfortunately, the current legal framework …

The Torrens System In Singapore: 75 Years From Conception To Commencement, Alvin W. L. See

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article tells the story of how the Torrens system of land titles registration came to be adopted in Singapore. From conception to commencement, the entire process took over 75 years, far longer than any other law reform the country has experienced. Particular attention is paid to why the Australian model was preferred despite the significant influence of English law in colonial Singapore. Although as with anything, much of what happened could be attributed to chance, a great deal can be learned from this story, which details the socio-economic and political forces that have shaped the law into what it …

The History Wars And Property Law: Conquest And Slavery As Foundational To The Field, K-Sue Park

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article addresses the stakes of the ongoing fight over competing versions of U.S. history for our understanding of law, with a special focus on property law. Insofar as legal scholarship has examined U.S. law within the historical context in which it arose, it has largely overlooked the role that laws and legal institutions played in facilitating the production of the two preeminent market commodities in the colonial and early Republic periods: expropriated lands and enslaved people. Though conquest and enslavement were key to producing property for centuries, property-law scholars have constructed the field of property law to be largely …

Eminent Domain And Unfettered Discretion: Lessons From A History Of U.S. Territorial Takings, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

Eminent domain is a minimal constitutional protection for private property and one that is subject to far more discretion than previously recognized by scholars. This Article traces a novel legal history of land takings within the U.S. Territories, focusing on some of the most egregious and controversial incidents and problematic patterns originating within eminent domain law. Comparing this history to recent research that demonstrates how takings in the States have disproportionately impacted Black communities, this Article articulates three patterns of injustices in takings echoing between Black mainland communities and indigenous communities in the Territories: large-scale federally funded actions, local government …

Navassa: Property, Sovereignty, And The Law Of The Territories, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The United States acquired its first overseas territory—Navassa Island, near Haiti—by conceptualizing it as a kind of property to be owned, rather than a piece of sovereign territory to be governed. The story of Navassa shows how competing conceptions of property and sovereignty are an important and underappreciated part of the law of the territories—a story that continued fifty years later in the Insular Cases, which described Puerto Rico as “belonging to” but not “part of” the United States.

Contemporary scholars are drawn to the sovereignty framework and the public-law tools that come along with it: arguments about rights and …

Apartheid-Era Chicago, 55 Uic L. Rev. 219 (2022), Karl Muth

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Whiteness As Contract, Marissa Jackson Sow

Faculty Publications

2020 forced scholars, policymakers, and activists alike to grapple with the impact of “twin pandemics”—the COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated Black and Indigenous communities, and the scourge of structural and physical state violence against those same communities—on American society. As atrocious acts of anti-Black violence and harassment by law enforcement officers and white civilians are captured on recording devices, the gap between Black people’s human and civil rights and their living conditions has become readily apparent. Less visible human rights abuses camouflaged as private commercial matters, and thus out of the reach of the state, are also increasingly exposed as …

Reshaping Washington's Public Lands Trust Doctrine, Audrey Bell

Selected Articles on Washington State Constitution History

In this paper, I will discuss how Washington state’s trust duties related to federally-granted public lands management have and have not been reconciled with article XVI, section 1 of the Washington constitution. First, I will provide a foundation for the management of federally-granted public lands and the storied history of Congress's intent in providing land grants to the states. Next, I will examine the provisions of the Enabling Act of 1889 ("Enabling Act") and the Washington constitution that govern the management of those granted lands. Third, I will chart the historical treatment of Washington state trust duties related to the …

Johnson V. M'Intosh: Christianity, Genocide, And The Dispossession Of Indigenous Peoples, Cynthia J. Boshell

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Using hermeneutical methodology, this paper examines some of the legal fictions that form the foundation of Federal Indian Law. The text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh opinion is evaluated through the lens of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to determine the extent to which the Supreme Court incorporated genocidal principles into United States common law. The genealogy of M’Intosh is examined to identify influences that are not fully apparent on the face of the case. International jurisprudential interpretations of the legal definition of genocide are summarized and used as …

A Cost To Bear—Environmental Contamination And Eminent Domain, Evan C. Heaney

Seattle University Law Review

This Note advocates for Washington courts to adopt a system that universally allows evidence of environmental contamination on the private property taken in eminent domain proceedings. Part I of this Note discusses the history and progression of eminent domain and the broader constitutional roots of the Takings Clause. Part II explores Washington’s environmental remediation statute. Part III details the various approaches jurisdictions around the county have formulated to deal with this issue. Part IV argues Washington courts should adopt the inclusionary approach, which allows the introduction of environmental evidence in eminent domain proceedings.