Legal History Commons^™

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Review Essay: Using All Available Information, Max Huffman

ExpressO

This is a review essay entitled “Using All Available Information,” in which I review and comment on Justice Stephen Breyer’s new book, Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, published in September 2005. Justice Breyer’s book, adapted from the Tanner Lectures given in 2005 at Harvard Law School, serves partly as a response to Justice Scalia’s 1997 volume A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. I review Justice Breyer’s book in part by comparison to and contrast with Justice Scalia’s. I propose that much about Justice Breyer’s interpretive philosophy, which centers on determining the “purposes” of texts and interpreting …

The Lack Of Dissent In Wto Dispute Settlement: Is There A “Unanimity” Problem?, Meredith Kolsky Lewis

ExpressO

This article is the first piece of scholarship to analyze in detail the fact that there has been almost no dissent in World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement reports. The article first examines the empirical data with respect to dissenting and concurring opinions at both the panel and Appellate Body levels. Fewer than five percent of panel reports and two percent of Appellate Body reports contain separate opinions of any kind. It second shows that the WTO is in fact actively discouraging dissents, and discusses why this might be the case. The article argues that dissents are valuable in general, …

Just Say "No Fishing": The Lure Of Metaphor, Beth Thornburg

ExpressO

The phrase “fishing expedition” is widely used in popular culture and in the law. In the case of metaphorical “fishing” in the law, reliance on the metaphor can act as a substitute for rigorous analysis, disguising the factors that influence a result. When used by the court, it is uninformative. Worse, the fishing metaphor may itself shape the way the court thinks about the kind of issue or claim involved. Accusations of “fishing” also affect the language and position of the litigants. Parties arguing against pleadings or discovery use the metaphor as a rhetorical weapon, stigmatizing their opponents, instead of …

Restorative Justice, Slavery And The American Soul, A Policy-Oriented Approach To The Question Of Slavery Reparations By The United States, Michael F. Blevins

ExpressO

This LL.M. Intercultural Human Rights thesis (May, 2005), awarded the best student paper prize for 2005 by the Institute of Policy Sciences at Yale University (in October, 2005), after analysing past and curent issues regarding the culture wars controversy of "reparations", proposes a specific process for establishing Truth and Reconciliation regarding the legacy of slavery in the United States. The proposal recommends commissions in each Federal judicial district under the supervision of a U.S. Slavery Justice and Reconciliation Commission (USSJRC), calling for "America's 21st Century Contract with Africa and African-Americans".

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

From St. Ives To Cyberspace: The Modern Distortion Of The Medieval 'Law Merchant', Stephen E. Sachs

ExpressO

Modern advocates of corporate self-regulation have drawn unlikely inspiration from the Middle Ages. On the traditional view of history, medieval merchants who wandered from fair to fair were not governed by domestic laws, but by their own lex mercatoria, or "law merchant." This law, which uniformly regulated commerce across Europe, was supposedly produced by an autonomous merchant class, interpreted in private courts, and enforced through private sanctions rather than state coercion. Contemporary writers have treated global corporations as descendants of these itinerant traders, urging them to replace conflicting national laws with a law of their own creation. The standard history …

Beyond Reparations: An American Indian Theory Of Justice, William C. Bradford

ExpressO

The number of states, corporations, and religious groups formally disowning past records of egregious human injustice is mushrooming. Although the Age of Apology is a global phenomenon, the question of reparations—a tort-based mode of redress whereby a wrongdoing group accepts legal responsibility and compensates victims for the damage it inflicted upon them—likely consumes more energy, emotion, and resources in the U.S. than in any other jurisdiction. Since the final year of the Cold War, the U.S. and its political subdivisions have apologized or paid compensation to Japanese-American internees, native Hawaiians, civilians killed in the Korean War, and African American victims …

The Market For Justice, The "Litigation Explosion," And The "Verdict Bubble": A Closer Look At Vanishing Trials, Frederic Nelson Smalkin, Frederic Nelson Chancellor Smalkin

ExpressO

This article takes a fresh look at the increasingly discussed topic of the scarcity of civil cases reaching trial in the Article III system. The number of cases tried declined by more than one-fourth in the decade from 1989-1999, and the decline continued at about the same rate to the end of the latest year for which statistics are available, 2002, while ADR (particularly arbitrations) skyrocketed.

The authors examine the history of competing English courts (particularly Common Pleas and King's Bench) for signs that, in fact, market competition can arise among dispute-resolving bodies. They also apply economic analysis to the …