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Four Senses Of The Public Law-Private Law Distinction, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Perhaps the most useful function for a foreword to a symposium on the "Limits of Public Law" would be to explain what is meant by "public law." If there is more than one sense of a distinction between "public law" and "private law," identifying which sense is being used in a particular instance should reduce confusion. As it turns out, there are four different ways to distinguish between public law and private law that are relevant to this Symposium.