Rule of Law Commons^™

Martial Lawlessness: The Legal Aftermath Of Kwangju, James M. West

Washington International Law Journal

On August 26, 1996, two former presidents of the Republic of Korea, Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo, were convicted of insurrection, treason, and corruption. The charges arose out of their December 1979 coup and the ruthlessly violent suppression of a democratic protest in the city of Kwangju in May 1980. This article recounts the origins and analyzes the progress of this dramatic criminal trial, which has attracted worldwide attention. The current South Korean head of state, President Kim Young-Sam, has depicted the conviction of his predecessors as a historic juncture opening a new era of constitutionalism for Korea. Despite the …

Revenge For The Condemned, Sara Sun Beale, Paul H. Haagen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868

Women, Just Implementation Of Asylum Policy, And Our Commitment To Human Dignity And Freedom, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

English Law In The Age Of The Black Death, 1348-1381: A Transformation Of Governance And Law, Daniel B. Kosove

Michigan Law Review

A Review of English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348-1381: A Transformation of Governance and Law by Robert C. Palmer

Why Redraw The Map Of Africa: A Moral And Legal Inquiry, Makau Wa Mutua

Michigan Journal of International Law

The author argues in this Article that the post-colonial state, the uncritical successor of the colonial state, is doomed because it lacks basic moral legitimacy. Its normative and territorial construction on the African colonial state, itself a legal and moral nullity, is the fundamental reason for its failure. The author argues that, at independence, the West decolonized the colonial state, not the African peoples subject to it. In other words, the right to self-determination was exercised not by the victims of colonization but their victimizers, the elites who control the international state system.

The Role Of Law In The Soviet System: Looking Back And Moving Forward, Sarah J. Reynolds

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Russian Law: The End of the Soviet System and the Role of Law by F.J.M. Feldbrugge

Cause For Cautious Celebration: Hungarian Post-Communist Environmental Reform, Karen S. Libertiny

Michigan Journal of International Law

In October 1989, the Hungarian Communist regime collapsed and was replaced by a democratic government. This new government was confronted with a visible and grave concern: environmental degradation. In just three years, the new Hungarian government, sometimes of its own impetus, sometimes at the prodding of environmentalists and foreign governments, has taken tremendous steps toward establishing palpable environmental legislation. More importantly, it has created an administrative and information-gathering infrastructure capable of sustaining a cohesive system of environmental protection initiatives. Although the path to further progress is littered with obstacles, this East European country has proven itself a worthy warrior in …

Democracy And Respect For Difference: The Case Of Fiji, Joseph H. Carens

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In what follows, I will first offer a capsule history of Fiji. I then will identify some of the moral questions that emerge, both for the inhabitants of Fiji and for us as observers. I will present some tentative answers to these moral questions, reflecting as I go on what this tells us about the possibilities and limits of normative theory, but also trying to note where my normative judgments rest upon features of the story that I think others would want to contest and trying to indicate how alternative readings of the history would affect the normative judgments, if …

The State Rebuilding Civil Society: Constitutionalism And The Post-Communist Paradox, Ethan Klingsberg

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this article provides an overview of trends in the intellectual history of civil society theory in the West. Since the rejection of the classical notion of a unified State and civil society, Western commentators have focused their analyses on State action's effect upon modern civil society. In reaction to the dangers of State co-optation of civil society's autonomy, social critics have proposed a range of solutions, such as limitations on State power to interfere in areas like property rights and the assumption of power by a universal class. Part II reviews Soviet bloc dissidents' contributions to civil …

Perestroika African Style: One-Party Government And Human Rights In Tanzania, John Quigley

Michigan Journal of International Law

The one-party systems in Africa have drawn negative reactions from Western States that provide economic aid. The article assesses the one-party system in light of international human rights law and asks whether aid-giving States must consider whether one-party rule in recipient States violates international standards. In this connection, the article asks whether the rights of association and political freedom as developed in Europe can fairly be applied to Africa, given its historical experience.

National Socialism And The Rule Of Law, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

Ingo Muller's book, originally published in 1987 as Furchtbare Juristen: Die unbewaltigte Vergangenheit unserer Justiz (literally "Dreadful Jurists: The Remorseless Past of Our Judiciary"), describes the moral collapse of the German legal profession and its role in facilitating the construction and maintenance of the Nazi regime. Gracefully translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider, Hitler's Justice seeks, first, to show how legal professionals betrayed their trust as lawyers, prosecutors, and judges and, second, to assess the degree to which Germany in the postwar period reformed its legal system, purged the judiciary of former Nazis, and rededicated itself to the rule of law. …

Justice, Mercy, And Late Medieval Governance, Pat Mccune

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Kingship, Law, and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V by Edward Powell

Of Outlaws, Christians, Horsemeat, And Writing: Uniform Laws And Saga Iceland, William I. Miller

Articles

Our word law is a loanword from Old Norse.1 It makes its earliest appearances in Old English manuscripts in the late tenth century. At that time the Old English word for law was, believe it or not, æ, written as a digraph called "ash." Now most readers, myself included, tend to experience anxiety when we confront a ligatured vowel like ae and so we untie it as a prelude to getting rid of it altogether: we turn an aesthete2 into an aesthete before finally humiliating him (or her) as an esthete, all to resolve our nervousness. King Æthelred the Unready …

Enforcement Of Foreign Money-Judgments In The United States: In Search Of Uniformity And International Acceptance, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

When international trade and investment increase, so does the need for satisfactory means of dispute resolution. Dispute resolution in national courts requires that litigants consider not only the likelihood of a favorable judgment but also the ability to collect on that judgment. In cases where the defendant’s assets lie in another jurisdiction, collection is possible only if the second jurisdiction will recognize the first jurisdiction’s judgment.

In the international arena, enforcement of United State judgments overseas is often possible only if the United States court rendering the judgment would enforce a similar decision of the foreign enforcing court. This reciprocity …

Note, The Death Penalty In Late Imperial, Modern, And Post-Tiananmen China, Alan W. Lepp

Michigan Journal of International Law

This paper seeks to explore the crucial determinants that shape the Chinese legal system's use of the death penalty. Why have the Chinese relied so heavily on execution as a form of sentencing? What factors and conditions account for the major changes in the frequency of China's use of the death penalty? What indigenous traditions are reflected in China's implementation of the death penalty? In order to inquire into the role and function of the legal system in affecting the severity of criminal punishment in China, this study will focus on only those death sentences carried out by the state …

The Black Book Of Polish Censorship, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Black Book of Polish Censorship translated and edited by Jane Leftwich Curry

Socialism And Federation, John N. Hazard

Michigan Law Review

Federal structures are often established by national founders to manage intractable problems created over generations, if not centuries, by the migration of peoples. Military and economic pressures may stimulate union to assure survival, but ethnic, racial or religious tensions sometimes hamper draftsmen who sense the need for unity. Federation has often been the modem solution to the conflict between the need for unity and the desire for autonomy felt by groups fearing the loss of identity.

Socialist Federation--A Legal Means To The Solution Of The Nationality Problem: A Comparative Study, Viktor Knapp

Michigan Law Review

The history of federations is both long and short. It is long in that the federation originated with the Swiss Confederation, which dates back to the 1291 defense confederacy of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden; it is short because the second federation in world history, one that has become a model for many others, did not come into being until almost five centuries later in America.

Democracy In Nigeria, 9 Black L.J. 113 (1984), Michael P. Seng

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Political Crime In Europe: A Comparative Study Of France, Germany, And England, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Political Crime in Europe: A Comparative Study of France, Germany, and England by Barton Ingraham

Max Planck Institute For Comparative Public Law And International Law: Judicial Protection Against The Executive, Pieter Van Dijk

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Judicial Protection Against the Executive Edited by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

Local Government In Sweden, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

Ever since the publication of Marquis Childs' The Middle Way, Americans of liberal persuasion have tended to point to Sweden as a model, a nation which simultaneously has achieved rapid economic growth, eliminated poverty, and maintained individual and political freedom. Swedish cities, and especially Stockholm, are reputed to be among the best planned in the world. Yet, for all the admiration that has been expressed, there has been surprisingly little investigation by Americans of the legal and governmental framework within which the Swedes have accomplished so much. The modest aim of this paper is to report the major outlines of …

The Max-Planck-Institute: Liability Of The State For Illegal Conduct Of Its Organs, Pierre Mathijsen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Liability of the State for Illegal Conduct of its Organs by The Max-Planck-Institut für Ausländishces Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht

Review Of The Soviet Legal System And How Russia Is Ruled, Whitmore Gray

Reviews

Is there a legal system in the Soviet Union, and if so, what is its role in post-Stalin Soviet society? The Soviet Legal System for the first time makes it possible for a lawyer or law teacher to plunge directly into a very rich collection of translations of case decisions, statutes and doctrinal commentary. Even without a background in Soviet studies, the authors' valuable commentary and the reader's own legal training should make it possible for him to evaluate the material presented. With the help of the new edition of Fainsod's How Russia Is Ruled he can see the development …

Grzybowski: Soviet Legal Institutions: Doctrines And Social Functions, Isaac Shapiro

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Soviet Legal Institutions: Doctrines and Social Functions. By Kazimierz Grzybowski.

Instruction On Communism And Its Contrast With Liberty Under Law, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Powell Speeches

No abstract provided.

Soviet Legal Institutions: Doctrines And Social Functions, Kazimierz Grzybowski

Michigan Legal Studies Series

This book represents the highlight of a career of scholarship by its author and a most significant contribution to the literature, which will bring to those who seek it an understanding of the role law plays in Soviet Russia. More important, it will bring that understanding in a comparative context which sharpens the impact and compels a careful analysis of the social function legal institutions perform in both systems. Though Soviet jurists may deny the validity of comparative methodology as applied to the Soviet legal order, the analysis which is here presented proves not only that comparisons are possible but …

International Commission Of Jurists: The Rule Of Law In A Free Society: A Report On The International Congress Of Jurists, William B. Harvey

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Rule of Law in a Free Society: a Report on the International Congress of Jurists. Geneva, Switzerland: International Commission of Jurists, 1960.

The Constitutions Of West Germany And The United States: A Comparative Study, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this article is to present a descriptive overall picture of the fundamental features of the system established by the Basic Law and at the same time point up significant comparisons and contrasts by reference to the Constitution. Eleven years have now elapsed since the Basic Law went into effect, and significant decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht ) noted at the appropriate points, serve to illuminate the working of the system established by it.

Judges In The British Cabinet And The Struggle Which Led To Their Exclusion After 1806, Arthur Lyon Cross

Michigan Law Review

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail.