Rule of Law Commons^™

Fault Lines: An Empirical Legal Study Of California Secession, Bill Tomlinson, Andrew W. Torrance

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law

Over the last decade, multiple initiatives have proposed that California should secede from the United States. This article examines the legal aspects of California secession and integrates that analysis with findings from an empirical study of public perceptions of such secession. There is no provision in the United States Constitution allowing states, or other political or geographical units, to secede unilaterally. The Civil War was fought to uphold this principle, and the United States Supreme Court confirmed it in its 1869 Texas v. White decision. Nevertheless, numerous instances of secession, both legal and extralegal, have occurred across human history, and …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Court-Packing In 2021: Pathways To Democratic Legitimacy, Richard Mailey

Seattle University Law Review

This Article asks whether the openness to court-packing expressed by a number of Democratic presidential candidates (e.g., Pete Buttigieg) is democratically defensible. More specifically, it asks whether it is possible to break the apparent link between demagogic populism and court-packing, and it examines three possible ways of doing this via Bruce Ackerman’s dualist theory of constitutional moments—a theory which offers the possibility of legitimating problematic pathways to constitutional change on democratic but non-populist grounds. In the end, the Article suggests that an Ackermanian perspective offers just one, extremely limited pathway to democratically legitimate court-packing in 2021: namely, where a Democratic …

Law School News: Ruth Bader Ginsburg And Rwu Law 09/23/2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Iccpr, Non-Self-Execution, And Daca Recipients' Right To Remain In The United States, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

The United States is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 12.4 states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” Citizens clearly enjoy the rights of Article 12.4, but this Article demonstrates that this right reaches beyond the citizenry. Using customary methods of treaty interpretation, including reference to the ICCPR’s preparatory works and the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee, I demonstrate that Article 12.4 also forbids states from deporting long-term resident non-citizens – both documented and undocumented – except under the rarest circumstances. As a result, …

Complicity In The Perversion Of Justice: The Role Of Lawyers In Eroding The Rule Of Law In The Third Reich, Cynthia Fountaine

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

A fundamental tenet of the legal profession is that lawyers and judges are uniquely responsible—individually and collectively—for protecting the Rule of Law. This Article considers the failings of the legal profession in living up to that responsibility during Germany’s Third Reich. The incremental steps used by the Nazis to gain control of the German legal system—beginning as early as 1920 when the Nazi Party adopted a party platform that included a plan for a new legal system—turned the legal system on its head and destroyed the Rule of Law. By failing to uphold the integrity and independence of the profession, …

A Keystroke Causes A Tornado: Applying Chaos Theory To International Cyber Warfare Law, Daniel Garrie, Masha Simonova

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Cyber warfare today finds itself on the front page of the news daily. It is increasingly apparent that the cyber domain demands more guidance, with leaders opting for the deployment of cyber capabilities to bypass kinetic warfare norms. Proposed solutions abound, but none adequately address the specific features of cyber warfare that set it apart from traditional kinetic warfare. This Article argues that a new legal framework is necessary to properly address this problem, and such a doctrine should incorporate principles of chaos theory. Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics dealing with complex systems, with the most well-known example …

Kosovo's Controversial 100 Percent Tariff: An Analysis Of Its Imposition And The Issues Bleeding Into The Conflict Between Kosovo And Serbia, Ernira Mehmetaj

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

On November 6, 2018, Kosovo imposed a 10 percent tariff on products imported from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Later that month, on November 28, 2018, after Kosovo was denied membership in the International Criminal Police Organization, Kosovo increased the custom tariffs on Serbian and Bosnian goods from 10 to 100 percent. These actions resulted in a standstill of the European Union–mandated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue—a dialogue seeking to normalize the relations between the two states. Having the tumultuous history shared by Kosovo and Serbia as a backdrop, this Note analyzes the international agreements Kosovo is party to, specifically the Central European …

Testing Transparency, Brigham Daniels, Mark Buntaine, Tanner Bangerter

Northwestern University Law Review

In modern democracies, governmental transparency is thought to have great value. When it comes to addressing administrative corruption and mismanagement, many would agree with Justice Brandeis’s observation that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Beyond this, many credit transparency with enabling meaningful citizen participation.

But even though transparency appears highly correlated with successful governance in developed democracies, assumptions about administrative transparency have remained empirically untested. Testing effects of transparency would prove particularly helpful in developing democracies where transparency norms have not taken hold or only have done so slowly. In these contexts, does administrative transparency really create the sorts of benefits …

Cause Lawyering And Compassionate Lawyering In Clinical Legal Education: The Case Of Chile, Fernando Munoz L.

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In order to contribute from a situated perspective to a global narrative of access to justice, in the next sections I will trace the origins of compassionate and cause lawyering in the history of Chilean legal aid and training. Part II will explain how legal assistance to the poor was codified as a duty of legal professionals during the Middle Ages, in both canon law and in Castilian legislation. Part III will show that practical legal training, both in Spain and in Chile, began much later as the result of the ambition among prominent members of the legal profession to …

Experiments With Suppression: The Evolution Of Repressive Legality In Britain In The Revolutionary Period, Christopher M. Roberts

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

This article is concerned with the structure of repressive governance, and how it has evolved historically. It examines this theme through an exploration of the manner which repressive laws and institutions evolved in Britain over the course of the late eighteenth century. In particular, it reviews the various measures that British authorities utilized and relied upon in order to confront a growing wave of calls for social and political reforms. These included a policy of aggressive prosecutions of dissidents; the creation of new institutions such as the Home Office designed to enhance the powers of the central authorities; extralegal measures …

Illuminating Regulatory Guidance, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Administrative agencies issue many guidance documents each year in an effort to provide clarity and direction to the public about important programs, policies, and rules. But these guidance documents are only helpful to the public if they can be readily found by those who they will benefit. Unfortunately, too many agency guidance documents are inaccessible, reaching the point where some observers even worry that guidance has become a form of regulatory “dark matter.” This article identifies a series of measures for agencies to take to bring their guidance documents better into the light. It begins by explaining why, unlike the …

Law’S Sentiments, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The chapter argues that law and the Rule of Law do not displace moral sentiments, but rather require them, and sometimes produce them. Law gives us some sense of physical security and thereby makes possible the fellow feeling and empathy that are the root of moral action. The chapter seeks to make this claim plausible by looking at fiction that describes various dystopian lawless states, including the hierarchy of the Church, which law has been loath to enter, badly policed neighborhoods, nineteenth century American slavery, and early twentieth century patriarchal marriages. One lesson of much of this fiction is that …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Can The International Criminal Court Succeed? An Analysis Of The Empirical Evidence Of Violence Prevention, Stuart Ford

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

Despite significant optimism about the future of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) during its early years, recently there has been growing criticism of it by both scholars and governments. As a result, there appears to be more doubt about the ICC’s ability to succeed now than at any other point in its history. So, are the critics correct? Is the ICC failing? No. This Article argues that, not only can the ICC succeed, there is strong evidence that it is already succeeding. It analyzes several recent empirical articles that have convincingly demonstrated that the ICC prevents serious violations of international …

Tiptoeing Through The Landmines: The Evolution Of States’ Legal Ethics Authority Regarding Representing Cannabis Clients, Karen E. Boxx

Seattle University Law Review

Despite the continued federal classification of cannabis as an illegal drug, states have legalized the possession, use, production, and sale of cannabis. In order to do so, the states have created complex regulatory schemes to control and monitor the cannabis industry and satisfy the federal government concerns, such as use by minors and organized crime involvement. First, this Article presents the ethical dilemma of cannabis lawyering. Second, this Article describes the history, evolution, and current status of the various states’ pronouncements on a lawyer’s ethical duties with respect to the business and use of cannabis that may be legal under …

Say “No” To Discrimination, “Yes” To Accommodation: Why States Should Prohibit Discrimination Of Workers Who Use Cannabis For Medical Purposes, Anne Marie Lofaso, Lakyn D. Cecil

Seattle University Law Review

This Article addresses the question of how the law should treat medical cannabis in the employment context. Using Colorado as a primary example, we argue that states such as Colorado should amend their constitutions and legislate to provide employment protections for employees who are registered medical cannabis cardholders or registered caregivers.

Part I briefly traces the legal regulation of cannabis from an unregulated medicine known as cannabis to a highly regulated illicit substance known as marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Our travail through this history reveals, unsurprisingly, an increasing demonization of cannabis throughout the twentieth century. That socio-legal demonization …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Tools For Data Governance, Michael J. Madison

Articles

This article describes the challenges of data governance in terms of the broader framework of knowledge commons governance, an institutional approach to governing shared knowledge, information, and data resources. Knowledge commons governance highlights the potential for effective community- and collective-based governance of knowledge resources. The article focuses on key concepts within the knowledge commons framework rather than on specific law and public policy questions, directing the attention of researchers and policymakers to critical inquiry regarding relevant social groups and relevant data “things.” Both concepts are key tools for effective data governance.

Rules, Tricks And Emancipation, Jessie Allen

Book Chapters

Rules and tricks are generally seen as different things. Rules produce order and control; tricks produce chaos. Rules help us predict how things will work out. Tricks are deceptive and transgressive, built to surprise us and confound our expectations in ways that can be entertaining or devastating. But rules can be tricky. General prohibitions and prescriptions generate surprising results in particular contexts. In some situations, a rule produces results that seem far from what the rule makers expected and antagonistic to the interests the rule is understood to promote. This contradictory aspect of rules is usually framed as a downside …

Data Governance And The Emerging University, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

Knowledge and information governance questions are tractable primarily in institutional terms, rather than in terms of abstractions such as knowledge itself or individual or social interests. This chapter offers the modern research university as an example. Practices of data-intensive research by university-based researchers, sometimes reduced to the popular phrase “Big Data,” pose governance challenges for the university. The chapter situates those challenges in the traditional understanding of the university as an institution for understanding forms and flows of knowledge. At a broad level, the chapter argues that the new salience of data exposes emerging shifts in the social, cultural, and …