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Full-Text Articles in Rule of Law

Context, Timing And The Dynamics Of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective, Laurel E. Fletcher, Harvey M. Weinstein, Jamie Rowen Sep 2013

Context, Timing And The Dynamics Of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective, Laurel E. Fletcher, Harvey M. Weinstein, Jamie Rowen

Laurel E. Fletcher

Legal process is invoked by supporters of transitional justice as necessary if not a precondition for societies affected by mass violence to transition into a new period of peace and stability. In this paper, we question the presumption that trials and/or truth commissions should be an early response to initiating a transitional justice process. We conducted a multi-factorial, qualitative analysis of seven case studies in countries impacted by mass violence and repression—Argentina, Cambodia, Guatemala, Timor-Leste, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. What emerges is a fuller appreciation of the dynamic system in which transitional justice interventions occur. Each system …


Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz Jan 2011

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …


Law, Justice, And Power: Between Reason And Will (Stanford University Press), Sinkwan Cheng Dec 2003

Law, Justice, And Power: Between Reason And Will (Stanford University Press), Sinkwan Cheng

Sinkwan Cheng

This is an unprecedented volume that brings together J. Hillis Miller, Julia Kristeva, Slavoj Zizek, Ernesto Laclau, Alain Badiou, Nancy Fraser, and other prominent intellectuals from five countries in seven disciplines to provide fresh perspectives on the new configurations of law, justice, and power in the global age. The work engages and challenges past and present scholarship on current topics in legal studies: globalization, post-colonialism, multiculturalism, ethics, post-structuralism, and psychoanalysis. The book is divided into five parts. The first debates issues of (trans-)national justice and human rights in the global age, focusing on military interventions and refugee policies. Part II …


Law As Largess: Shifting Paradigms Of Law For The Poor, Deborah M. Weissman Dec 2002

Law As Largess: Shifting Paradigms Of Law For The Poor, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

The article examines the tension between the principles of the Rule of Law and cultural norms of self-sufficiency. It begins by reviewing the principles of the Rule of Law as an ideal, the pursuit of which has led to historical efforts to meet the legal needs of the poor. It then examines recent legal events including federal statutory changes, three Supreme Court cases, and a federal circuit court case which have limited legal resources for those who cannot pay. The article then examines these developments in the context of a sea-change in the political environment of the nation, coinciding with …


Hume And His Critics--Reid And Kames, Noel B. Reynolds May 1986

Hume And His Critics--Reid And Kames, Noel B. Reynolds

Noel B Reynolds

This presentation was in response to Kenneth MacKinnon’s defense of Thomas Reid’s preference for natural virtue against David Hume’s conventionalism in his theory of law. It is argued that because Hume’s legal theory follows easily from his theory of human nature, Reid and Kames—and MacKinnon—need to refute Hume at that level to be successful in their rejection of his conventionalism.