Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Religiosity In Constitutions And The Status Of Minority Rights, Brandy G. Robinson

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

Minority rights and religion have never been topics that are simultaneously considered. However, arguably, the two have relevance, especially when combined with the topic and theory of constitutionalism. Historically and traditionally, minorities have been granted certain rights and have been denied certain rights under various constitutions. These grants and denials relate to cultural differences and values, arguably relating to a culture’s understanding and interpretation of religion.

This article explores the relationship and status of minority rights as it relates to religiosity and constitutionalism. Essentially, there is a correlation between these topics and research shows where certain nations have used religion …

Transdisciplinary Conflict Of Laws Foreword: Cavers's Double Legacy, Karen Knop, Ralf Michaels, Annelise Riles

Annelise Riles

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Pax Arabica?: Provisional Sovereignty And Intervention In The Arab Uprisings, Asli Bâli, Aziz Rana

Aziz Rana

No abstract provided.

Interest Groups In The Teaching Of Legal History, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

One reason legal history is more interesting than it was several decades ago is the increased role of interest groups in our accounts of legal change. Diverse movements including law and society, critical legal theory, comparative law, and public choice theory have promoted this development, even among writers who are not predominantly historians. Nonetheless, in my own survey course in American legal history I often push back. Taken too far, interest group theorizing becomes an easy shortcut for assessing legal movements and developments without fully understanding the ideas behind them.

Intellectual history in the United States went into decline because …

Establishing A Suitable Lay Participation System For The Taiwanese Criminal Justice System, Yi-Lin Lou

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on a recent judicial reform measure proposed by the Taiwanese Judicial Yuan in 2011. The measure’s objective was to improve the criminal justice system via the implementation of a so-called “lay observer system.” The dissertation begins with an analysis regarding whether the Taiwanese criminal justice system needs to reform, and it considers whether the introduction of the proposed lay observer system would be a reasonable means of achieving the Judicial Yuan’s goals and meeting its expectations, which include rebuilding the Taiwanese society’s trust in the professional judges’ credibility and the court’s fairness. The second part of this …

Femicide In Bolivia After Law 348, Adán Martínez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project explores the concept of femicide from a unique perspective, by analyzing the effect that Law #348: The Internal Law to Guarantee Women a Life Without Violence after a year that it passed during the Morales' administration. I examine two crucial questions to this study: 1) How do we explain the paradox that although this law has passed, today we see an increase in the number of femicides in Bolivia? 2) What are the obstacles that prevent that application of law 348 3) What can we do to put a stop to femicides? I demonstrate that several factors like …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

The Role Government Should Play In The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act 2009, Jungmi Bang

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to determine the most effective way to administer an economic stimulation act and what role the government should play. More specifically, the paper will discuss administrative problems and limitations, such as the government’s possible disengagement from the real market stake holders’ assessment in the ARRA and will provide possible solutions to eliminate or minimize those defects. Ultimately, the research seeks to satisfy the real market stake holders’ expectation by analyzing the pros and cons of the ARRA, and by comparing Korea’s administrative approach to adopting an economic stimulation plan in the real market with …

The Visible Effects Of An Invisible Constitution: The Contested State Of Transdniestria's Search For Recognition Through International Negotiations, Nadejda Mazur

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Most scholars agree that modern states share several defining characteristics: a population, territory, government, and the capacity to enter into international relations. More recently, this list has expanded to include the criteria of democracy, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights. These traditional and contemporary criteria for statehood are likewise essential for settling the status of de facto states, entities that seek international recognition yet are rebuffed by the world community.

By examining the criteria for international recognition from the perspective of constitutional law, this dissertation reveals the existing but overlooked relationship between the recognition process and …

Migrant Workers' Access To Justice At Home: Nepal, Sarah Paoletti, Eleanor Taylor-Nicholson, Bandita Sijapati, Bassina Farbenblum

All Faculty Scholarship

Nepal’s citizens engage in foreign employment at the highest per capita rate of any other country in Asia, and their remittances account for 25 percent of the country’s GDP. The Middle East is now the most popular destination for Nepalis--nearly 700,000 were working in the Middle East in 2011 on temporary labor contracts. For some Nepalis, working abroad provides much-needed household wealth. For others, their contributions to Nepal come at great personal cost. Migrant workers in the Gulf, for example, routinely report wage theft, lack of time off and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Some migrant workers report psychological and …

U.S. Vs. European Broadband Deployment: What Do The Data Say?, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

As the Internet becomes more important to the everyday lives of people around the world, commentators have tried to identify the best policies increasing the deployment and adoption of high-speed broadband technologies. Some claim that the European model of service-based competition, induced by telephone-style regulation, has outperformed the facilities-based competition underlying the US approach to promoting broadband deployment. The mapping studies conducted by the US and the EU for 2011 and 2012 reveal that the US led the EU in many broadband metrics.

• High-Speed Access: A far greater percentage of US households had access to Next Generation Access (NGA) …

Aiding And Abetting: The Illegality Of Morocco's Nationalist Expansion Into Western Sahara And Their Support From The United States, Rachid H. Yousfi

Master's Theses

This paper will address the illegality of Morocco’s nationalist annexation of Western Sahara and how the United States plays the accommodating role through the selling of arms, economic aid, and diplomatic support. Considered as Africa’s last colony, the Saharawi people have not experienced the basic human right to self-determination and the right for independence. These rights are continued to be withheld for the sake of Moroccan nationalism and their “rightful and ethnic” claims to the territory, disregarding the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s advisory opinion ruling in favor of Saharawi self-determination. It explores the chronology of the Saharawi population from …

The Cost Of Doing Business In Asia: A Comparative Legal Study Of Environmental Regulations In The Emerging Markets Of Thailand, Malaysia, And Indonesia, Brooke R. Padgett

Brooke R. Padgett

Abstract: This article explores whether voluntary standards, customary law, or more binding bilateral investment treaties are best for corporations, the emerging markets of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and the environment itself. While corporations, markets, and the environment facially seem to have divergent priorities, environmental disasters are more costly after the fact than they are to prevent so in reality their priorities may not be so different after all. Some of the potential issues the paper will examine and address are big picture macro level such as fairness to future generations, intergenerational rights; the actual cost through questions of polluter pays, …

No. 8 - The Cuban Embargo: Policy Outlook After 50 Years, Rebecca H. White, C. Donald Johnson, Archibald R.M. Ritter, Ray Walser, Ricardo Torres, Timothy L. Meyer, Daniel W. Fisk, Vicki J. Huddleston, Robert L. Muse, José R. Cabañas, Marisa Pagnattaro, Jonathan C. Benjamin-Alvarado, Gary W. Black, C. Parr Rosson Iii, Jorge Mario Sanchez Egozcue

Occasional Papers Series

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy, The Cuban Embargo: Policy Outlook after 50 Years was a daylong conference exploring issues related to the impact of trade sanctions imposed by the United States on Cuba, pathways to lifting the embargo and potential U.S.-Cuba trade opportunities. Ambassador José R, Cabañas, the chief of mission at the Cuban Interests Section in Washinton, D.C., served as the keynote speaker for the event. The transcript of the conference proceedings has been edited for publication with the consent of the speakers.

Slides: Thoughts On Regulatory Mechanisms For Natural Resource Development: Alternatives To Command And Control, Including A Look At Open Source Approaches, Stanley Dempsey

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: Stanley Dempsey, Chairman, Royal Gold

17 slides

Speculative Tech: The Bitcoin Legal Quagmire & The Need For Legal Innovation, Paul H. Farmer Jr.

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

A Prequel To Law And Revolution: A Long Lost Manuscript Of Harold J. Berman Comes To Light, John Witte Jr., Christopher J. Manzer

Faculty Articles

The late Harold Berman was a pioneering scholar of Soviet law, legal history, jurisprudence, and law and religion; he is best known today for his monumental Law and Revolution series on the Western legal tradition. Berman wrote a short book, Law and Language, in the early 1960s, but it was not published until 2013. In this early text, he adumbrated many of the main themes of his later work, including Law and Revolution. He also anticipated a good deal of the interdisciplinary and comparative methodology that we take for granted today, even though it was rare in the …

Governing Knowledge Commons -- Introduction & Chapter 1, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Katherine J. Strandburg

Book Chapters

“Knowledge commons” describes the institutionalized community governance of the sharing and, in some cases, creation, of information, science, knowledge, data, and other types of intellectual and cultural resources. It is the subject of enormous recent interest and enthusiasm with respect to policymaking about innovation, creative production, and intellectual property. Taking that enthusiasm as its starting point, Governing Knowledge Commons argues that policymaking should be based on evidence and a deeper understanding of what makes commons institutions work. It offers a systematic way to study knowledge commons, borrowing and building on Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning research on natural resource commons. It …

Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Unfair self-dealing and expropriation of minority shareholders by a controlling shareholder are common business practices in developing countries (“bad-law countries”). Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, there are many questions unanswered in relation to behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. For example, a puzzle is that some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries voluntarily extract minority shareholders less than other controlling shareholders. Applying Mancur Olson’s framework of political theory of “banditry” to the context of corporate governance, this Article proposes that there are at least two categories of controlling shareholders. “Roving controllers” are dominant shareholders with …

We The Peoples: The Global Origins Of Constitutional Preambles, Tom Ginsburg, Daniel Rockmore, Nick Foti

Tom Ginsburg

We like to think that constitutions are expressions of distinctly national values, speaking for “We the People.” This is especially true of constitutional preambles, which often recount distinct events from national history and speak to national values. This article challenges this popular view by demonstrating the global influences on constitutional preambles. It does so using a new set of tools in linguistic and textual analysis, applied to a database of most constitutional preambles written since 1789. Arguing that legal language can be analogized to memes or genetic material, we analyze “horizontal” transfer of language across countries and “vertical” transfers within …

The Weaknesses Of Criticism Against Supermajority, Sergio Verdugo Sverdugor@Udd.Cl

Sergio Verdugo R.

The article critically examines the objections that professors Guillermo Jiménez, Pablo Marshall and Fernando Muñoz have made to the exceptional legislative supermajority rule, defended by Sergio Verdugo in a prior paper of 2012. The objections relies in a biased conception of democracy and political equality. Their arguments conduct to a naïve position that prevents the evaluation of supermajorities in an instrumental way. Verdugo defends the idea that legislative supermajorities are useful given certain conditions and under certain cases.

No Alternative: Resolving Disputes Japanese Style, Eric Feldman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article critiques the simple black/white categorisation of mainstream versus alternative dispute resolution, and argues that what is needed is a cartography of dispute resolution institutions that maps the full range of approaches and traces their interaction. It sketches the first lines of such a map by describing two examples of conflict resolution in Japan. Neither can justly be called “alternative”, yet neither fits the mould of what might be called mainstream or classical dispute resolution. One, judicial settlement, focuses on process; the other, compensating victims of the Fukushima disaster, engages a specific event. Together, they help to illustrate why …

Grappling At The Grassroots: Access To Justice In India's Lower Tier, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Shirish N. Kavadi, Azima Girach, Dhanaji Khupkar, Kilindi Kokal, Satyajeet Mazumdar, Nupar, Gayatri Panday, Aatreyee Sen, Aqseer Sodhi, Bharati Takale Shukla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

From 2010 to 2012, a team of academic and civil society researchers conducted extensive ethnographies of litigants, judges, lawyers, and courtroom personnel within multiple districts in three states: Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh. This Article provides an in-depth account of the everyday struggles these actors face in the pursuit of their respective objectives. The findings illustrate a complex matrix of variables-including infrastructure, staffing, judicial training and legal awareness, costs and continuances, gender and caste discrimination, power imbalances, intimidation and corruption, miscellaneous delays, and challenges with specialized forums-impact access to justice in the lower tier. The results of this study offer …

The Impossible, Highly Desired Islamic Bank, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

The purpose of this Article is to explore, and explain the stubborn persistence of, a central paradox that is endemic to the retail Islamic bank as it operates in the United States. The paradox is that retail Islamic banking in the United States is impossible, and yet it remains highly desired. It is impossible because the principles that are supposed to underlie the practice of Islamic finance deal with the trading of assets and the equitable sharing of risks, profits and losses among bank, depositor and portfolio investment. It is true that much of this can be, and is, circumvented …

Private Enforcement Of Statutory And Administrative Law In The United States (And Other Common Law Countries), Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang, Herbert M. Kritzer

All Faculty Scholarship

Our aim in this paper, which was prepared for an international conference on comparative procedural law to be held in July 2011, is to advance understanding of private enforcement of statutory and administrative law in the United States, and, to the extent supported by the information that colleagues abroad have provided, of comparable phenomena in other common law countries. Seeking to raise questions that will be useful to those who are concerned with regulatory design, we briefly discuss aspects of American culture, history, and political institutions that reasonably can be thought to have contributed to the growth and subsequent development …

Qualification Of Taxable Entities And Treaty Protection, Anthony C. Infanti, Bernard Moens

Articles

This report was prepared for the 2014 International Congress of the International Fiscal Association. The general reporters for the Congress asked IFA branches around the world to prepare a report designed to provide information on how countries address (1) the question of when domestic and foreign entities are treated as transparent or taxable and (2) conflicts between different countries’ treatment of entities as transparent or taxable for treaty purposes. This report constitutes the IFA U.S.A. Branch’s submission to the general reporters.

The report is divided into two sections. The first section of the report provides a general description of how …

Social Hierarchies And The Formation Of Customary Property Law In Pre-Industrial China And England, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Comparative lawyers and economists have often assumed that traditional Chinese laws and customs reinforced the economic and political dominance of elites and, therefore, were unusually “despotic” towards the poor. Such assumptions are highly questionable: Quite the opposite, one of the most striking characteristics of Qing and Republican property institutions is that they often gave significantly greater economic protection to the poorer segments of society than comparable institutions in early modern England. In particular, Chinese property customs afforded much stronger powers of redemption to landowners who had pawned their land. In both societies, land-pawning occurred far more frequently among poorer households …

Prosecutorial Discretion In Three Systems: Balancing Conflicting Goals And Providing Mechanisms For Control, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

In regulating the authority and discretion exercised by contemporary prosecutors,national systems balance a variety of goals, many of which are in tension or direct conflict. Forexample, making prosecutors politically or democratically accountable may conflict with theprinciple of prosecutorial neutrality, and the goal of efficiency may conflict with accuracy. National systems generally seek to foster equal treatment of defendants and respect for theirrights while also controlling or reducing crime and protecting the rights of victims. Systems thatrecognize prosecutorial discretion also seek to establish and implement policy decisions aboutthe best ways to address various social problems, priorities, and the allocation of resources. …

Religious Associational Rights And Sexual Conduct In South Africa: Towards The Furtherance Of The Accommodation Of A Diversity Of Beliefs, Shaun De Freitas

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Profiling As Collective Definition, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

Economists and other interested academics have committed significant time and effort to developing a set of circumstances under which an intelligent and circumspect form of racial profiling can serve as an effective tool in crime finding–the specific objective of finding criminal activity afoot. In turn, anti-profiling advocates tend to focus on the immediate efficacy of the practice, the morality of the practice, and/or the legality of the practice. However, the tenor of this opposition invites racial profiling proponents to develop more surgical profiling techniques to employ in crime finding. In the article, I review the literature on group distinction to …