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Recent Articles in Politics
Fukushima: Catastrophe, Compensation, And Justice In Japan, Eric Feldman 
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Fukushima: Catastrophe, Compensation, And Justice In Japan, Eric Feldman
Faculty Scholarship
Well before the Fukushima disaster of March 11, 2011, governments in the developed world struggled with victim compensation in cases of environmental contamination, harms caused by pharmaceutical products, terrorist attacks, and more. All of those are important precedents to Fukushima, but none of them approach the breadth of harms resulting from the triple disaster of huge earthquake, massive tsunami, and nuclear meltdown now known in Japan as 3/11. With close to 20,000 people dead or missing, one million homes fully destroyed or seriously damaged, and 100,000 people displaced, getting those whose lives were affected by the events ...
Human Rights: A Critique Of The Raz/Rawls Approach, Jeremy Waldron 
NELLCO
Human Rights: A Critique Of The Raz/Rawls Approach, Jeremy Waldron
New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers
This paper examines and criticizes the suggestion that we should interpret the “human” in “human rights” as (i) referring to the appropriate sort of action when certain rights are violated rather than (ii) the (human) universality of certain rights. It considers first a crude version of (i) — the view that human rights are rights in response to whose violation we are prepared to countenance humanitarian intervention; then it considers more cautious and sophisticated versions of (i). It is argued that all versions of (i) distract us with side issues in our thinking about human rights, and sell short both the ...
Dissent, Diversity, And Democracy: Heather Gerken And The Contingent Imperative Of Minority Rule, Guy-Uriel Charles 
Duke Law
Dissent, Diversity, And Democracy: Heather Gerken And The Contingent Imperative Of Minority Rule, Guy-Uriel Charles
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Striking A Balance: The Speech Or Debate Clause’S Testimonial Privilege And Policing Government Corruption, Jay Rothrock 
Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Striking A Balance: The Speech Or Debate Clause’S Testimonial Privilege And Policing Government Corruption, Jay Rothrock
Touro Law Review
No abstract provided.
Endogenous Decentralization In Federal Environmental Policies, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman, Leah G. Traub University of Pennsylvania Law School
Endogenous Decentralization In Federal Environmental Policies, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman, Leah G. Traub
Faculty Scholarship
Under most federal environmental laws and some health and safety laws, states may apply for “primacy,” that is, authority to implement and enforce federal law, through a process known as “authorization.” Some observers fear that states use authorization to adopt more lax policies in a regulatory “race to the bottom.” This paper presents a simple model of the interaction between the federal and state governments in such a scheme of partial decentralization. Our model suggests that the authorization option may not only increase social welfare but also allow more stringent environmental regulations than would otherwise be feasible. Our model also ...
Political Authority And Political Obligation, Stephen R. Perry University of Pennsylvania Law School
Political Authority And Political Obligation, Stephen R. Perry
Faculty Scholarship
Legitimate political authority is often said to involve a “right to rule,” which is most plausibly understood as a Hohfeldian moral power on the part of the state to impose obligations on its subjects (or otherwise to change their normative situation). Many writers have taken the state’s moral power (if and when it exists) to be a correlate, in some sense, of an obligation on the part of the state’s subjects to obey its directives. Thus legitimate political authority is said to entail a general obligation to obey the law, and a general obligation to obey the law ...
Leaving The Bench, 1970-2009: The Choices Federal Judges Make, What Influences Those Choices, And Their Consequences, Stephen B. Burbank, S. Jay Plager, Gregory Ablavsky University of Pennsylvania Law School
Leaving The Bench, 1970-2009: The Choices Federal Judges Make, What Influences Those Choices, And Their Consequences, Stephen B. Burbank, S. Jay Plager, Gregory Ablavsky
Faculty Scholarship
This article explores the decisions that, over four decades, lower federal court judges have made when considering leaving the bench, the influences on those decisions, and their potential consequences for the federal judiciary and society. A multi-method research strategy enabled the authors to describe more precisely than previous scholarship such matters of interest as the role that judges in senior status play in the contemporary federal judiciary, the rate at which federal judges are retiring from the bench (rather than assuming, or after assuming, senior status), and the reasons why some federal judges remain in regular active service instead of ...
Egypt's New Constitution: The Islamist Difference, Lama Abu-Odeh 
Georgetown University Law Center
Egypt's New Constitution: The Islamist Difference, Lama Abu-Odeh
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The paper discusses the distributional impact of the rules of the new Egyptian constitution (2012). It specifically addresses the way such rules, substantive and (potentially) procedural, can influence Egyptian law's identity and the underlying relations between the state and individuals and among individuals themselves that such identity implies.
State-Level Government: An Evaluation Of Maine's Conflict Of Interest Laws And Amendments To Improve Transparency Through Financial Disclosure, Shelbe Lane 
The University of Maine
State-Level Government: An Evaluation Of Maine's Conflict Of Interest Laws And Amendments To Improve Transparency Through Financial Disclosure, Shelbe Lane
Honors College
In March of 2012, the State Integrity Investigation published a Corruption Risk Report Card for each state, giving them a grade on 14 different areas relating to government transparency. Based on those grades, the states were then ranked 1-50, with 50 being the worst in government transparency; Maine ranked 46th. This report card prompted my thesis which evaluated government transparency at the state level, with a particular focus on Maine. Based on my research I attempted to answer the following questions: What are the current statutes/regulations regarding conflict of interest for legislative and executive branch officials in Maine? What ...
A World Of Experts: Science And Global Environmental Constitutionalism, Sheila Jasanoff 
Boston College Law School
A World Of Experts: Science And Global Environmental Constitutionalism, Sheila Jasanoff
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
Under conditions of conflict and uncertainty, forging a new constitutional consensus is a monumental task. If we hope to address climate change through a new global constitutionalism, we must challenge current approaches to assessing the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of environmental regulation, and arrive at an international consensus regarding those approaches. In doing so, input from experts in a variety of fields should be sought. A positive example of this approach is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s inclusive and democratic process of environmental assessment. However, we must avoid abdicating responsibility in favor of complete reliance on experts, and ...
Professor Douglas Kysar's Analysis Of Flaws In Predictive International Climate Policy Models, Douglas Kysar, Executive Board, Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review Boston College Law School
Professor Douglas Kysar's Analysis Of Flaws In Predictive International Climate Policy Models, Douglas Kysar, Executive Board, Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
For island countries, climate change and global warming are not hypothetical threats. In his remarks, Professor Douglas Kysar illustrated the immediate need to reframe climate change politics by describing the impending extinction of Palau, a small nation made up of some three hundred islands in the Pacific Ocean. Rising ocean levels threaten Palau’s lands and have forced its government to consider how to adapt to or counteract the effects of climate change.
Global Environmental Constitutionalism, Brian J. Gareau Boston College Law School
Global Environmental Constitutionalism, Brian J. Gareau
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
On the evening of September 26, 2012, the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy hosted a panel discussion on Global Environmental Constitutionalism. My introductory remarks discussed the sense of wariness regarding global environmental governance and constitutionalism from those within the field of environmental sociology. Three panelists more fully explored the global response to climate change from legal, sociological, scientific, and political perspectives. Douglas Kysar, Deputy Dean and Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School, focused on unequal distribution of political power among nation-states and challenged our current assumptions regarding political decision-making models. David Wirth ...
Robin Hood Or Villain: The Social Constructions Of Pablo Escobar, Jenna Bowley The University of Maine
Robin Hood Or Villain: The Social Constructions Of Pablo Escobar, Jenna Bowley
Honors College
Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and leader of the Medellin Cartel which at one point controlled as much as 80% of the international cocaine trade. He is famous for waging war against the Colombian government in his campaign to outlaw extradition of criminals to the United State and ordering the assassination of countless individuals, including police officers, journalists, and high ranking officials and politicians. He is also well known for investing large sums of his fortune in charitable public works, including the construction of schools, sports fields and housing developments for the urban poor. While U.S. and ...
Opportunism And Trade Law Revisited: The Pseudo-Constitution Of The Wto, Sara Dillon Boston College Law School
Opportunism And Trade Law Revisited: The Pseudo-Constitution Of The Wto, Sara Dillon
Boston College Law Review
The constitutionalization of the world trade system has elevated it in legal thinking and given it a false aura of permanency and immutability. The debate among legal academics on this has centered on the technical aspects of trade disputes rather than on the critical issue of the normative nature and effects of the system on those most affected— workers. The opportunistic actors who successfully argued for the creation and constitutionalization of the system have managed to relegate the debate about its continuing benefits to the side. They have benefited from legal scholars’ failure to adequately evaluate and analyze the real ...
Considering The Libel Trial Of Émile Zola In Light Of Contemporary Defamation Doctrine, Peter A. Zablotsky Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Considering The Libel Trial Of Émile Zola In Light Of Contemporary Defamation Doctrine, Peter A. Zablotsky
Touro Law Review
Touro Law School's three-day conference on the Dreyfus affair provided an opportunity to re-examine the libel trial Émile Zola. A modern view on tort law is provided to analyze this case as if it unfolded today.
Legal Affairs: Dreyfus, Guantánamo, And The Foundation Of The Rule Of Law, David Cole Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Legal Affairs: Dreyfus, Guantánamo, And The Foundation Of The Rule Of Law, David Cole
Touro Law Review
Analogous to the Dreyfus affair, America's reaction to the events of September 11, 2001, subverted the rule of law to impose penalties on those it viewed as a threat. There are lessons to be learned from both the Dreyfus affair and America's reaction to September 11, 2001.
Due Process In American Military Tribunals After September 11, 2001, Gary Shaw Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Due Process In American Military Tribunals After September 11, 2001, Gary Shaw
Touro Law Review
The Authorization for Use of Military Force ("AUMF") provides broad powers for a president after September 11, 2001. President Bush, under the AUMF, claimed he had the power to hold "enemy combatants" without due process. This gave rise to two questions that the article addresses: "Could they be held indefinitely without charges or proceedings being initiated? If proceedings had to be initiated, what process was due to the defendants?"
The Behavior Of The French Army During The Dreyfus Affair, General André Bach Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
The Behavior Of The French Army During The Dreyfus Affair, General André Bach
Touro Law Review
Focuses on the how the French army participated in and influenced the Dreyfus affair. There are three main areas in which the French army played a large role: the incident of espionage, the legal case, and lastly, the political ramifications.
Bringing Women In: Global Strategies For Gender Parity In Political Representation, Yvonne Galligan 
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Bringing Women In: Global Strategies For Gender Parity In Political Representation, Yvonne Galligan
University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class
No abstract provided.
Political Ideology As A Religion: The Idolatry Of Democracy, Maxwell O. Chibundu University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Political Ideology As A Religion: The Idolatry Of Democracy, Maxwell O. Chibundu
University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class
No abstract provided.
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