Digital Commons Network^™

"Beauty Is Truth And Truth Beauty": How Intuitive Insights Shape Legal Reasoning And The Rule Of Law, Stephen M. Maurer

Seattle University Law Review

Scientists have long recognized two distinct forms of human thought. “Type 1” reasoning is unconscious, intuitive, and specializes in finding complex patterns. It is typically associated with the aesthetic emotion that John Keats called “beauty.” “Type 2” reasoning is conscious, articulable, and deductive. Scholars usually assume that legal reasoning is entirely Type 2. However, critics from Holmes to Posner have protested that unconscious and intuitive judgments are at least comparably important. This Article takes the conjecture seriously by asking what science can add to our understanding of how lawyers and judges interpret legal texts. The analysis is overdue. Humanities scholars …

A Bit Like Cash: Understanding Cash-For-Bitcoin Transactions Through Individual Vendors, Stephanie J. Robberson, Mark R. Mccoy

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As technology improves and economies become more globalized, the concept of currency has evolved. Bitcoin, a cryptographic digital currency, has been embraced as a secure and convenient type of money. Due to its security and privacy for the user, Bitcoin is a good tool for conducting criminal trades. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has regulations in place to make identification information of Bitcoin purchasers accessible to law enforcement, but enforcing these rules with cash-for-Bitcoin traders is difficult. This study surveyed cash-for-Bitcoin vendors in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico to determine personal demographic information, knowledge of …

Schooling Silence: Sexual Harassment And Its Presence And Perception At Uganda’S Universities And Secondary Schools, Elena Mieszczanski

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although reports indicate that a majority of students in Uganda are sexually abused while in school, sexual harassment and its impact on educational attainment is a rampant yet understudied problem (The Uganda National Strategic Plan on Violence Against Children in Schools, 2015). While harassment in schools by teachers and students is not the only factor leading to high dropout rates among students, the behavior of teachers and students in school, and the lack of discipline towards their actions is an internal contribution to this effect. This study aims to better understand the perceptions on what constitutes “sexual harassment” in Uganda …

Cooperation And Turnover In Law Faculties: A Game-Theoretic Model And An Empirical Study, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

A standard account of group cooperation would predict that group stability would bring about greater cooperation because repeat-play games would allow for sanctions and rewards. In an academic unit such as a department or a law faculty, one might thus expect that faculty stability would bring about greater cooperation. However, academic units are not like most other groups. Tenured professors face only limited sanctions for failing to cooperate, for engaging in unproductive conflict, or for shirking. This article argues counter-intuitively that within limits, some level of faculty turnover may enhance cooperation. Certainly, excessive and persistent loss of faculty is demoralizing, …

Is The Cure Worse Than The Disease?: Censorship Of Hate Speech May Well Increase Violence, Gordon Danning

Nevada Law Journal Forum

From Charlottesville to college campuses, people with odious hate groups have risen in notoriety recently. Responses to those people and the groups to which they belong have ranged from efforts to keep them from speaking in person, to deleting their presence on the internet, to efforts to have them terminated from their jobs or evicted from their apartments, and even to physical assault by members of such groups as Antifa. Such efforts at censoring, ostracizing, and stigmatizing hate group members are generally justified by claims that such individuals are dangerous. It is true that some scholars have found an association …

The Love In Loving: Overcoming Artificial Racial Barriers, Justice Leah Ward Sears (Ret.), Sasha N. Greenberg

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The rewritten opinion of Loving v. Virginia in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court is in stark contrast to the original. Professor Teri McMurtry-Chubb’s judgment for the court “unmasks—and renders unavoidable— the link between America’s history of White supremacy and patriarchy and America’s legal structures for regulating marriage and families.” The feminist opinion relies almost entirely on legal, social, and cultural history, in particular the history of marriage and family relationships among and between Blacks and Whites during the colonial, antebellum, and postbellum eras in the American South.

For the authors of this response Essay, both …

Americas Coverage, Human Rights Brief

Human Rights Brief Fall 2018 Regional Coverage

No abstract provided.

Lying About God (And Love?) To Get Laid: The Case Study Of Criminalizing Sex Under Religious False Pretense In Hong Kong, Jianlin Chen

Cornell International Law Journal

Section 120 of the Hong Kong Crimes Ordinances— which traces its origin to the U.K. and which is replicated in several other English common law jurisdictions— criminalizes procurement of sexual acts through false representation. Recently, prosecutors used this provision to indict individuals who procured sexual acts on the pretext of performing luck-improving religious rituals. Beyond presenting the first-ever systematic examination of these intriguing fraudulent sex court cases, this Article makes two arguments. First, this Article explains how the strong skepticism, and at times, instinctive rejection by the judges of the purported religious proclamations not only confirm the scholarly concerns over …

A Christian Oasis: The Role Of Christianity And Custom In The Laws Of Ethiopia, Cyril A. Heron

Cornell International Law Journal

Part I of this Note will analyze the history of Ethiopia’s legal system.

Part II of this Note focuses on modern Ethiopia and seeks to scrutinize Ethiopia’s Civil Code, Constitution, and other legislation. Written into the new constitution of Ethiopia is a declaration of secularism, similar to the United States and South Africa. Yet, in a nation that has existed as a Christian state for at least a millennium, it is nigh on impossible for Ethiopia to fully divest itself of its cultural mores with mere constitutional edict. The question is, therefore, what is to be made of traditional beliefs …

Infrastructural Exclusion And The Fight For The City: Power, Democracy, And The Case Of America's Water Crisis, K. Sabeel Rahman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

When Courts Should Ignore Statutory Text, Jesse M. Cross

Faculty Publications

Statutory interpreters often rely upon a fundamental assumption: namely, that every word of a statute is meant to be read — and given legal force — by the courts. This assumption unites both textualists and intentionalists, and it has been invoked by Justices as diverse as Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Stevens, and Justice Scalia — the last of whom called it a “cardinal rule of statutory interpretation.” It underpins at least nine separate canons of statutory interpretation, and it even shapes how courts interpret legislative documents beyond statutes. It is difficult to imagine a more central assumption in statutory interpretation. …

The Scope Of Party Autonomy In International Commercial Contracts: A New Dawn?, Akinwumi Olawuyi Ogunranti

LLM Theses

Transnational contracts are almost inevitable in the world today. It follows that a system of law must govern the resolution of disputes that arise from the contracts. The freedom of parties to choose a law that regulates transnational contracts is recognized by most countries as party autonomy. However, the extent of this autonomy has been controversial. This thesis unravels the controversy surrounding the doctrine of party autonomy and, more importantly, provides another perspective to the argument – that the application and scope of party autonomy in countries is determined by historical, colonial, economic, and religious factors. It uses this as …

Comparative Research In Contemporary African Legal Studies, Charles Manga Fombad

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Women’S Divorce Rights In Jordan: Legal Rights And Cultural Challenges, Helen David

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research aims to examine women’s divorce rights in Jordan examining the topic both through their legal rights as well as through the cultural challenges and stigma that divorced women face. The research is focused specifically on the rights of Muslim women, who have to file for divorce through the Shari’a court system, in Jordan that are Jordanian nationals. The literature used in the research provides background insight into Jordan’s tribal system, family law in Jordan, and psychological theories that relate to group therapy and self-efficacy in divorced women. The researcher hypothesizes that despite the many socio-economic and legal reasons …

Neoliberalism And Human Rights: The Brandt Commission And The Struggle For A New World, Umut Özsu

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Nineteen Minutes Of Horror: Insights From The Scorpions Execution Video, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

After the fall of Srebrenica in summer of 1995, the Scorpions unit, dispatched to support the Bosnian Serb Army as it took over the enclave, shot six men in Trnovo. The men, three of whom were underage, were some of thousands of Bosnian Muslims that fell into the hands of Bosnian Serb troops, and that were executed in the days and weeks following July 11th. A member of the unit filmed the execution. Fragments of the video were first shown during the Slobodan Milosevic trial, and multiple times in the years after, in the courtrooms in The Hague and Belgrade. …

Book Review: Rwanda Before The Genocide: Catholic Politics And Ethnic Discourse In The Late Colonial Era, Randall Fegley

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Immigration Blame, David S. Rubenstein

Fordham Law Review

This Article provides the first comprehensive study of blame in the U.S. immigration system. Beyond blaming migrants, we blame politicians, bureaucrats, and judges. Meanwhile, these players routinely blame each other, all while trying to avoid being blamed. As modeled here, these dynamics of “immigration blame” have catalyzing effects on the politics, policies, and structures of immigration law. Yoking key insights from a range of social sciences, this Article offers unique perspectives on the operation and design choices of the immigration system. Moreover, through a blame lens, the terms of debate over amnesty, immigration enforcement, the travel ban, sanctuary cities, and …

Conscious Identity Performance, Leslie P. Culver

San Diego Law Review

Marginalized groups in the legal profession sometimes feel pressure to perform strategies to communicate their identity in a predominantly white legal profession. Relevant legal scholarship describes this phenomenon, for example, in terms such as covering and passing—largely forms of assimilation. The notion is that outsiders—women, people of color, LGBTQ—use these strategies to communicate with insiders—white, heterosexual, males—in ways designed to advance their status in the legal profession. This article expands on that scholarship by drawing on a theoretical framework that legal scholars have largely ignored: co-cultural theory. This interdisciplinary theory describes how non-dominant cultures communicate in a dominant society. In …

From Law To Legal Studies And Beyond: 50 Years Of Law And Legal Studies At Carleton University, Vincent Kazmierski, Darren Pacione

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper considers the evolution of Carleton University's Department of Law and Legal Studies and its approach to the study of law and the legal within the context of the continuing growth of legal studies programs across the country. It starts by outlining the historical development of the Department and the evolution of its perspective of its role and purpose. Part II examines a number of aspects of the architecture of fourteen undergraduate legal studies programs across the country and the ways in which the roles of these programs are described. Part III provides a brief outline of the current …

Something Old, Something New: Historicizing Same-Sex Marriage Within Ongoing Struggles Over African Marriage In South Africa, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines contemporary struggles over same-sex marriage in the daily lives of black lesbian- and gay-identified South Africans. Based primarily on 21 in-depth interviews with such South Africans drawn from a larger project on post-apartheid South African marriage, the author argues that their current struggles for relationship recognition share much in common with contemporaneous struggles of their heterosexual counterparts, and that these commonalities reflect ongoing tensions between more extended-family and more dyadic understandings of African marriage. The increasing influence of dyadic understandings of marriage, and of associated ideals of romantic love, has helped inspire same-sex marriage claims and, in …

The Intertwined Existence Of Families And Religion, Lynn D. Wardle

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

A Reflection On The Recent Nigerian Legislation Against Same Sex Marriage Vis-À-Vis Rising Gay Activism In The Western World, Larry O. C. Chukwu

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

The Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act recently enacted by Nigeria criminalizes marriage or civil union between persons of the same sex; solemnization of same sex marriage or civil union or witnessing, aiding or abetting the same; registration, operation, membership or support of gay clubs; pub lic show of same sex amorous relationship and related matters. Each of these offences attracts a long term of imprisonment. The Act was enacted in bold defiance of threats of economic and political sanctions by the Western powers against any developing cou ntry that enacts anti - gay legislation. This paper analyzes the Act against …

Strategies For More Inclusive Municipal Participatory Governance And Implimenting Un-Habitat's New Urban Agenda: Improving Consultation And Participation In Urban Planning Decision-Making Processes Through Rapid Ethnographic Assessment Procedures, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Based on the findings of an urban legal anthropology project in Toronto, Canada that tracked municipal decision-making practices in relation to development, redevelopment, and heritage preservation in the city and the often unforeseen and unacknowledged effects these can have on marginal, transgressive, and subaltern (subcultural) communities and their community cultural spaces and practices, this article will first turn to a few neighbourhood examples of public consultation processes underway in Toronto and observations of visual (vocal) resistance to faulty consultation practices. These examples reveal some of the realities of public consultation design in Toronto and how it is experienced on the …

Reply: Conscience And Equality, Nelson Tebbe

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In this Reply, I explore some larger questions that have been prompted by the book but that fell outside its focus on the interaction between religious freedom and civil rights law. Spurred by the responses, but also independent of them, I examine the implications of my arguments for an egalitarian theory of the First Amendment. Though it is of course impossible to fully develop such a vision in this Reply, there is room to begin that work. Along the way, I answer some of the more pointed questions posed in these six responses.

Culture, Socialization, And Firearms Violence In The United States, Jennifer L. Lanterman, Sarah J. Blithe

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Firearm violence persists in the United States despite innumerable social, political, and economic changes throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Collaborative Event Ethnography was used at seven gun shows in three regions of the United States to explore childhood socialization into firearm culture via intergenerational communication of values and views regarding violence, safety, and the use of firearms. Children were observed at all gun shows engaged in activities ranging from standard play to potentially dangerous activity in an environment characterized by bias and controversy. The findings support social learning theory and provide some insight into the role of culture …

Open Access At Mit And Beyond: A White Paper Of The Mit Ad Hoc Task Force On Open Access To Mit’S Research, Katharine Dunn, Hal Abelson, Chris Bourg, Ellen Finnie

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

MIT researchers, students, and staff have long valued and put into action MIT’s mission to generate and disseminate knowledge by openly and freely sharing research and educational materials. Indeed, the Institute has been at the forefront of the sharing culture: MIT launched OpenCourseWare (OCW), a free webbased publication of virtually all MIT course content in 2001; in 2002 released DSpace, an open-source platform for managing research materials and publications co-created by MIT Libraries staff; and adopted the first campus-wide faculty open access (OA) policy in the US in 2009.

Convening an open access task force was one of the 10 …

"There Are No Ordinary People": Christian Humanism And Christian Legal Thought, Richard W. Garnett

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

It seems to me that what my colleague, teacher, and friend, the late Robert E. Rodes, Jr., liked to call “the legal enterprise” is the project of coordinating, structuring, facilitating, and constraining human activities in a way that promotes and secures the common good and, thereby, promotes the flourishing of human persons. This project proceeds from, and depends on, an account of what the human person is and is for—a “moral anthropology.” I have argued elsewhere, for example, that certain “truths about the nature, goods, and destiny of the human person, namely, that we were made by God—whose love …

The Pre-History Of Subsidiarity In Leo Xiii, Michael P. Moreland

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Part of the confusion over subsidiarity—but also, perhaps, an aspect of the principle’s richness—is its combination, then, of both “libertarian” and “communitarian” elements. Progress in our understanding and application of subsidiarity will require a careful assessment of these considerations and determining when intervention or assistance [subsidium] from a higher authority is needed and when devolution of responsibility is warranted. More precisely, we will need to determine when authority is properly located at a higher level and when authority is properly recognized in the smaller community. This conclusion, in turn, will require a discussion of subsidiarity’s political theoretical …

Brennan And Brewbaker's Christian Legal Thought: Providing The Foundations For Establishment Clause Understanding, Angela C. Carmella

Journal of Catholic Legal Studies

(Excerpt)

Under this approach—which clearly prioritizes the protection of religious exercise as well as the religious messages of cultural and political institutions—it appears that the Establishment Clause plays little or no role independent of the Free Exercise Clause. My question, then, is whether Christian legal thought compels us, or at least supports, such a reading of the Establishment Clause. In other words, does this lack of concern for non-establishment norms inhere in Christian legal and political thought? I look to Patrick Brennan and William Brewbaker’s casebook—Christian Legal Thought: Materials and Cases (“CLT”) —in search of a framework for exploration. …