Digital Commons Network^™

Migration, Identity & The Colonial Encounter, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

The immigrant puts at issue assumptions of inviolability of borders, territoriality of sovereignty, and exclusivity of citizenship - fundamental characteristics of the modern state. The immigrant calls into question cultural homogeneity, linguistic commonality, shared history, and security of identity - the key ideologies of the nation. This article explores these issues by locating them in spatial and temporal sites removed from the common foci of current immigration debates. Using three stories of migration from colonial and postcolonial South Asia, the first part of the article demonstrates that within the general context of empire and imperialism, the determinants and processes of …

Direct Democracy And Distrust: The Relationship Between Language Law Rhetoric And The Language Vigilantism Experience, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

Revitalized after the passage of California's Proposition 187, the English language movement continues its national campaign for restrictive language laws at the local, state, and federal levels of government. Thus far, the English language laws and initiatives adopted or urged have addressed government speech - the language of government employees and of government communications, records, and publications. English language laws adopted by the states have not yet extended to public speech (such as newspapers and other media) or to private speech (such as language in the home). Yet, individuals speaking a language other than English have increasingly come under attack …

Education's Promise, Laurel Oates, Sam Wineberg

Faculty Articles

This is a story with at least two parts. In the first part, Sam Wineburg, a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Washington, tells his story, the story of instruction in the United States, beginning with one revolution, the scientific revolution, and ending with another, the cognitive revolution. In the second part, Laurel Oates, the Director of Legal Writing at Seattle University School of Law, tells our story, the story of legal education and, in particular, legal writing, and how both have been affected by these revolutions.

Beating The Odds: Reading Strategies Of Law Students Admitted Through Alternative Admissions Programs, Laurel Oates

Faculty Articles

When they enter law school, the odds are against them. Almost always persons of color and often from disadvantaged backgrounds, their LSAT scores are substantially lower than those of their classmates. As a result, these students, law students admitted through alternative admissions programs, have a by far less chance of success than their regularly admitted classmates. Some of these students do, however, beat the odds. While most students who are admitted to law school under an alternative admissions program perform as their LSAT scores predict-in the bottom quartile of their class-a small number perform substantially better. Every year, some alternatively …

Media, Multimedia, And European Community Antitrust Law, John Temple Lang

Fordham International Law Journal

This Article discusses the main European Community (“EC”) antitrust law issues that have arisen in the media industries or which are especially relevant to media. Part I discusses general principles and directives that influence multimedia law. Part II examines the relevant markets which relate to multimedia. Part III reviews evidence of dominance within multimedia. Part IV discusses the impact multimedia has had upon broadcasting sports events within the European Union (“EU”). Part IV also considers film catalogues and performing rights societies. Part V explores mergers within the media sector. Part VI discusses conditional access systems. Finally, the Article concludes that …

Claiming Our Foremothers: The Legend Of Sally Hemings And The Tasks Of Black Feminist Theory, Stephanie L. Phillips

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Hope And Despair For A New South Africa: The Limits Of Rights Discourse, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article is a critique of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. It explores the assumptions employed by the African National Congress and the international community to construct a post-apartheid society. It argues that the reliance on the law as the key medium for economic, social, and political change was insufficient to transform the legacy of apartheid. Instead, the piece contends that apartheid was privatized and its beneficiaries protected under the new dispensation. It makes the argument that the lot of the black majority is unlikely to be changed such gradualist approach to social change.

Is This Appropriate?, Thomas L. Shaffer, Julia B. Meister

Journal Articles

The word "appropriate" is so wildly overused in American culture that, as with other vacuous words and phrases, a person learns to read right through it. "Appropriate" is verbal tofu. This Essay pauses instead of reading through, particularly to notice the instances in which "appropriate" and its negative counterpart are used to give the appearance of a moral or legal judgment.

"Appropriate," chosen to express a legal judgment, is not only vacuous; it is also irresponsible. It catches the legislator, judge, or administrator in the act of passing the buck, as the President did when he ordered the Justice Department …

"Genital Mutilation" Or "Symbolic Birth?" Female Circumcision, Lost Origins, And The Aculturalism Of Feminist/Western Thought, Sylvia Wynter

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech & The Internet: The Inevitable Move Toward Government Regulation, James J. Black

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The explosive growth in the number of people communicating from computers around the world via the Internet ("Net") has led to the proliferation of another type of speech, namely, scholarly articles on virtually every aspect of the Net and its many influences on life in America. One topic that has received a great deal of attention is the extent to which laws applicable within the geographical territory of the United States may be applied to the freewheeling world of Cyberspace, which knows virtually no geographical limitations. Many commentators in the United States have followed one of two streams of argument: …

Common Ground: Perspectives On Latino-Latina Diversity, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

In academic circles, when one speaks of scholarship, one speaks of scholarly legal publications. While such writing is obviously important for reform as well as for professional self-preservation,, I would take the term scholarship a step further. As true students of the law, we have a status in society that gives us a forum, and as Latinos/as we have an obligation to use our status to affect our communities. I, therefore, strongly support becoming more active by getting our voices heard beyond traditional modes of legal discourse. There are scores of communication mediums, such as newspapers and non-legal journals whose …

Hong Kong: The Journey To A Bilingual Legal System, Yuhong Zhao

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Towards A Bilingual Legal System—The Development Of Chinese Legal Language, Anne S.Y. Cheung

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights: A Perspective From India, Prakash Shah

Fordham International Law Journal

The evolution of the international human rights regime has often been shaped by the push and pulls of political and historical forces and events at the expense of alternative approaches. The following Essay traces this evolution from the author’s perspective, presents India's position in relation to the structure and environment of international human rights discourse, and outlines trends and characteristics that merit reflection.

Translating & Interpreting Foreign Statutes, Andrew N. Adler

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article aspires to address academics and anyone who must translate or interpret foreign statutes without previous in-depth education in the alien language and law. To make matters more interesting, the author concentrates on the plight of the minority of judges who want to arrive at independently reasoned interpretations of foreign law when given the opportunity. Most judges strive mightily to avoid even having to glance at foreign laws. And, when it becomes absolutely necessary to read a foreign code, most judges and litigators retain the centuries-old habit of relying too slavishly on tendentious expert testimony. Furthermore, while most states …

Between Diversity And Disorder: A Review Of Jorri C. Duursma, Fragmentation And The International Relations Of Micro-States: Self-Determination And Statehood, Thomas D. Grant

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Cultural Industries Exemption From Nafta--Its Parameters, John A. Ragosta

Canada-United States Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Authors And Users In Copyright, Jane C. Ginsburg

Faculty Scholarship

It has become fashionable, among some thinkers and activists in copyright and related fields, to disparage or to deplore copyright protection. For one drawn to copyright both for its intellectual fascination and its inspiring goals of fostering creativity and protecting authorship, I am distressed to learn that I am among the defenders of a fallen faith, that authors' rights are misguided (if not pernicious) impediments to technological progress, and, worst of all, that copyright blocks freedom of thought and speech in cyberspace. Digital agendas notwithstanding, some of this derogatory discourse is not new; infringers have long found eloquent, if somewhat …

From The Bottom Up, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about carrying out informal instructions given by people in authority. Although many scholars have written about how legal interpretation resembles interpretation in fields such as literature and religion, few have compared informal instructions and legal rules. My most basic assumption in this Article is that focus on informal situations can illumine the standards people use in performing instructions and the kinds of meaning they attribute to instructions. As my title implies, if we reflect on what amounts to faithful or desirable performance of informal directives and the more conceptual question of what these prescriptive standards "mean," we …

Constitutional Invocations , Frederick Schauer

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fidelity As Integrity: Colloquy

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fidelity And Constraint , Lawrence Lessig

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Translation: Who Needs It , Sanford Levinson

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fidelity As Translation:

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practice Of Faith, Martin S. Flaherty

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Current Illegitimacy Of International Human Rights Litigation, Curtis A. Bradley, Jack L. Goldsmith, Iii

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Evolution And Implementation Of Minority Rights, David Wippman

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parents, Religion, And Schools: Reflections On Pierce, 70 Years Later, Stephen L. Carter

Seton Hall Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proposals To Address Germany's Status As A "Land Of Immigration", Anne M. Seibel

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International law permits each individual State to determine who under its laws are citizens of the nation. Germany's decision at the beginning of this century to adhere to the jus sanguinis model of citizenship continues to shape the country's immigration and citizenship laws. This model predicates citizenship on one's parents rather than one's place of birth. Accordingly, "ethnic Germans" who have returned to Germany since the end of the Cold War era are considered to possess a right to German citizenship. In contrast, naturalization procedures are rigorous for foreign residents, including guestworkers and asylum seekers, many of whom are long-time …

Defining Religious Tolerance: German Policy Toward The Church Of Scientology, Emily A. Moseley

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Members of the Church of Scientology face persecution from the German government and its citizens, raising international concern over the rights of religious minorities in a country determined to overcome its Nazi past. The German Constitution provides many protections for religious freedom and also allows a relatively close relationship between church and state. Historically, the German state has been closely intertwined with the traditionally dominant churches, and today Germans enjoy a great deal of freedom of religion. Until very recently, however, the Federal Constitutional Court has not upheld the similar freedom from religion guaranteed by the "establishment clause" in the …