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General Law Revivalism And The Problem Of 1938, Jack Landman Goldsmith, Curtis Bradley

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

From the constitutional Founding until Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), federal courts routinely applied a body of “general law” to resolve a wide range of legal issues, including issues relating to commercial law, tort law, international law, conflict of laws, equity, and procedure. This general law regime became politically fraught and difficult to administer, and the Supreme Court repudiated it in Erie, declaring that “there is no federal general common law” and requiring the federal courts to ground all rules in either federal or state law. Erie and its progeny created what this Article terms the …

Cheap Violence: Weapons And The Law, Joseph Blocher, Darrell A. H. Miller

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

A primary task of law is to control violence. Nearly every imaginable rule-of-law value depends on the success of that endeavor, and some of the most foundational works in legal and political theory begin with an effort to understand the relationship between law and violence. Many of those works were written during periods where the lines between law and violence were blurred, and current threats to the rule of law have sparked renewed interest in the structural interactions between law, violence, and the state.

Missing from this discussion has been a comparably deep analysis of the relationship between law and …

What Is Oral Argument In The Supreme Court For?, Lee Epstein, Eric A. Posner

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Administrative Self-Constitutionalism, Brian Lipshutz

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Since the days of the Interstate Commerce Commission, federal agencies have generally refused to address the constitutionality of statutory provisions. They have offered little reasoning to justify that refusal, yet scholars have generally accepted it. This Article explains why agencies can—and should—address constitutional challenges to statutory provisions.

Agencies have the power to assess the constitutionality of statutory provisions. They already exercise a similar authority when they apply the canon of constitutional avoidance and consider the constitutionality of individual actions. There is no basis for stopping short of addressing challenges to statutes. And many scholars have recognized that, as a formal …

Patrimonial Constitutionalism, Aziz Z. Huq

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The means and the ends of federal power are experiencing a sea-charge. Pardons are freely granted—but only to political allies or political foes who might be coaxed into switching sides. Baseless federal criminal investigations are opened against other political foes. Probes into allies’ corruption are abandoned. Independent federal agencies responsible for defending the public sphere use their regulatory authority to openly advance politically allied voices, while stifling criticism of those in power. Federal money is explicitly wielded as cudgel and bribe to induce partisan loyalty. These and similar ways of flexing federal power add up to more than the sum …

Prescribing Religion: The Ten Commandments On Classroom Walls, Samuel L. Bray, Nathan S. Chapman, Brent A. Strawn

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Several states have recently enacted laws requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. This Article considers the application of the Establishment Clause to these statutes. First, it examines the history of England and its North American colonies to show that a central feature of an established religion was the government’s prescription of particular religious beliefs and practices. Second, it demonstrates that choosing one version of the Ten Commandments to display in public school classrooms necessarily specifies particular religious beliefs. This is in contrast to expressions of generic providentialism that the founders understood the Establishment Clause to permit. …

Slicing Spontaneity, Lee Anne Fennell

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment, Federal Employees, And The War On The “Deep State”, Sonja Starr

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

This essay analyzes, from a First Amendment perspective, the second Trump administration’s efforts to align the federal workforce with its ideological preferences. The administration has broad powers to reshape the executive branch’s policy priorities and its messaging. But as I show with examples across the civil, military, and foreign services, it has gone beyond exercising those powers, retaliating against and restricting employees’ protected private speech and incorporating viewpoint- based conditions into hiring. These actions reflect a constitutional vision that stretches existing limits on public employee rights and, for many employees, subordinates those rights entirely when they conflict with purported Article …

Why General Law?, Samuel L. Bray, Christian R. Burset

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

It has been almost a century since the Supreme Court said in Erie, “There is no general federal common law.” But the general law is in the middle of a controversial revival. Instead of siding with the adherents or detractors of general law, this Essay explores why general law emerges, and why it disappears. Three episodes of the emergence of general law are considered: the rise of general law in the late-eighteenth century British Empire, the rise of general law in the early American Republic, and the rise of general law in twenty-first century originalist and textualist scholarship. In each …

The Prehistory Of The Interim Docket, Aditya Bamzai, Samuel L. Bray

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Did the Supreme Court issue stays of lower court judgments before the modern era? This Essay explores the underappreciated history of the Supreme Court’s issuance of interim relief. As we show, the Supreme Court has relied on a wide variety of statutory and common law authorities to issue stays long before the recent controversies attending the “shadow” or “interim” docket. This history demonstrates that the Court has always had authority to fashion interim relief of some kind. More- over, it supports the conclusion that the Supreme Court’s authority under the All Writs Act exists even when a more specific statutory …

Inter-Agency Coordination, Jennifer Nou

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Conventional accounts portray agency design as the outcome of congressional and presidential quests for political control. This perspective aligns with administrative law’s preoccupation with agencies’ external constraints. The main unit of analysis from this point of view is the agency, and the central question is how political principals outside of the agency restrain it. In reality, however, agency actors must also abide by controls internal to the agency: how do these mechanisms arise and what explains their design? For their part, legislative and executive specifications invariably leave organizational slack. Agency heads thus possess substantial discretion to impose internal structures and …

Redundant Public-Private Enforcement, Zachary D. Clopton

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Redundancy is a four-letter word. According to courts and scholars, redundant litigation is costly, unfair, and confounding. Modern civil procedure has a (nearly) maximalist preference for centralization, and various rules seek to limit duplicative suits within and across court systems. This seemingly dominant view stands in marked contrast to the reality of the modern regulatory state. Redundant public-private enforcement, in which public and private actors have overlapping authority to enforce the law, is ubiquitous. Redundant enforcement also is noticeably underrepresented in the substantial literature on private and public enforcement, which typically treats government agencies and private attorneys general as substitutes …

Pension System And Corruption In Sub-Saharan Africa, Folake O. Alomilagba

Research Papers

This paper examines the relationship between corruption and pension coverage across Sub-Saharan Africa, where extending old-age income security remains a pressing developmental challenge. Using an unbalanced panel of 42 countries over 2000–2024, drawn from the Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Development Indicators, the International Labor Organization, and the World Bank's ASPIRE database, the study estimates the effect of the control of corruption on the share of the elderly receiving a pension. Pooled OLS, random effects, and two-way fixed effects estimators distinguish cross-country from within-country variation. Control of corruption is positively and significantly associated with coverage across cross-sectional specifications, with effects of …

Reversing Progress: The Political And Legal Ramifications Of The 2025 Dei Policy Rollback, Bridgette Baldwin

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2025 will mark a significant turning point in the landscape of American civil rights policy, as federal executive orders the Trump administration initiated seek to dismantle longstanding diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") initiatives. Rooted in a historical context of civil rights progress, these orders aim to curtail affirmative action programs, eliminate DEI mandates within federal agencies and contractors, and challenge the legal foundations of inclusive policies across the country. This Article explores the evolving landscape of civil rights and DEI in the United States, examining its historical roots, recent legal and political developments, and ongoing challenges. From landmark …

Making Sovereigns Pay, Daniel Mandell

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

International law needs more teeth. This conclusion has been made painfully clear over the last four years as Russia has continued its war against Ukraine. Despite the fact that Russia’s actions blatantly violate international law’s prohibition on the use of force, and may violate additional provisions of the law of armed conflict, neither the International Court of Justice nor the international community have been able to end Russia’s assault through the non-military coercive measures allowed under international law. The international community has thus been placed in a Catch-22: either stand-by while international law is violated, or violate international law themselves …

Defining The Field Of Law And Macroeconomics: A Framework From International Monetary Law, Nikita Aggarwal, Adam Feibelman

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

This Article proposes an analytical framework for defining the contours of the emerging field of law and macroeconomics drawing on the International Monetary Fund’s principle of “macro-criticality.” Such a framework can help steer scholarly debate toward a clearer understanding of the relationship between law and the economy and inform policymaking within that domain. In its native context, the macro-criticality principle limits the IMF’s jurisdiction to policy areas that are critical for member countries’ domestic and external stability. The IMF’s approach distinguishes between a core set of macrocritical policies and other non-core policies that are contextually macrocritical. Over time, the IMF …

Jewels From The Deep: The Common Heritage Of Humankind Principle In Sea And Space, Mlada Simper

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

The Patriarchal Project Of Apartheid: Exploring The Gendered Dimensions Of Apartheid And International Justice Pathways Forward, Akila Radhakrishnan, Alyssa T. Yamamoto

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

Although the South African apartheid regime was first and foremost a race-based project, it was also a gendered project. The regime’s dystopian vision to entrench the systematic oppression of non-white people, particularly black people, was rooted in an ideological commitment not just to white supremacy, but to white male supremacy. This paper unpacks the gendered experiences of apartheid and outlines potential avenues to facilitate a more intersectional approach to justice and accountability efforts. Part I traces the patriarchal vision underpinning the South African apartheid regime—and the distinctly gendered dimensions of apartheid’s operationalization and legacy. Adopting a comparative approach, Part II …

Adopting The Eu's Co-Regulation Approach To Artificial Intelligence In The U.S., Emily Seitz

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Genomic Determinants Of Appetite Regulation And Their Role In Obesity Risk, Timothy J. Renier

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Over 40% of US adults and 20% of children live with obesity. It is related to increased risks of diseases including type II diabetes and cancer, is a source of harmful stigma, and impairs child development. Appetitive traits describing patterns of food approach and avoidance behaviors may serve as windows into the underlying pathophysiology of obesity. As both obesity and appetitive traits are heritable, common genetic drivers of obesity may lead to phenotypic obesity through appetitive traits as a disease mechanism. Additionally, GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) have been shown to exert their profound clinical effects in part by modulating appetite. …

Cross-Temporal Statistical Approaches For Evaluating Predictor-Outcome Relationships, Jeff Joseph

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Central auditory function is linked with cognitive deficits, but few research projects use existing statistical approaches or develop new ones to forecast cognitive deficits using the results of central auditory tests. To address this limitation, we use a series of statistical learning frameworks for predicting a child’s cognitive abilities based on his/her central auditory performances and demographic factors. Two key challenges exist. First, children may start the study at a time when they are unable to perform the central auditory tests or cognitive tests. Second, cognitive performance is age-dependent, particularly in the early formative years of childhood and adolescence. To …

Governing Agroecological Transitions: Landscape Legacies, Participation, And Socioecological Change In The Northeastern United States, Kristen Jovanelly

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Agroecological transitions are often presented as purposeful shifts toward more resilient, equitable, and ecologically sustainable landscapes. In practice, these transitions unfold through histories, ecological feedback, institutional arrangements, and contested forms of participation. This dissertation examines how these forces shape what agroecological transitions become, for whom, and with what socioecological consequences across urban and working landscapes in the northeastern United States.

Drawing on historical and critical analysis, ecological modeling, greenhouse experimentation, ethnographic fieldwork, and institutional analysis, I trace transition through urban forests, community-garden seed banks and soils, temperate agroforestry systems, and a participatory tree nursery. Analyses of urban greening and agroforestry …

Beyond Bathrooms: The Far-Reaching Consequences Of Denying Gender Identity In Adams V. School Board Of St. Johns County, Jeffrey Sun, Regina Umpstead Pratel

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

INTRODUCTION: The transgender community continues to face discrimination in United States society, and legal protections are unlikely to change anytime soon. Understanding the broader context of these challenges helps explain why some instances of discrimination in public schools may be overlooked or even supported by public officials. An examination of recent judicial rulings concerning transgender students’ access to restrooms corresponding with their gender identity—situated within the broader convergence of national legal and social developments—provides critical insight into the structural barriers faced by transgender students within the educational system and transgender individuals in society at large. Significantly, the growing visibility of …

Impact Of Instagram Flyers In Higher Education: Within Resident Assistant Program Attendance Marketing, Mary J. Mcdonald

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

This exploratory pilot study examines whether posting Instagram digital flyers affects Resident Assistant (RA) program attendance in the higher-education Housing and Residence Life (HRL) context. Instagram has emerged as a dominant channel of communication among Generation Z (1997-2012). As a result, higher education institutions have increasingly used social media to prompt student engagement and foster belonging, in hopes of strengthening retention. Using a quasi-experimental matched comparison design, attendance data from the 2024 academic year without Instagram flyers were compared to the 2025 academic year with Instagram flyers. The independent variable was the implementation of Instagram digital flyers, and the dependent …

Balancing Beliefs In The Curriculum: Exploring The Educational Value And Constitutional Limits Of Teaching About Religion In U.S. Public Schools, Maria Rina Limbo

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

This thesis examines the educational value and constitutional limits of teaching about religion in U.S. public schools. It asks whether public schools may teach about religion academically without violating constitutional neutrality, where the boundary lies between education and indoctrination, and how religious literacy might be integrated in ways that benefit students while honoring First Amendment constraints. Using a mixed-methods design, the study gathered survey data from 104 adult participants drawn from diverse educational, religious, and community backgrounds across multiple states. Surveys were distributed primarily through mailed and hand-delivered print copies, with a small number completed electronically. Quantitative data were tabulated …

Services Sector In Developing Countries: A New Engine Of Growth Or Premature Deindustrialization?, Pirun Chan

Research Papers

From debates over the services sector as the new engine of growth to ‘premature deindustrialization,’ developing countries are having a harder time figuring out the right strategy to achieve higher income. Can the services sector replace manufacturing as the driving force of growth for developing countries in the twenty-first century? This study examines the relationship between the services sector and economic growth in 27 developing countries from 1990 to 2010. The study regresses the per five-year growth rates of GDP per capita on sectoral shares at the beginning of each five-year period, controlling for population size, human capital, trade openness, …

Activated Carbon Prepared From Residual Eucalyptus Wood For The Removal Of Methyl Orange: Equilibrium, Kinetics, Thermodynamics, And Desorption, Mathin Jaikua, Phuthidhorn Thanaphu, Sunisa Ungwiwatkul, Jakkrawut Maitip, Kanyarak Prasertboonyai

Applied Environmental Research

This research utilizes activated carbon derived from residual Eucalyptus wood (EW) for the removal of methyl orange (MO). The residual Eucalyptus wood-based activated carbon (EWAC) was produced through carbonization at 400 °C (EWC) followed by activation with a mass ratio of H3PO4 to EWC of 1:3, which was conducted at 800 °C for 1 h. The characterization of the EWAC involved various analytical techniques, including FTIR, XRD, BET, and CHN analysis. The adsorption parameters, such as pH (range: 3–8), adsorbent dose (range: 0.01–0.5 g per 50 mL of MO solution), contact time (range: 5–720 min), initial MO concentration (range: 5–600 …

Ammonium Adsorption From Aqueous Solutions Using Mnfe2o4-Functionalized Coffee Husk Biochar Nanocomposites : An Evaluation Of Hno3 And Naoh Activation, Thuy-Tien Do, Huu-Tap Van, Thi-Minh-Thu Nguyen

Applied Environmental Research

This research investigated the development of MnFe2O4-based composite adsorbents (MFO@CFA and MFO@CFB) by activating coffee husk-derived biochar with HNO3 and NaOH, followed by synthesis through coprecipitation and hydrothermal techniques. The structural and chemical properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Batch adsorption experiments were used to assess ammonium removal efficiency across a range of conditions: solution pH (3–8), contact time (5–120 min), adsorbent dosage (0.2–3 g L-1), and initial ammonium concentration (10–60 mg L-1). The findings indicated that compared with MFO@CFB, which was synthesized from NaOH-activated biochar, MFO@ CFA, derived …

Assessing Forest Fragmentation And Edge Expansion In Nan Province, Thailand, Using Landsat Data (2014–2022), Kasidit Rison, Marut Fuangarworn, Chatchawan Chaisuekul

Applied Environmental Research

The increasing pressure from land-use change and agricultural expansion in Nan Province, northern Thailand, has accelerated forest fragmentation and reduced the ecosystem service value (ESV) of the landscape. This study aims to: assess land use and forest fragmentation change in Nan Province between 2014 and 2022, and evaluate the impact of land use change on ESV. Landsat 8 OLI satellite imagery from 2014 and 2022 was used to classify land cover into five types: forest, agriculture, settlements, exposed soil, and others. Forest fragmentation was evaluated using landscape metrics such as patch number, mean patch size, edge length, and core area. …

Environmental Sustainability Performance And Efficiency In Thailand’S Rajabhat Universities : A Cross-Regional Analysis Of The Impact Rankings, Konstantinos Balis

Applied Environmental Research

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to increasingly communicate their contributions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the rise of alternative sustainability rankings serving as prominent reporting instruments for institutional transparency. In Thailand, Rajabhat Universities, a network of government HEIs historically associated with their mission of teacher training and local development, have been actively participating in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, presenting a unique case study to explore cross-regional sustainability efforts in relation to global benchmarks. To evaluate trends, regional disparities, and engagement performance across the sustainability pillars, this study uses a descriptive quantitative design …