Law Commons^™

Self-Determination, Subordination, And Semantics: Rhetorical And Real-World Conflicts Over The Human Rights Of Indigenous Women, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Indigenous women have long been engaged in unambiguous advocacy for a human rights-based approach to gender injustice in their communities and nations. Indigenous nations, for their part, have repeatedly and passionately posited collective human rights as necessary for the protection of cultural distinction. These projects should be reconcilable – but this reconciliation requires the political will to critically engage with historical and contemporary colonialism, and to address the internalization of patriarchy and sexism in Indigenous societies today. With such a will in place, it becomes possible to operationalize a single Indigenous ‘self-determination’ project grounded in human rights, one that sees …

The Limits Of Debate Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Gender Imbalance On The Bench, Keith Bybee

Keith J. Bybee

What do we talk about when we talk about gender imbalance on the bench? The first thing we do is keep track of the number of female judges. Once the data has been gathered, we then argue about what the disparity between men and women in the judiciary means. These arguments about meaning are not freestanding. On the contrary, I claim that debates over gender imbalance occur within the context of a broader public debate over the nature of judicial decisionmaking. I argue that this public debate revolves around dueling conceptions of the judge as impartial arbiter and as politically …

Freedom To Achieve: The Future Of Student-Led Organizations Within The Public School System, Braden W. Johnson

Braden W Johnson

On-campus religious organizations have received special protections according to their First Amendment rights and the Equal Access Act of 1984. As more controversial organizations have been incorporated within the public school system, school administrators have found it increasingly hard to control the effects of these groups. This article argues for a revision to the Equal Access Act which strengthen's a school's ability to place restrictions on the formation of controversial clubs.

International Soft Law, Andrew T. Guzman, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

Although the concept of soft law has existed for years, scholars have not reached consensus on why states use soft law or even whether “soft law” is a meaningful analytic category. In part, this confusion reflects a deep diversity both in the types of international agreements that states employ, and in the strategic situations that produce these agreements. In this paper, we advance four complementary explanations for why states use soft law. Our explanations account for a much broader range of state behavior than the existing literature is able to explain.

First, and least significantly, states may use soft law …

Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

Scholars have long understood that the instability of power has ramifications for compliance with international law. Scholars have not, however, focused on how states’ expectations about shifting power affect the initial design of international agreements. In this paper, I integrate shifting power into an analysis of the initial design of both the formal and substantive aspects of agreements. I argue that a state expecting to become more powerful over time incurs an opportunity cost by agreeing to formal provisions that raise the cost of exiting an agreement. Exit costs – which promote the stability of legal rules – have distributional …

Soft Law As Delegation, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

This article examines one of the most important trends in international legal governance since the end of the Cold War: the rise of “soft law,” or legally non-binding instruments that are given legal effect through domestic law or internationally binding agreements such as treaties. Scholars studying the design of international agreements have long puzzled over why states use soft law. The decision to make an agreement or obligation legally binding is within the control of the states negotiating the content of the legal obligations. Basic contract theory predicts that parties to a contract would want their agreement to be as …

The Christian At War, Marc A. Clauson

Marc A. Clauson, J.D., Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

In Harm's Way: Justification, Excuse, And Civilian Safety In Just War Theory, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Just War Theory asserts that armed conflict can be fought in a way that safeguards moral and legal norms while responding to pragmatic/military imperatives. One of the ways in which it seeks to safeguard justice is through specific provisions for the immunity of, and due care for, the vulnerable and innocent. Unfortunately, two doctrines within Just War Theory – the Doctrine of Double Effect and the Doctrine of Supreme Emergency – suspend or vacate these provisions. The net effect is to render justifications inaccessible, leaving only excuses, the use of which establishes that no one is truly accountable, no meaningful …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

Timothy Meyer

No abstract provided.