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Full-Text Articles in Law

Généticisation Et Responsabilité: Les Habits Neufs De La Gouvernance Néolibérale (Uncorrected Proofs), Antoinette Rouvroy Dec 2008

Généticisation Et Responsabilité: Les Habits Neufs De La Gouvernance Néolibérale (Uncorrected Proofs), Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

Loin du phantasme spectaculaire d’une “maléabilité” génétique de l’être humain, et nonobstant les discours grandiloquants qui ont accompagné la très coûteuse exploration du génome humain, la “nouvelle génétique humaine” ne révèle ni ne porte atteinte à l’essence de l’être humain (encore faudrait-il qu’une telle essence puisse jamais être définie), mais révolutionne notre perception des causes des smilitudes et variations au sein de l’espèce humaine. Le néologisme ‘généticisation’ désigne la contamination progressive des discours sociétaux (médicaux, juridiques, politiques, sociologiques,...) par une logique réductionniste et essentialiste faisant des gènes la cause privilégiée sinon exclusive des variations inter-personnelles et inter-communautaires au sein de …


Africa, Mark J. Calaguas Aug 2008

Africa, Mark J. Calaguas

Mark J Calaguas

The Africa Committee's contribution to the 2007 Year-in-Review issue of the American Bar Association Section of International Law's quarterly journal, The International Lawyer.


Polycentric Governance Of Normative Technologies: Democratic And Constitutional Issues / Gouvernance Polycentrique Des Technologies Normatives: Enjeux Démocratiques Et Constitutionnels., Antoinette Rouvroy Apr 2008

Polycentric Governance Of Normative Technologies: Democratic And Constitutional Issues / Gouvernance Polycentrique Des Technologies Normatives: Enjeux Démocratiques Et Constitutionnels., Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

English abstract: This personal project, funded by the FNRS, addresses the relationships between Law and the myriad of norms generated by non-state actors involved in the governance of the Information Society. A first question is about both the specificities, if any, of the legal norms, or of the Law, in the regulatory landscape of the Information Society, and the role that the law might have in the assessment and guarantee of the legitimacy of 'non-state norms'. Assuming that a basic condition of the legitimacy of norms, whatever their kinds, would reside in the possibility that individuals have to contest them, …


The Organismic State Against Itself: Schelling, Hegel And The Life Of Right, Joshua D. Lambier Apr 2008

The Organismic State Against Itself: Schelling, Hegel And The Life Of Right, Joshua D. Lambier

Joshua D Lambier

Focusing on the political thought of Schelling and Hegel – beginning with the early texts (1796–1802), then moving briefly to Hegel’s well known Philosophy of Right (1821) – this essay revisits the Romantic-Idealist theory of the organic state by returning to its genesis in the turbulent political, cultural and scientific debates of the post-Revolutionary period. Given the controversial nature of its historical (mis)appropriations, the organic idea of the state has become synonymous with totality and closure. This essay argues, however, that the contemporary rejection of organicism relies on narrow interpretations of Romantic and Idealist notions of organic life, interpretations that …


Political Externalities, Federalism, And A Proposal For An Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy, Noah D. Hall Mar 2008

Political Externalities, Federalism, And A Proposal For An Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy, Noah D. Hall

Noah D Hall

Interstate environmental harms, which occur when decisions or actions in one state produce negative environmental impacts in another state, have challenged environmental law and American federalism for over a century. While even the strongest advocates of state primacy in environmental policy concede that interstate environmental harms necessitate federal governance, federal adjudication and regulation have done little to address the problem. This is due, in part, to a failure to fully understand the causes of interstate environmental harms. This article provides a new framework for understanding interstate environmental harms as political externalities caused by a combination of inadequate information, public process …


Transnational Corporations (Tncs) And The Effective Implementation Of Social And Economic Rights: Current And Prospective Avenues, Analia Marsella Feb 2008

Transnational Corporations (Tncs) And The Effective Implementation Of Social And Economic Rights: Current And Prospective Avenues, Analia Marsella

Analia Marsella Sende

In this Essay, I explain the role and impact of transnational corporations in the process of development and implementation of economic and social rights at a global scale and identify the solutions that I regard as plausible. I do so from an international human rights perspective that integrates both the legal and non-legal approaches. I concentrate on the international aspects of legalization, adjudication, and policy making. First, I analyze social and economic rights in the current context, the old and most recent understandings, and the challenges posed by the phenomenon of globalization together with the rising of corporations in the …


Space Settlements, Property Rights, And International Law: Could A Lunar Settlement Claim The Lunar Real Estate It Needs To Survive?, Alan Wasser, Douglas Jobes Jan 2008

Space Settlements, Property Rights, And International Law: Could A Lunar Settlement Claim The Lunar Real Estate It Needs To Survive?, Alan Wasser, Douglas Jobes

Alan Wasser

The settlement of space and the expansion of the habitat of humanity beyond Earth will benefit all mankind but will be astronomically expensive. Private enterprise would do it if there were a sufficient profit potential, something only Lunar and Martian real estate is valuable enough to provide. Utilization of this tremendous potential value as an incentive has been prevented by the mistaken assumption that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty's prohibition of "national appropriation" and requirement of national supervision of private activities prohibit private property in space. This paper attempts to demonstrate, by expert legal consensus, that the 1967 Outer Space …


Bargaining In The Shadow Of Violence: The Npt, Iaea, And Nuclear Non-Proliferation Negotiations, Arsalan M. Suleman Jan 2008

Bargaining In The Shadow Of Violence: The Npt, Iaea, And Nuclear Non-Proliferation Negotiations, Arsalan M. Suleman

Arsalan Suleman

The NPT non-proliferation regime is both a multilateral treaty of international law and a dispute system designed to manage conflict over the use of nuclear technology. The system seeks to balance the competing desires of member-states to have access to peaceful nuclear technology and to provide national security. In the course of implementation, the system must handle disputes over alleged violations of the NPT and IAEA safeguards agreements. Negotiations, crucial to the functioning of the NPT dispute system, are undertaken in the shadow of the law and the shadow of violence. The NPT and any relevant agreement signed with the …


Climate Change And Great Lakes Waters Resources: Avoiding Future Conflicts With Conservation, Noah D. Hall Jan 2008

Climate Change And Great Lakes Waters Resources: Avoiding Future Conflicts With Conservation, Noah D. Hall

Noah D Hall

Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent themes emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, more frequent heavy precipitation events, becoming more susceptible to drought. This article focuses on how climate change will impact Great Lakes water resources. It explores what a changing climate will mean for the Great Lakes, including possible lowering of lake levels, impacts on fisheries and wildlife, changes in Great Lakes shorelines, and reduction of groundwater supplies. Climate change will also reduce water supplies in other parts of the country, creating increased pressure to …


Proportionality In The Criminal Law: The Differing American Versus Canadian Approaches To Punishment, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker Jan 2008

Proportionality In The Criminal Law: The Differing American Versus Canadian Approaches To Punishment, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

The focus of this Article shall be upon the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and s. 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, both of which prohibit “cruel and unusual punishment”; and their effect on mandatory criminal sentencing (via penal statute) in the two countries. The Article shall begin by briefly explain the differences between the jurisdictional application of criminal justice in the United States and Canada. The Article will next present and explain the American Eighth Amendment approach to the constitutionality of mandatory criminal sentencing and contrast this to the Canadian s. 12 approach to …


Racial Formation In Quebec: A Legal Retospective, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker Jan 2008

Racial Formation In Quebec: A Legal Retospective, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

This Article shall use the experience of the Quebecois in Canada to survey the linkage between cultural formation and race in Quebecois racial identity, and then map out these linkages and their relations to the political and legal discourse that has emerged in Canada on the place of the Quebecois in the country. Cultural formation and racial formation are unmistakably linked. Specific social and linguistic separatism can over time crystallize into racial formation, especially if aided by official government recognition and legal codification. As this Article shall demonstrate, the verification of this idea can be clearly seen the experience of …


Assuming Bosnia: Democracy After Srebrenica, Timothy W. Waters Jan 2008

Assuming Bosnia: Democracy After Srebrenica, Timothy W. Waters

Timothy W Waters

Assuming Bosnia: Democracy after Srebrenica Timothy William Waters Associate Professor, Indiana University School of Law (Bloomington) This essay is a reflection on democracy, justice and intervention. It focuses on the Bosnian experience, which requires one to consider several actors: Bosnia as a state, Bosnians as a people or peoples, and the international community. For since Dayton, the indispensable context for reform in Bosnia has been the international protectorate, which is to say the deliberate abrogation of autonomous, democratic, domestic processes for some defined, and hopefully higher, set of purposes. These purposes are expressed in the Dayton Accords, though increasingly the …


Assuming Bosnia: Taking The Polity Seriously In Ethnically Divided Societies, Timothy W. Waters Jan 2008

Assuming Bosnia: Taking The Polity Seriously In Ethnically Divided Societies, Timothy W. Waters

Timothy W Waters

This essay is a reflection on democracy, justice and intervention. It focuses on the Bosnian experience, where since the Dayton Accords the indispensable context for reform has been the international protectorate. This essay examines the assumptions used by the international community to govern Bosnia, which suggest a policy premised upon resistance to the fragmentation of the state under any circumstances, and a belief that the international intervention is simultaneously morally justified and a purely technical process for increasing efficiency. How necessary – indeed, how related at all – are those commitments to the dictates of justice? What is their relationship …


Patriotismo Constitucional Y Procesos De Integración, Pablo Contreras Jan 2008

Patriotismo Constitucional Y Procesos De Integración, Pablo Contreras

Pablo Contreras

El rol y centralidad del Estado Nación están en cuestión, a lo cual colaboran los procesos de integración regional. En este marco se postula la necesidad de revisar la identidad política nacional y pensar en esquemas postnacionales, buscando los ejes de aglutinación social en bases y principios que escapen a los caracteres típicos del concepto de nación. Clave en este proceso es el empleo del concepto de patriotismo constitucional. A partir del cual el autor plantea tres interrogantes: comprensión del concepto de patriotismo constitucional, su operatividad, y los aportes y desafíos que éste plantea al proceso de integración regional latinoamericano.


Baghdad, Tokyo, Kabul . . . : Constitution-Making In Occupied States, Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins, James Melton Jan 2008

Baghdad, Tokyo, Kabul . . . : Constitution-Making In Occupied States, Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins, James Melton

Tom Ginsburg

We identify and document instances of “occupation constitutions,” those drafted under conditions of foreign military occupation. Not every occupation produces a constitution, and it appears that certain occupying powers have a greater propensity to encourage or force a constitution-writing process. We anticipate ex ante that occupation constitutions should be less enduring, and provide some supportive evidence to this effect. Some occupation constitutions do endure, however, and we conduct a case study of the Japanese Constitution of 1946. We argue that it had a self-enforcing quality that has allowed it to endure un-amended for over six decades. Unlike conventional understandings of …


De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

The paper explores John Rawls´s idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls’s later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls´s theory -the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals- that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. …


The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Does Australia Have A Constitution? Part I - Powers: A Contitution Without Constitutionalism, Kenneth R. Mayer, Howard Schweber Jan 2008

Does Australia Have A Constitution? Part I - Powers: A Contitution Without Constitutionalism, Kenneth R. Mayer, Howard Schweber

Kenneth R Mayer

Forthcoming in the UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal


Does Australia Have A Constitution? Part Ii - The Rights Constitution, Howard Schweber, Kenneth R. Mayer Jan 2008

Does Australia Have A Constitution? Part Ii - The Rights Constitution, Howard Schweber, Kenneth R. Mayer

Kenneth R Mayer

Forthcoming in UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal


Neotrusteeship Or Mistrusteeship? The "Authority Creep" Dilemma In United Nations Transitional Administration, Christian E. Ford Jan 2008

Neotrusteeship Or Mistrusteeship? The "Authority Creep" Dilemma In United Nations Transitional Administration, Christian E. Ford

Christian E Ford

No abstract provided.


Climate Change And Carbon Sequestration: Assessing A Liability Regime For Long-Term Storage Of Carbon Dioxide, Alexandra B. Klass, Elizabeth J. Wilson Jan 2008

Climate Change And Carbon Sequestration: Assessing A Liability Regime For Long-Term Storage Of Carbon Dioxide, Alexandra B. Klass, Elizabeth J. Wilson

Alexandra B. Klass

As the nation struggles with how to address climate change, one of the most significant questions is how to reduce increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One promising technology is carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”), which consists of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and industrial sources and sequestering them in deep geologic formations for long periods of time. Areas for potential CO2 sequestration include oil and gas fields, saline aquifers, and coal seams. As Congress and the private sector begin to spend billions of dollars to research and deploy this technology, there has been insufficient attention …


When Eu Law Meets Arabic Law: Assessment Of Anti-Corruption Law In Morocco And Some Proposed Amendments, Bryane Michael, Abdelaziz Nouaydi Jan 2008

When Eu Law Meets Arabic Law: Assessment Of Anti-Corruption Law In Morocco And Some Proposed Amendments, Bryane Michael, Abdelaziz Nouaydi

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

This article reviews the present state of the adoption of anti-corruption legal provisions usually adopted in EU (or candidate) countries in Morocco. Morocco lags behind many countries in its adoption of anti-corruption legislation and the recently established Central Agency of the Prevention of Corruption is unlikely to succeed in speeding up the adoption of these measures. English language translations of a number of Moroccan anti-corruption legal instruments are presented and amendments to these legal instruments are recommended (based on international best practice) in order to increase the likely effectiveness of Moroccan law enforcement institutions in fighting corruption.


When And Why ‘Law’ And ‘Reality’ Coincide? De Jure And De Facto Judicial Independence In Chile And Mexico, Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Andrea Pozas-Loyo Jan 2008

When And Why ‘Law’ And ‘Reality’ Coincide? De Jure And De Facto Judicial Independence In Chile And Mexico, Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Andrea Pozas-Loyo

Julio Ríos-Figueroa

No abstract provided.


Beyond Sovereignty? The State After The Failure Of Sovereignty, Eric A. Engle Jan 2008

Beyond Sovereignty? The State After The Failure Of Sovereignty, Eric A. Engle

Eric A. Engle

Sovereign state power, absolute and unlimited, was to guarantee the lives and property of citizens. Instead, States became vectors for mass violence. The realist/atomist model of sovereignty failed to preserve peace and instead led to global wars of mass destruction. The same technological progress which makes human extinction possible also makes global governance possible through nearly instant global communication and travel. The possibility for global governance confronts the reality of an archaic and inapt juridical concept. Sovereignty must be reconceptualized and understood as a relative and partial power shared at multiple levels in an intensively networked world rather than in …


The Fake Revolution: Understanding Legal Realism, Eric A. Engle Jan 2008

The Fake Revolution: Understanding Legal Realism, Eric A. Engle

Eric A. Engle

Abstract: Legal interpretation in the United States changed dramatically between 1930 and 1950. The Great Depression and World War II unleashed radical critique (particularly prior to the war). Legal realism proposed radical new methods of legal interpretation to try to meet the challenges of global depression and global war. The new legal methods proposed by realism at first seemed to indicate a new legal order. In fact, they only preserved the old order, protecting it from fundamental change. Thus, the same problem, cyclical economic downturn triggering war for resources and market share recurred in Vietnam. Just as the depression and …


Research In The Biotech Age: Can Informational Privacy Compete?, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2008

Research In The Biotech Age: Can Informational Privacy Compete?, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper examines the privacy of personal medical information in the health research context. Arguing that biomedical research in Canada has been caught up in the government’s broader neo-liberal policy agenda that has positioned biotechnology as a strategic driver of economic growth, the author discusses the tension between informational privacy and the need for medical information for research purposes. Consideration is given to the debate about whether privacy for medical information serves or hinders the ‘public good’ in respect of medical research, and to discussions of informed consent as an element of ‘fair information practices’ designed to safeguard the privacy …


Personal Health Information In Canada: A Comparison Of Citizen Expectations And Legislation, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2008

Personal Health Information In Canada: A Comparison Of Citizen Expectations And Legislation, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper explores whether the Canadian legislative protections in place to safeguard medical privacy meet the expectations of Canadians. An overview of current governance systems designed to protect the privacy of personal health information at both the federal and provincial levels is first presented. This is followed by an empirical analysis of the results of a public opinion survey conducted to determine Canadian attitudes about medical privacy, particularly genetic privacy. The analysis highlights areas where legislation and public opinion converge and diverge.