Law Commons^™

The Effectiveness Of Measures To Increase Appellate Court Efficiency And Decision Output, Thomas B. Marvell, Carlisle E. Moody

Carlisle Moody

This Article will examine the effectiveness of measures commonly employed to increase appellate court productivity. Part I of the Article sets forth some common design problems and explains how the research technique employed in the present study avoids these problems by using a multiple time-series research design. Part II applies this design to state court data. Part II also describes the dependent variable, the number of appeals decided per judge, used in the regression analysis. Part III discusses the results of that analysis-the impact of each change listed above on judicial productivity. The Article, although not advocating the adoption of …

No Witness, No Case: An Assessment Of The Conduct And Quality Of Icc Investigations, Dermot Groome

Dermot M Groome

The conduct and quality of investigations pursued by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism from judges on the Court. Criticism is directed at the time and length of investigations; the quality of the evidence advanced in court; the inappropriate delegation of investigative functions, and the failure to interview witnesses in a way that is consistent with the Prosecution’s obligation to conduct investigations fairly under Article 54 of the Rome Statute. This essay explores these criticisms and concludes that the judges are justified in their concerns regarding the Prosecution’s investigative …

Translating Scholarship Into Policy, Scott Sigmund Gartner, Amy C. Gaudion

Amy C. Gaudion

There is an ever widening gap between conflict resolution policy makers and scholars—a tragedy given practitioners’ dire need for new ideas to help resolve deadly conflicts and the growing knowledge researchers have to share. Research tends to swing like a pendulum between analytic and rigorous methods and accessible and relevant approaches. We reject this tradeoff. We believe that research can be simultaneously rigorous and relevant, and analytic and accessible. Given the devastating loss of life associated with armed conflict, the need for translating research results into policy prescriptions is especially strong in peacemaking. The goal of this issue of the …

The Environmental Emergency And The Legality Of Discretion In Environmental Law, Jocelyn Stacey

Jocelyn Stacey

This article argues that environmental issues confront us as an ongoing emergency. The epistemic features of serious environmental issues – the fact that we cannot reliably distinguish ex ante between benign policy choices and choices that may lead to environmental catastrophe – are the same features of an emergency. This means that, like emergencies, environmental issues pose a fundamental challenge for the rule of law: they reveal the necessity of unconstrained executive discretion. Discretion is widely lamented as a fundamental flaw in Canadian environmental law, which undermines both environmental protection and the rule of law itself. Through the conceptual framework …

The Promise Of The Rule Of (Environmental) Law: A Reply To Pardy's Unbearable Licence, Jocelyn Stacey

Jocelyn Stacey

This short reply clarifies and defends the argument presented in "The Environmental Emergency and the Legality of Discretion in Environmental Law." It responds to the arguments that were made, and that could have been made, in Pardy's critique "An Unbearable Licence".

Preventive Justice, The Precautionary Principle And The Rule Of Law, Jocelyn Stacey

Jocelyn Stacey

Despite its largely preventive orientation, environmental law has, with one exception, remained distinct from the burgeoning field of preventive justice. The exception is the precautionary principle, which has become a subject of interest and frequent skepticism amongst preventive justice scholars. The precautionary principle is a central principle in environmental law. Its centrality arises from the pervasiveness of scientific uncertainty in environmental regulation; that is, our inability to reliably predict the consequences of our policy choices on environmental and human health. The precautionary principle squarely addresses the question of how we ought to proceed in the face of unavoidable uncertainty. This …

Reason-Giving, Rulemaking, And The Rule Of Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The Footprint Of The Chinese Petro-Dragon: The Future Of Investment Law In Transboundary Resources, Guillermo Garcia Sanchez

Guillermo J. Garcia Sanchez