Law Commons^™

Step Down, Justice Melvin, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Justice’S Suspension Is Dubious, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Religion, Democracy, And Autonomy: A Political Parable, Steven D. Smith

Steven D. Smith

No abstract provided.

Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

The functional linkages between law and media have long been signficant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-five years, environmental analysis has similarly become essential to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. Environmentalism—focusing as it does on realistic interconnected accounting of the full potential negative consequences as well as benefits of proposed actions, policies, and programs, over the long term as well as the short term, with careful consideration of all realistic alternatives— provides a legal perspective important for societal sustainability. Because environmental values and norms are often in tension with established industrial interests that resist public interest …

The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

US policy toward failed states should focus on strengthening civil society and social movements so that people are better able to hold their leaders accountable.

The language of “failed states” disassociates foreign policy from international dialogue about human rights. Instead, “failed states” is a contemporary sound bite that connotes a lack of sovereignty, suggesting that intervention would not violate national sovereignty because in a failed state, there is none. Of course, we could have a similar cynicism about the use of human rights concerns to justify invasion. Certainly, states have tried to choose when to reference international human rights norms …

Original Acquisition Of Property: From Conquest & Possession To Democracy & Equal Opportunity, Joseph William Singer

Indiana Law Journal

2010 Harris Lecture, delivered April 5, 2010, Indiana University, Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, Indiana

Scaling Up Deliberative Democracy As Dispute Resolution In Healthcare Reform: A Work In Progress , Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Generic Wish-Lists For State-Centric Policies, Edzia Carvalho

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Central America depicted in the article under review resembles a region visited by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—colonial Conquest, civil War, Famine and other natural disasters, and poverty, disease and Death. Added to this list of woes are the recent drug-fueled conflict, democratic instability, weak state capacity, and the socio-economic fallout of the economic recession in the United States. While the first half of the article records these problems, the author shifts gears in the second half and provides an array of responses to these challenges, with a forceful recommendation that states in the region focus their efforts …

A Centrist Solution To Central American Violence And Inequality, Devin Joshi

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The northern triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) has experienced horrific violence, poverty, and a vicious cycle of human rights violations for decades. Repeated natural disasters and the re-routing of the drug trade through Central America are not helping the situation. On the other hand, nearby Costa Rica has achieved a much higher standard of human rights, public safety, and political stability. Why? Costa Rica has put in place four pillars of development and stability lacking in most other countries in the region: a stronger state, an educated population, inter-racial cooperation, and a more inclusive democracy. For …

It’S Time To Reconsider Graduation Prayer In Public High Schools, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Rethinking The Legal Reform Agenda: Will Raising The Standards For Bar Admission Promote Or Undermine Democracy, Human Rights, And Rule Of Law?, Samuel J. Levine, Russell G. Pearce

Samuel J. Levine

This Article offers a critique of, and alternative to, the American Bar Association's efforts, supported by the United States government, to promote the requirement of a college education in law as prerequisite for becoming a lawyer in developing countries. Using the examples of China, which currently has a far more open system for becoming a legal services provider, and South Africa, which already has a system consistent with the goals of the ABA, the Article argues that more stringent education requirements actually undermine democracy, human rights, and rule of law. In China, where the most significant advocates for human rights …

Anonymity And Democratic Citizenship, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Many aspects of modern democratic life are or can be performed anonymously – voting, financial contributions, petition signing, political speech and debate, communication with and lobbying of officials, and so forth. But is it desirable for citizens to perform such tasks anonymously? Anonymity frees people from social pressures associated with observation and identifiability, but does this freedom produce behavior that is democratically beneficial? What, in short, is the effect of anonymity on the behavior of democratic citizens, and how should we evaluate it?

In this paper, I attempt a first pass answer to these questions by turning to both democratic …

Rehumanizing Law: A Theory Of Law And Democracy (Preface & Introduction), Randy D. Gordon

Randy D. Gordon

Peter Aucoin, Mark D.Jarvis &Lori Turnbull, Democratizing The Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, Gregory Tardi

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the aftermath of the Prorogation of Parliament on December 4, 2008, upon the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to then Governor General Michaelle Jean, a particular theme in Canadian literature about governance has flourished. This theme is the influence ofconstitutionalism, democracy and legitimacy on government and politics. In the view of many scholars there is a serious imbalance between the executive branch on one hand and the legislative branch on the other. The sense ofimbalance has generated proposals for changes to the practice of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy in the service of democratic legitimacy.

Islam, Judaism And The Murders At Itamar, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

What About The Morality Of Torture, Results Aside?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Feminism And Democracy, Louis Edgar Esparza

Human Rights & Human Welfare

After work on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks walked onto a bus that was to take her home that night. She ended up on a trip to jail instead, for refusing to give her seat to a white passenger. The event triggered resistance to bus segregation, the founding of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and the election of the then-unknown Dr. Martin Luther King as its leader. The success of the campaign is an integral battle in our historical retellings of the US African American Civil Rights Movement. Fewer recount the sexual harassment against black women by white …

Litigation, Legislation, And Democracy In A Post-Newspaper America, Ronnell Anderson Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Women's Human Rights In The Framework Of Argentine Domestic Law: Treatment Since The Return To Democracy, Maria Teresa Flores

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

He's Our Son Of A Bitch, Robert Funk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt defended the US tendency to support dictators by remarking, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.” The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt indicate that almost seventy years later, this unfortunate phrase seems to continue to guide US foreign policy.

Slow But Sure, Africa's Path To Democracy: [Bridled] Globalization, Education, And The Middle Class, Thomas Kojo Stephens

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

Africa! The word has been associated with poverty, greed, brutality and gangsterism. Why is Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, still wallowing in poverty while the great mass of nations are moving forward, some taking strides while others making gargantuan leaps? Is there any hope that African countries will in large part become democratic? How do they get there? In this paper, I give a short historical background of how Africa has evolved over the years into modern day Africa in order to understand how Africa has come to be what, and where it is today. I make the argument that the …

Rethinking The Legal Reform Agenda: Will Raising The Standards For Bar Admission Promote Or Undermine Democracy, Human Rights, And Rule Of Law?, Samuel J. Levine, Russell G. Pearce

Samuel J. Levine

This Article offers a critique of, and alternative to, the American Bar Association's efforts, supported by the United States government, to promote the requirement of a college education in law as prerequisite for becoming a lawyer in developing countries. Using the examples of China, which currently has a far more open system for becoming a legal services provider, and South Africa, which already has a system consistent with the goals of the ABA, the Article argues that more stringent education requirements actually undermine democracy, human rights, and rule of law. In China, where the most significant advocates for human rights …

The Incredible Shrinking Free Exercise Clause, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

The People's Trade Secrets, David S. Levine

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The content of administered public school exams, modifications made by a government to its voting machines, and the business strategies of government corporations should be of interest to the public. At a minimum, they are the kinds of information that a government should allow its citizens to see and examine. After all, the public might have some legitimate questions for its government: Is that public school examination fair and accurate? Is that voting machine working so that my vote gets counted? To whom or what is that government agency marketing and are kickbacks involved? One would think that the government …

Rule Of Law In Haiti Before And After The 2010 Earthquake, James D. Wilets, Camilo Espinosa

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property And Collective Undertaking: The Principle Of Numerus Clausus, Avihay Dorfman

Avihay Dorfman

Property rights are subject to the principle of numerus clausus, which is a restriction that means that it cannot be up to the contracting parties - or private persons, more generally - to create new forms of property right, but only to trade rights that take existing forms. What can explain this peculiar limitation? All the answers offered so far by property theorists have marshaled functional explanations either in favor of or against the numerus clausus principle (hereinafter: NC). In this paper I shall set out to articulate a novel explanation of this principle. My argument develops two general claims. …

Money And Rights, Deborah Hellman

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter looks at when constitutionally protected rights are interpreted by courts to include a concomitant right to spend money to effectuate the underlying right and when they are not. It concludes that there are two strands in our constitutional law: the Integral Strand, in which a right includes the right to spend money and the Blocked Strand, in which it does not.

Money And Rights, Deborah Hellman

Faculty Scholarship

This article looks at when constitutionally protected rights are interpreted by courts to include a concomitant right to spend money to effectuate the underlying right and when they are not. It concludes that there are two strands in our constitutional law: the Integral Strand, in which a right includes the right to spend money and the Blocked Strand, in which it does not.

From Russia With Love: The Eu, Russia, And Special Relationships, Eric Engle

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

This paper compares the institutions and goals of the USSR, the EU, and the CIS to understand the differing origins and competing tendencies of these alternative models of transnational governance. It then projects those models through history to examine the current relationships of the former Soviet Republics to the EU and the United States. Understanding the historical sources and development of transnational relations in Eastern Europe will enable better international relations among the EU, the Russian Federation, and the other former Soviet Republics. This comparison will also help the Russian Federation and other former Soviet Republics to take up EU …

Vincent Druliolle On Unearthing Franco's Legacy: Mass Graves And The Recovery Of Historical Memory In Spain. Edited By Carlos Jerez-Farrán And Samuel Amago. Notre Dame, In: University Of Notre Dame Press, 2010. 410pp., Vincent Druliolle

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Unearthing Franco's Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain. Edited by Carlos Jerez-Farrán and Samuel Amago. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. 410pp.