Law Commons^™

Private Rights In Public Lands: The Chicago Lakefront, Montgomery Ward, And The Public Dedication Doctrine, Joseph D. Kearney, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

When one thinks of how the law protects public rights in open spaces, the public trust doctrine comes to mind. This is especially true in Chicago. The modem public trust doctrine was born in the landmark decision in Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois, growing out of struggles over the use of land along the margin of Lake Michigan in that city. Yet Chicago's premier park – Grant Park, sitting on that land in the center of downtown Chicago – owes its existence to a different legal doctrine. This other doctrine, developed by American courts in the nineteenth century, …

L'Interprétation Systémique: Le Liant Du Droit International, Giovanni Distefano, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

Systemic Interpretation in International and WTO Law: The Glue of the International Legal Order

The authors endeavour to emphasis the paramount role of systemic interpretation, provided for and codified in Article 31 (3) c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, in the light of both general international and WTO Law. This short essay ultimately leads to the confirmation that this hermeneutics method accrues by all means to the cementation of the international legal order.

The Paradox Of Law Enforcement In Immigrant Communities: Does Tough Immigration Enforcement Undermine Public Safety?, David Kirk, Andrew V. Papachristos, Jeffrey Fagan, Tom R. Tyler

Faculty Scholarship

Frustrated by federal inaction on immigration reform, several U.S. states in recent years have proposed or enacted laws designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. and to facilitate their removal. An underappreciated implication of these laws is the potential alienation of immigrant communities – even law abiding, cooperative individuals – from the criminal justice system. The ability of the criminal justice system to detect and sanction criminal behavior is dependent upon the cooperation of the general public, including acts such as the reporting of crime and identifying suspects. Cooperation is enhanced when local residents believe that …

Cultivating Justice For The Working Poor: Clinical Representation Of Unemployment Claimants, Colleen F. Shanahan

Faculty Scholarship

The combination of current economic conditions and recent changes in the United States' welfare system makes representation of unemployment insurance claimants by clinic students a timely learning opportunity. While unemployment insurance claimants often share similarities with student attorneys, they are unable to access justice as easily as student attorneys, and as a result, face the risk of severe poverty. Clinical representation of unemployment claimants is a rich opportunity for students to experience making a difference for a client, and to understand the issues of poverty and justice that these clients experience along the way. These cases reveal that larger lessons …

How Constitutional Theory Matters, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

It is impossible to understand the present moment in progressive constitutionalism without engaging a stock narrative given iconic articulation more than a decade ago by originalist scholar Randy Barnett. According to this narrative, conservatives in the 1980s, prodded by Edwin Meese III's Justice Department, rallied around originalism, and particularly "original intentions" originalism, as a politically congenial and intellectually satisfying approach to constitutional interpretation. They were defeated in the courts of academic and political opinion due in part to a series of unanswerable criticisms from liberal legal scholars such as Paul Brest and H. Jefferson Powell, and in part to the …