Law Commons^™

A Contextual Approach To Disobedience, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Edmund Burke once noted that the rebelliousness of colonial America was largely a consequence of the size and prominence of the legal profession, under whose influence the people "snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." Today, however, most members of the legal profession take a much dimmer view of civil disobedience, although some do acknowledge its justification in special circumstances. Few who write on the subject recognize that in making judgments about the morality of disobedient acts the lawyer's perspective is limited.

Disputes over whether an illegal action is morally justified in a particular instance can be conceptually …

Presidential War-Making, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

The Vietnam "war" has convinced many persons that the president of the United States claims apparently unlimited power to commit this country to war. Not surprisingly, therefore, considerable interest has focused on the powers that inhere in the presidency. And many critics of the war – those who in other times and in other contexts might have been sympathetic to a spacious conception of presidential power – have concluded that the Vietnam conflict is not only a tragic error, but is the direct result of unconstitutional conduct by the president. I cannot accept this view; at bottom, it seems to …

First Amendment "Due Process", Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

A number of recent Supreme Court opinions, primarily in the obscenity area, have fastened strict procedural requirements on governmental action aimed at controlling the exercise of first amendment rights. Professor Monaghan believes that there are two basic principles that can be distilled from these cases: that a judicial body, following an adversary hearing, must decide on the protected character of the speech, and that the judicial determination must either precede or immediately follow any governmental action which restricts speech. The author argues that these two broad principles should limit any governmental activity which affects freedom of speech, no matter how …

On Lawful Governments, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

What is the meaning of sentences of the form 'X is the lawful government of the country Y,' and what kinds of statements are normally -made by using them? Most answers to these questions can be classified as legalistic, moralistic, or compromise solutions. The gist of the legalistic approach is that the lawful government is that authorized by the positive law of the land. Critics of the legalistic approach point out that disagreement about the lawful government is not always solved when agreement is reached about the positive law of the land. For example, two people may disagree as to …

Public Support And The Sectarian University, Walter Gellhorn, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In mid-1968 we undertook to advise Fordham University concerning steps that might be appropriate to establish its eligibility for public assistance. As part of that task we tried to determine the extent to which present law requires official differentiation between Church-related and other institutions of higher learning. Since the University sought a wholly detached consideration of its legal posture, our conclusions in this article represent our best judgment of the present state of the law and its probable development. We have avoided indicating our own personal position on debatable legal and ethical issues.

Decision Trees, Peter L. Strauss, Michael R. Topping

Faculty Scholarship

The object of this paper is to inform those concerned with the administration of justice in Ethiopia – particularly, criminal justice – about a new and simple procedure which may assist in procuring uniform interpretation and application of laws and regulations. The problem of uniform interpretation and application is particularly severe where, as in Ethiopia, new laws must be interpreted and applied by persons who have not yet had the opportunity of formal legal education. For these persons the discovery of the relevant code articles and the understanding of their interrelationships and application must be very difficult indeed. One possible …