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Articles 1 - 30 of 93
Full-Text Articles in Law
Vol. 6, Issue 1 Table Of Contents
Editorial Note, O'Brien Kaaba, Kafumu Kalyalya
Editorial Note, O'Brien Kaaba, Kafumu Kalyalya
SAIPAR Case Review
No abstract provided.
Rules, Standards, And Such, Kevin M. Clermont
Rules, Standards, And Such, Kevin M. Clermont
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This Article aims to create a complete typology of the forms of decisional law. Distinguishing "rules" from "standards" is the most commonly attempted jurisprudential line, roughly drawn between nonvague and vague. But no agreement exists on the dimension along which the rule/standard terminology lies, or on where the dividing line on the continuum lies. Thus, classifying in terms of vagueness is itself vague. Ultimately it does not aid legal actors in formulating or applying the law. The classification works best as an evocative image.
A clearer distinction would be useful in formulating and applying the law. For the law-applier, it …
Justiciability, Federalism, And The Administrative State, Zachary D. Clopton
Justiciability, Federalism, And The Administrative State, Zachary D. Clopton
Cornell Law Review
Article III provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to certain justiciable cases and controversies. So if a plaintiff bringing a federal claim lacks constitutional standing or her dispute is moot under Article III, then a federal court should dismiss. But this dismissal need not end the story. This Article suggests a simple, forward-looking reading of case-or-controversy dismissals: they should be understood as invitations to legislators to consider other pathways for adjudication. A case dismissed for lack of standing, for mootness, or for requesting an advisory opinion might be a candidate for resolution in a state court …
Divide & Concur: Separate Opinions & Legal Change, Thomas B. Bennett, Barry Friedman, Andrew D. Martin, Susan Navarro Smelcer
Divide & Concur: Separate Opinions & Legal Change, Thomas B. Bennett, Barry Friedman, Andrew D. Martin, Susan Navarro Smelcer
Cornell Law Review
To the extent concurring opinions elicit commentary at all, it is largely contempt. They are condemned for muddying the clarity of the law, fracturing the court, and diminishing the authoritative voice of the majority. But what if this neglect, or even disdain, of concurring opinions is off the mark? In this article, we argue for the importance of concurring opinions, demonstrating how they serve as the pulse and compass of legal change. Concurring opinions let us know what is happening below the surface of the law, thereby encouraging litigants to push the law in particular directions. This is particularly true …
Res Judicata As Requisite For Justice, Kevin M. Clermont
Res Judicata As Requisite For Justice, Kevin M. Clermont
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
From historical, jurisprudential, and comparative perspectives, this Article tries to synthesize res judicata while integrating it with the rest of law. From near their beginnings, all systems of justice have delivered a core of res judicata comprising the substance of bar and defense preclusion. This core is universal not because it represents a universal value, but rather because it responds to a universal institutional need. Any justice system must have adjudicators; to be effective, their judgments must mean something with bindingness; and the minimal bindingness is that, except in specified circumstances, the disgruntled cannot undo a judgment in an effort …
The One Or The Many, Jens David Ohlin
The One Or The Many, Jens David Ohlin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The following Review Essay, inspired by Tracy Isaacs’ new book, Moral Responsibility in Collective Contexts, connects the philosophical literature on group agency with recent trends in international criminal law. Part I of the Essay sketches out the relevant philosophical positions, including collectivist and individualist accounts of group agency. Particular attention is paid to Kornhauser and Sager’s development of the doctrinal paradox, Philip Pettit’s deployment of the paradox towards a general argument for group rationality, and Michael Bratman’s account of shared or joint intentions. Part II then analyzes, with cautious support, Isaacs’ two-level solution, which entails both individual and collective …
Coming Off The Bench: Legal And Policy Implications Of Proposals To Allow Retired Justices To Sit By Designation On The Supreme Court, Lisa T. Mcelroy, Michael C. Dorf
Coming Off The Bench: Legal And Policy Implications Of Proposals To Allow Retired Justices To Sit By Designation On The Supreme Court, Lisa T. Mcelroy, Michael C. Dorf
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In the fall of 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a bill that would have overridden a New Deal-era federal statute forbidding retired Justices from serving by designation on the Supreme Court of the United States. The Leahy bill would have authorized the Court to recall willing retired Justices to substitute for recused Justices. This Article uses the Leahy bill as a springboard for considering a number of important constitutional and policy questions, including whether the possibility of 4-4 splits justifies the substitution of a retired Justice for an active one; whether permitting retired Justices to substitute for recused Justices would …
In Search Of Parity: Child Custody/Visitation And Child Support For Lesbian Couples Under “Companion” Cases Debra H. And In Re H.M., Jason C. Beekman
In Search Of Parity: Child Custody/Visitation And Child Support For Lesbian Couples Under “Companion” Cases Debra H. And In Re H.M., Jason C. Beekman
Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers
The United States is engaged in a national debate over whether to grant same-sex couples the rights and privileges of marriage. Supporters of marriage equality flood the media with images of jubilant same-sex couples simply wanting the chance to say their “I dos” and have the state formally recognize their shared love and commitment. The unfortunate reality is, however, that many homosexual relationships, like heterosexual relationships, dissolve. Marriage rights play as important a role at a relationship’s dissolution as they do at a relationship’s inception. This paper focuses on one such issue often left out of the public discourse over …
Majoritarian Difficulty And Theories Of Constitutional Decision Making, Michael C. Dorf
Majoritarian Difficulty And Theories Of Constitutional Decision Making, Michael C. Dorf
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Recent scholarship in political science and law challenges the view that judicial review in the United States poses what Alexander Bickel famously called the "counter-majoritarian difficulty." Although courts do regularly invalidate state and federal action on constitutional grounds, they rarely depart substantially from the median of public opinion. When they do so depart, if public opinion does not eventually come in line with the judicial view, constitutional amendment, changes in judicial personnel, and/or changes in judicial doctrine typically bring judicial understandings closer to public opinion. But if the modesty of courts dissolves Bickel's worry, it raises a distinct one: Are …
Promise Against Peril: Of Power, Purpose, And Principle In International Law, Robert C. Hockett
Promise Against Peril: Of Power, Purpose, And Principle In International Law, Robert C. Hockett
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
I take two recent monographs on international law – Mary Ellen O’Connell’s "The Power and Purpose of International Law," and Eric Posner’s "The Perils of Global Legalism," as case studies in a more general inquiry into the role of the "rule of law" ideal in domestic and international law. I argue that international and domestic law alike give varyingly explicit and effective expression to the rule of law ideal, and that the task before us is accordingly steadily to improve their effectiveness in so doing, not to pretend that there is no role for this ideal to play in interpreting …
The Dance Of Death Or (Almost) "No One Here Gets Out Alive": The Fourth Circuit's Capital Punishment Jurisprudence, John H. Blume
The Dance Of Death Or (Almost) "No One Here Gets Out Alive": The Fourth Circuit's Capital Punishment Jurisprudence, John H. Blume
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
The Death Penalty: Developments In Caribbean Jurisprudence, Anthony Gifford
The Death Penalty: Developments In Caribbean Jurisprudence, Anthony Gifford
International Journal of Legal Information
The presentation analyzes death penalty developments in the Caribbean jurisprudence. The discussion of a series of court decisions leads to the opinion that it is not right for the State to “end the life of a human being.” It questions death penalty as punishment for crime versus “the capacity of individuals for redemption and rehabilitation."
Is The Law Hopeful?, Annelise Riles
Is The Law Hopeful?, Annelise Riles
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
This essay asks what legal studies can contribute to the now vigorous debates in economics, sociology, psychology, philosophy, literary studies and anthropology about the nature and sources of hope in personal and social life. What does the law contribute to hope? Is there anything hopeful about law? Rather than focus on the ends of law (social justice, economic efficiency, etc.) this essay focuses instead on the means (or techniques of the law). Through a critical engagement with the work of Hans Vaihinger, Morris Cohen and Pierre Schlag on legal fictions and legal technicalities, the essay argues that what is “hopeful” …
Justice In Time, Robert C. Hockett
Justice In Time, Robert C. Hockett
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Challenges raised by the subject of intergenerational justice seem often to be thought almost uniquely intractable. In particular, apparent conflicts between the core values of impartiality and efficiency raised by a large and still growing number of intertemporal impossibility results derived by Koopmans, Diamond, Basu & Mitra, and others have been taken to foreclose fruitful policy assessment done with a view to the distant future.
This Essay aims to dispel the sense of bewilderment, pessimism and attendant paralysis that afflicts intertemporal justice assessment. It works toward that end by demonstrating that the most vexing puzzles raised by questions of intergenerational …
Why Paretians Can’T Prescribe: Preferences, Principles, And Imperatives In Law And Policy, Robert C. Hockett
Why Paretians Can’T Prescribe: Preferences, Principles, And Imperatives In Law And Policy, Robert C. Hockett
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Recent years have witnessed two linked revivals in the legal academy. The first is renewed interest in articulating a normative “master principle” by which legal rules might be evaluated. The second is renewed interest in the prospect that a variant of Benthamite “utility” might serve as the requisite touchstone. One influential such variant now in circulation is what the Article calls “Paretian welfarism.”
This Article rejects Paretian welfarism and advocates an alternative it calls “fair welfare.” It does so because Paretian welfarism is inconsistent with ethical, social, and legal prescription, while fair welfare is what we have been groping for …
Judicial Adherence To A Minimum Core Approach To Socio-Economic Rights – A Comparative Perspective, Joie Chowdhury
Judicial Adherence To A Minimum Core Approach To Socio-Economic Rights – A Comparative Perspective, Joie Chowdhury
Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers
Today’s world is witness to extraordinary inequality and the most desperate poverty. Millions of people across the world have no access to adequate food or water, basic health care or minimum levels of education. There are many avenues through which to approach the issue of improving socio-economic conditions. Courts, especially recently, have in certain countries, been seeking to ameliorate these conditions, to some extent, through the means of socio-economic rights adjudication.
For courts to effectively empower people to realize their socio-economic rights, attention to implementation of judgments is essential. A strong normative base for such judgments is just as crucial, …
Judicial Independence In Excess: Reviving The Judicial Duty Of The Supreme Court, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton
Judicial Independence In Excess: Reviving The Judicial Duty Of The Supreme Court, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Independence from extrinsic influence is, we know, indispensable to public trust in the integrity of professional judges who share the duty to decide cases according to preexisting law. But such independence is less appropriate for those expected to make new law to govern future events. Indeed, in a democratic government those who make new law are expected to be accountable to their constituents, not independent of their interests and unresponsive to their desires. The Supreme Court of the United States has in the last century largely forsaken responsibility for the homely task of deciding cases in accord with preexisting law …
Legal Taxonomy, Emily Sherwin
Legal Taxonomy, Emily Sherwin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This essay examines the ambition to taxonomize law and the different methods a legal taxonomer might employ. Three possibilities emerge. The first is a formal taxonomy that classifies legal materials according to rules of order and clarity. Formal taxonomy is primarily conventional and has no normative implications for judicial decision-making. The second possibility is a function-based taxonomy that classifies laws according to their social functions. Function-based taxonomy can influence legal decision-making indirectly, as a gatekeeping mechanism, but it does not provide decisional standards for courts. Its objective is to assist in analysis and criticism of law by providing an overview …
Government Lawyers, Democracy, And The Rule Of Law, W. Bradley Wendel
Government Lawyers, Democracy, And The Rule Of Law, W. Bradley Wendel
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Criticism of the “politicization” of the role of federal government lawyers has been intense in recent years, with the scandals over the hiring practices at the Department of Justice, and the advice given to the administration by lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel, concerning various aspects of the post-9/11 national security environment. Unfortunately, many of these critiques do not hold up very well under scrutiny. We lack a coherent account of what it means to “politicize” the practice of interpreting and applying the law. This paper argues that our evaluative discourse about the ethics of government lawyers is inadequately …
Foreward: The Most Confusing Branch, Michael C. Dorf
Foreward: The Most Confusing Branch, Michael C. Dorf
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Federal Criminal Appeals: A Brief Empirical Perspective, Michael Heise
Federal Criminal Appeals: A Brief Empirical Perspective, Michael Heise
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Although few dispute the appellate process's centrality to justice systems, especially in the criminal context, debates over rationales supporting the appellate process's vaunted status in adjudication systems persist. Clearly, it is difficult to overestimate error correction as a justification for an appellate system. Of course, other rationales, such as a desire for lawmaking and legitimacy, also support the inclusion of a mechanism for appellate review in an adjudication system.
Though comparative latecomers, appellate courts are now ubiquitous in the American legal landscape—appellate review exists in state and federal systems for criminal convictions. Despite general agreement and widespread understanding that access …
The Jurisprudence Of Pleading: Rights, Rules, And Conley V. Gibson, Emily Sherwin
The Jurisprudence Of Pleading: Rights, Rules, And Conley V. Gibson, Emily Sherwin
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In 1957, in the case of Conley v. Gibson, the Supreme Court announced a minimal standard for the contents of a complaint under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and endorsed what has come to be known as 'notice' pleading. This article, prepared for a symposium on Conley, reviews the debate over pleading requirements that preceded the case. Unlike modern discussions of pleading, which focus on the level of factual specificity required in complaints, the pre-Conley debate was about the legal content of complaints - an question largely forgotten in the years following Conley.
The early twentieth century debate over …
Michelle Obama: The "Darker Side" Of Presidential Spousal Involvement And Activism, Gregory S. Parks, Quinetta M. Roberson, Phd
Michelle Obama: The "Darker Side" Of Presidential Spousal Involvement And Activism, Gregory S. Parks, Quinetta M. Roberson, Phd
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Pundits and commentators have attempted to make sense of the role that race and gender have played in the 2008 presidential campaign. Whereas researchers are drawing on varying bodies of scholarship (legal, cognitive and social psychology, and political science) to illuminate the role that Senator Obama’s race and Senator Clinton’s gender has/had on their campaign, Michelle Obama has been left out of the discussion. As Senator Clinton once noted, elections are like hiring decisions. As such, new frontiers in employment discrimination law place Michelle Obama in context within the current presidential campaign. First, racism and sexism are both alive and …
Cafa Judicata: A Tale Of Waste And Politics, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg
Cafa Judicata: A Tale Of Waste And Politics, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The Class Action Fairness Act has taken on its real form through construction by the federal judges. That form emerges in this empirical study of judicial activity and receptivity to the Act. Our data comprise the opinions under the Act published during the two and a half years following its enactment in 2005.
CAFA has produced a lot of litigation in its short life. The cases were varied, of course, but most typically the resulting published federal opinion involved a removed contract case, with the dispute turning on the statute's effective date or on federal jurisdiction. Even though the opinions …
The Tropicalization Of Proportionality Balancing: The Colombian And Mexican Examples, Luisa Conesa
The Tropicalization Of Proportionality Balancing: The Colombian And Mexican Examples, Luisa Conesa
Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers
In “The Tropicalization of Proportionality Balancing: the Colombian and Mexican Examples” the author analyzes how the German based proportionality balancing test was exported to Latin America, by studying the Colombian Constitutional Court and the Mexican Supreme Court. This work is guided by the following questions: what is proportionality balancing? How has it been used by the Colombian and Mexican jurisprudences and what are its influences? Do the Courts cite other jurisdictions when using the test? Have they imported a traditional European test? Or, have they “tropicalized” it?
The study of the Latin American examples leads to the conclusion that the …
Government Lawyers In The Liberal State, W. Bradley Wendel
Government Lawyers In The Liberal State, W. Bradley Wendel
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Criticism of the “politicization” of the role of federal government lawyers has been intense in recent years, with the scandals over the hiring practices at the Department of Justice, and the advice given to the administration by lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel, concerning various aspects of the post-9/11 national security environment. Unfortunately, many of these critiques do not hold up very well under scrutiny. We lack a coherent account of what it means to “politicize” the practice of interpreting and applying the law. This paper argues that our evaluative discourse about the ethics of government lawyers is inadequately …
Impartiality In Judicial Ethics: A Jurisprudential Analysis, W. Bradley Wendel
Impartiality In Judicial Ethics: A Jurisprudential Analysis, W. Bradley Wendel
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Jurisprudence And Judicial Ethics, W. Bradley Wendel
Jurisprudence And Judicial Ethics, W. Bradley Wendel
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The fundamental value in judicial ethics is impartiality. This means that a judge is duty-bound to decide cases on their merits, be open to persuasion, and not influenced by improper considerations. The paradigm case of unethical behavior by a judge is taking a bribe to decide a case in favor of one of the parties. This kind of corruption, which is fortunately rare in many developed countries, is also relatively uninteresting from an intellectual point of view. A more difficult case of failure of impartiality, conceptually speaking, involves a judge who relies on extra-legal factors as the basis for a …