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Full-Text Articles in Law

Beyond Eco-Imperialism: An Environmental Justice Critique Of Free Trade, Carmen G. Gonzalez Jan 2001

Beyond Eco-Imperialism: An Environmental Justice Critique Of Free Trade, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Articles

The article contributes to the trade and environment literature by assessing the claim that industrialized country proposals to integrate environmental protection into the WTO trade regime constitute environmental imperialism - the imposition of industrialized country values and preferences on less powerful nations. This claim is usually based on two distinct premises. The first is that environmental protection is a luxury that poor countries can ill afford. The second is that wealthy countries have played a leadership role in the protection of the global environment. The article questions these assumptions. It argues that environmental protection is essential to well-being of the …


Sentencing Reform In The Other Washington, David Boerner, Roxanne Lieb Jan 2001

Sentencing Reform In The Other Washington, David Boerner, Roxanne Lieb

Faculty Articles

Washington State's sentencing reform in the early 1980s encompassed all felonies, including those resulting in sentences to prison and jail; the state also enacted the first and only sentencing guidelines for juvenile offenders. Several lessons are suggested from Washington's experience: sentencing guidelines can change sentencing patterns and can reduce disparities among offenders who are sentenced for similar crimes and have similar criminal histories; a sentencing commission does not operate as an independent political force, except when such delegation serves the legislature's purpose; guidelines are policy-neutral technologies that can be harnessed to achieve the legislature's will; in states where citizen initiatives …


Placid, Clear-Seeming Words: Some Realism About The New Formalism (With Particular Attention To Promissory Estoppel), Sidney Delong Jan 2001

Placid, Clear-Seeming Words: Some Realism About The New Formalism (With Particular Attention To Promissory Estoppel), Sidney Delong

Faculty Articles

This Article examines the recent doctrinal shift from realist jurisprudence to the “new formalism” as it arises in the creation of contract obligation. Many recent decisions involving promissory estoppel appear to display a trend away from reliance protection in the commercial world. While these decisions are formalist insofar as they favor textual forms over contextual forms, the Author argues that this trend is more properly characterized as a realist effort. This Article examines promissory estoppel in the commercial world and suggests that the “new formalism”, driven by the most “realist” of motives, will expunge liability for promissory estoppel in the …


International Law, Human Rights Beneficiaries, And South Africa: Some Thoughts On The Utility Of International Human Rights Law, Ronald Slye Jan 2001

International Law, Human Rights Beneficiaries, And South Africa: Some Thoughts On The Utility Of International Human Rights Law, Ronald Slye

Faculty Articles

This article uses the case of South Africa to illustrate four effects of international human rights law on human rights beneficiaries. First, international human rights law acts as a constraint on state action. Second, it is a source of norms that can be incorporated into, and thus interpreted and implemented by, domestic legal institutions. Third, it acts as a direct or indirect constraint on the actions of international governmental and non-governmental organizations. Fourth, it directly empowers individual victims. The Article also uses the South African example to provide suggestions for additional areas of research and advocacy for international human rights …


Law Students' Undergraduate Major: Implications For Law School Academic Support Programs (Asps) Performance, Bryan Adamson, Mark Graham Jan 2001

Law Students' Undergraduate Major: Implications For Law School Academic Support Programs (Asps) Performance, Bryan Adamson, Mark Graham

Faculty Articles

This article addresses whether or not law students' comparative educational backgrounds affect their ability to solve general deductive reasoning problems. This question leads to two broader issues: (1) whether any comparative differences in general reasoning competency affect a student's ability to reason within a legal framework; and (2) whether a student's reasoning competency remains static over three years of law school. This article addresses the first issue. At present, a separate study is being conducted to explore how general reasoning differences may influence a student's ability to reason within a legal framework. This article contends that law school academic support …


Genealogy Of A State-Engineered “Model Minority”: “Not Quite/Not White” South Asian Americans, Tayyab Mahmud Jan 2001

Genealogy Of A State-Engineered “Model Minority”: “Not Quite/Not White” South Asian Americans, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

This is review essay based on Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2000). It engages the saga of immigration of South Asian to the United States. A primary focus is on the matrix of identity formation within the grammar of imperialism. It explores how modern regimes of power/knowledge constitute racialized subjects. The deployment of the "model minority" discourse is examined as it relates to South Asian Americans. Structures of power and strategies of resistance among South Asian Americans are highlighted and it is argued that building solidarities among all subordinated is the only viable …


I Know That I Taught Them How To Do That, Laurel Oates Jan 2001

I Know That I Taught Them How To Do That, Laurel Oates

Faculty Articles

Teachers have complained for years that students could not transfer their skills from one class to another, and employers have complained that the students could not apply the skills they learned in class to real world tasks. This article delves into the issues involved in students acquiring skills and the ability to transfer those to skills to similar tasks. The article describes the four steps involved in transfer identified by researchers: problem representation, search and retrieval, mapping, and application.


Will The Wolf Survive?: Latino/A Pop Music In The Cultural Mainstream, Steven W. Bender Jan 2001

Will The Wolf Survive?: Latino/A Pop Music In The Cultural Mainstream, Steven W. Bender

Faculty Articles

For years, White artists have dominated American pop music. With the notable exception of Black vocalists, non-White artists have rarely experienced sustained and substantial success in this market. Although Latino/a artists have made modest inroads into the pop music mainstream in the past, the current success of Latino/a singers is unprecedented for its sales figures, its domination of pop radio, the diversity of backgrounds of the Latino/a artists riding the same wave, and the degree of American media attention focused on this "phenomenon." In addition to the financial rewards enjoyed by artists (and their record companies) who succeed in the …


Game Theory And Customary International Law: A Response To Professors Goldsmith And Posner, Mark A. Chinen Jan 2001

Game Theory And Customary International Law: A Response To Professors Goldsmith And Posner, Mark A. Chinen

Faculty Articles

In a pair of recent articles, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner have used game theoretic principles to challenge the positivist account of customary international law. Their writings join other early attempts to apply game theory to the international law sources. This article has two purposes. The first is to evaluate game theory's potential for yielding greater insight into customary international law and international law more generally. The second is to respond to the conclusions about customary international law drawn by Professors Goldsmith and Posner. In Part I, Professor Chinen discusses the approach proposed by these two scholars. Traditionally, customary …


Los Angeles As A Single-Cell Organism, Robert S. Chang Jan 2001

Los Angeles As A Single-Cell Organism, Robert S. Chang

Faculty Articles

In this article, Professor Robert S. Chang discusses the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart scandal. Professor Chang compares Los Angeles to a single-celled organism that lives according to three basic survival rules. These three rules are: 1) keep out that which is undesirable, 2) isolate and control that which cannot be kept out, and 3) expel, whenever possible, undesirable elements. The author first discusses some of the historical antecedents to the Rampart scandal in Los Angeles. The author then discusses how the United States as a whole has historically acted according to the three basic survival rules exhibited by a …