Law Commons^™

The Constitutional Bounding Of Adjudication: A Fuller(Ian) Explanation For The Supreme Court's Mass Tort Jurisprudence, Donald G. Gifford

Donald G Gifford

In this Article, I argue that the Supreme Court is implicitly piecing together a constitutionally mandated model of bounded adjudication governing mass torts, using decisions that facially rest on disparate constitutional provisions. This model constitutionally restricts common law courts from adjudicating the rights, liabilities, and interests of persons who are neither present before the court nor capable of being defined with a reasonable degree of specificity. I find evidence for this model in the Court’s separate decisions rejecting tort-based climate change claims, global settlements of massive asbestos litigation, and punitive damages awards justified as extra-compensatory damages. These new forms of …

Accountability, Liability, And The War On Terror -- Constitutional Tort Suits As Truth And Reconciliation Vehicles, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

This Article examines the role of civil suits in providing accountability for the Bush administration's conduct of the "war on terror." There have been calls for a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to perform this function, almost like a retroactive impeachment of President Bush. For now, the idea appears to be dead, especially since many of the policies have continued under President Obama. Increasingly, the default accountability mechanism for questioning government conduct is the array of civil suits against federal officials by self-proclaimed victims of the war, cases which might be referred to as reverse war on terror suits. Many of …

Boyakasha, Fist To Fist: Respect And The Philosophical Link With Reciprocity In International Law And Human Rights, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan