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A Holistic Vision Of The Socio-Legal Terrain, Brian Z. Tamanaha Apr 2008

A Holistic Vision Of The Socio-Legal Terrain, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Law and Contemporary Problems

Tamanaha discusses Marc Galanter's holistic vision of the socio-legal terrain. Galanter's socio-legal vision has two central overlapping foci, and he always keeps an eye on each and on their interaction. The first focus is the official state legal system, which he examines from every conceivable angle: who becomes lawyers, how are they trained, how many lawyers are there, what are the circumstances of their work environment, who pays for their services. Galanter also focuses on what they are not doing (intentionally or otherwise), inquiring into the implications and consequences of their inaction. These inquiries extend from the official legal system …


Justice In Many Rooms Since Galanter: De-Romanticizing Legal Pluralism Through The Cultural Defense, Mitra Sharafi Apr 2008

Justice In Many Rooms Since Galanter: De-Romanticizing Legal Pluralism Through The Cultural Defense, Mitra Sharafi

Law and Contemporary Problems

Sharafi explores the emergence of legal pluralism during 1970s and 80s and discusses its relation in the cultural defense. Legal pluralism was more than a methodological stance intended to help lawyers and anthropologists talk to each other; it was an ideological commitment. In the 1980s, scholars like Marc Galanter and Sally Merry inaugurated the legal-pluralist sequel to the "what-is-law" debate between legal positivists and natural-law advocate. There are two major changes in the conception of legal pluralism brought about by the works of Galanter and his colleagues. The first was the shift from the understanding of legal pluralism as a …


Legal Limits On Religious Conversion In India, Laura Dudley Jenkins Apr 2008

Legal Limits On Religious Conversion In India, Laura Dudley Jenkins

Law and Contemporary Problems

In contemporary India, government assessments of the legitimacy of conversions tend to rely on two assumptions: first, that people who convert in groups may not have freely chosen conversion, and second, that certain groups are particularly vulnerable to being lured into changing their religion. These assumptions, which pervade the anticonversion laws as well as related court decisions and government committee reports, reinforce social constructions of women and lower castes as inherently naive and susceptible to manipulation. Here, Jenkins contends to carefully scrutinized the assumptions since like "protective" laws in many other contexts, such laws restrict freedom in highly personal, individual …


Can Might Make Right? The Use Of Force To Impose Democracy And The Arthurian Dilemma In The Modern Era, Scott Thompson Apr 2008

Can Might Make Right? The Use Of Force To Impose Democracy And The Arthurian Dilemma In The Modern Era, Scott Thompson

Law and Contemporary Problems

US President George W. Bush used force to bring the Taliban to its knees and create a fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, then invaded Iraq with the end goal of establishing a democracy there, as well. Meanwhile, presidential hopeful Barack Obama praised those who built democracy's arsenal to vanquish fascism, and who then built a series of alliances and a world order that would ultimately defeat communism, seeming to extol and vindicate the previous US efforts to impose democracy by force. These two leaders' struggles to nail down a definitive answer on whether force should ever be used to impose democracy …


Toward The Next Generation Of Galanter-Influenced Scholars: The Influential Research Of A Law-And-Society Founder, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Stewart Macaulay Apr 2008

Toward The Next Generation Of Galanter-Influenced Scholars: The Influential Research Of A Law-And-Society Founder, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Stewart Macaulay

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


Practice Style And Successful Legal Mobilization, Anne Bloom Apr 2008

Practice Style And Successful Legal Mobilization, Anne Bloom

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bloom talks about the making of a great cause lawyer. Perhaps not surprisingly, dedication, strong political ties, and superb legal skills all play a role in the making of a great cause lawyer, but so does a somewhat less obvious quality, which Marc Galanter described several years ago as practice "style." However, in these case studies, it suggests that the making of a great cause lawyer depends, in part, on practice style. Put differently, how a lawyer approaches legal practice seems to matter for purposes of legal mobilization. In these cases, cause lawyers were more effective at using the law …


Implementing The Rights Revolution: Repeat Players And The Interpreting Of Diffuse Legal Messages, Charles R. Epp Apr 2008

Implementing The Rights Revolution: Repeat Players And The Interpreting Of Diffuse Legal Messages, Charles R. Epp

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


The “Haves” And “Have-Nots” Within The Organization, Elizabeth A. Hoffman Apr 2008

The “Haves” And “Have-Nots” Within The Organization, Elizabeth A. Hoffman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


Jail Strip-Search Cases: Patterns And Participants, Margo Schlanger Apr 2008

Jail Strip-Search Cases: Patterns And Participants, Margo Schlanger

Law and Contemporary Problems

Schlanger talks about jail strip-search cases and its participants. Among the interesting features of these cases is that many different kinds of lawyers work on them. Plaintiffs' lawyers include employees of public-interest organizations; large law firm lawyers, often working pro bono, with a cooperating relationship with such a public-interest organization; lawyers with a private prisoners' rights or police-misconduct practice; and lawyers with a more varied or general class-action practice. This is somewhat unusual; the litigation bar has, by all accounts, grown increasingly specialized over the past several generations.


The Study Of Law And India’S Society: The Galanter Factor, Robert Moog Apr 2008

The Study Of Law And India’S Society: The Galanter Factor, Robert Moog

Law and Contemporary Problems

Moog pursues three related themes or lines of inquiry that have marked her own research, the roots of which are to be found in Marc Galanter's earlier works and the broader law-and-society movement. These include, the significance of lower courts, the role of the local bar, and the evolution of alternatives to formal court proceedings all represent essential areas for exploration in the attempt to understand the successes and failures of the Indian justice system.


An Appreciation Of Marc Galanter’S Scholarship, John Lande Apr 2008

An Appreciation Of Marc Galanter’S Scholarship, John Lande

Law and Contemporary Problems

Lande highlights three of Marc Galanter's works to illustrate qualities that seem especially worth emulating. He includes extended excerpts of his writing because his concepts and language are so evoctive that paraphrasing often does not do them justice. Galanter's works that Lande focuses, include the classic articles, "Why the "Haves" Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change"; and "Case Congregations and Their Careers". The professor's recent book, Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture, is also featured. The book is the culmination of much of his work on American law.


Afterword, Marc Galanter Apr 2008

Afterword, Marc Galanter

Law and Contemporary Problems

Galanter expresses his appreciation to the wide-ranging collection of articles that flatteringly claim to be inspired or influenced by his work. He determines that apart from a few side trips to the UK and to Israel, all of his works have been clustered in two regions widely separated in both space and culture: predominantly India at first, then predominantly the US, and a mix of both.


From Branch Ministries To Selma: Why The Internal Revenue Service Should Strictly Enforce The Section 501(C)(3) Prohibition Against Church Electioneering, Sarah Hawkins Apr 2008

From Branch Ministries To Selma: Why The Internal Revenue Service Should Strictly Enforce The Section 501(C)(3) Prohibition Against Church Electioneering, Sarah Hawkins

Law and Contemporary Problems

On Sunday, March 4, 2007, congregations in African American churches in Selma, Alabama, commemorated the forty-second anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the 1965 Selma voting-rights march. Celebrating with them were Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, both candidates in the 2008 presidential election. Despite federal regulations prohibiting §501(3) nonprofit religious organizations from engaging in partisan political activities, Senators Clinton and Obama each made a campaign stop at prominent African American churches, delivering sermon-like speeches during Sunday services.


Journal Staff Apr 2008

Journal Staff

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney Jan 2008

Delegation Success And Policy Failure: Collective Delegation And The Search For Iraqi Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Michael J. Tierney

Law and Contemporary Problems

Tierney argues that international delegation can have important consequences, even for powerful states. In particular, he contends that the US delegation of inspection authority to United Nations weapons inspectors and to the International Atomic Energy Association after the Gulf War of 1990-91 entailed significant sovereignty costs by affecting the timing and costliness of the subsequent 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Among other things, he notes that the inspectors' independent behavior made it much more difficult for the US to assemble the type of multilateral coalition that would share the costs as it had in the earlier Gulf War. Tierney also …


International Delegations And The Values Of Federalism, Neil S. Siegel Jan 2008

International Delegations And The Values Of Federalism, Neil S. Siegel

Law and Contemporary Problems

Siegel argues that the relationship between an international delegation and the values thought to be promoted by a federal structure of government depends upon what would happen in the absence of the international delegation. Focusing on the effect of international delegation on US subnational states, Siegel explains that when the delegation replaces regulation by the federal government that would have displaced state choices anyway, then the effect on federalism values depends on the relative inclinations of the federal government and the international body to decentralize.


Negotiate Or Litigate? Effects Of Wto Judicial Delegation On U.S. Trade Politics, Judith L. Goldstein, Richard H. Steinberg Jan 2008

Negotiate Or Litigate? Effects Of Wto Judicial Delegation On U.S. Trade Politics, Judith L. Goldstein, Richard H. Steinberg

Law and Contemporary Problems

Goldstein and Steinberg argue that the World Trade Organization Appellate Body has been able to use its authority to engage in judicial lawmaking to reduce trade barriers in ways that would not otherwise have been possible through negotiation. This lawmaking authority was not the result of a purposeful delegation; rather, it was an unintended byproduct of the creation of an underspecified set of rules and procedures. There is nevertheless a high rate of compliance with Appellate Body decisions because decentralized enforcement can induce domestic importers to lobby for trade liberalization. In the US, this judicial lawmaking may also allow the …


Foreword, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley Jan 2008

Foreword, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley Jan 2008

The Concept Of International Delegation, Curtis A. Bradley, Judith G. Kelley

Law and Contemporary Problems

Bradley and Kelley define and clarify the concept of international delegation from both a legal and a social-science perspective. They begin by presenting a definition of international delegation as a grant of authority by two or more states to an international body to make decisions or take actions. They also identify eight types of authority that states may grant: legislative, adjudicative, regulatory, monitoring and enforcement, agenda-setting, research and advice, policy implementation, and redelegation. International bodies will often exercise more than one type of authority, and there will sometimes be uncertainties about whether a particular type of authority fails into a …


Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter Jan 2008

Delegating To International Courts: Self-Binding Vs. Other-Binding Delegation, Karen J. Alter

Law and Contemporary Problems

Alter highlights the diverse nature of international delegations to courts. She argues that the roles and tasks delegated to international courts increasingly mimic in form and content the broad variety of tasks delegated to courts in liberal democracies, but that delegating these tasks to international courts is fundamentally different than delegating them to domestic courts because of the implications for national sovereignty. Whereas international courts were initially established to be dispute-resolution bodies, they now also perform administrative review, enforcement, and even constitutional review. Alter explains how each of these judicial roles binds other actors, binds states, or both.


Sovereignty And Delegation In International Organizations, David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran Jan 2008

Sovereignty And Delegation In International Organizations, David Epstein, Sharyn O'Halloran

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway Jan 2008

International Delegation And State Sovereignty, Oona A. Hathaway

Law and Contemporary Problems

Hathaway rebuts the claim that state sovereignty almost always suffers when states delegate authority to international institutions. Critics of delegation err, she contends, by overemphasizing the costs but losing sight of some of the substantial benefits of cooperation. She considers the challenge to sovereignty posed by international delegation by focusing on recent debates over the influence of international legal commitments on domestic governance.


When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos Jan 2008

When, What, And Why Do States Choose To Delegate?, Barbara Koremenos

Law and Contemporary Problems

Koremenos demonstrates that international delegation is an important and nontrivial empirical phenomenon. Using an extensive data set created from the United Nations Treaty Series, she finds that almost half of all international agreements involve delegation of some kind. By exploring the institutional design choices of international delegation, she finds that dispute resolution is the most commonly delegated function and often involves externally delegating authority to an existing arbitration tribunal or an international court. Furthermore, she finds that external delegation in particular increases with the existence of complex cooperation problems such as enforcement and uncertainty and with the heterogeneity and number …


Monitoring Compliance With Unratified Treaties: The Ilo Experience, Laurence R. Helfer Jan 2008

Monitoring Compliance With Unratified Treaties: The Ilo Experience, Laurence R. Helfer

Law and Contemporary Problems

Helfer challenges the conventional wisdom that the delegation of authority to the International Labor Organization (ILO) involves only modest sovereignty costs. Heifer explains that the ILO has increasingly exercised the authority to monitor compliance with unratified labor treaties and recommendations, and that the exercise of this authority has significant effects. He further notes that this type of monitoring authority is not confined to the ILO, but in fact exists in several other international institutions and issue areas. The case of the ILO therefore suggests that some important delegations arise and thrive outside of the formal channels of authority. This makes …


The Globalization Of Health And Safety Standards: Delegation Of Regulatory Authority In The Sps Agreement Of The 1994 Agreement Establishing The World Trade Organization, Tim Buthe Jan 2008

The Globalization Of Health And Safety Standards: Delegation Of Regulatory Authority In The Sps Agreement Of The 1994 Agreement Establishing The World Trade Organization, Tim Buthe

Law and Contemporary Problems

Buthe examines why states delegated regulatory authority in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, an integral part of the founding treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Buthe argues that, to explain this case of international delegation, principal-agent theory must be complemented by an analysis of cost-benefit calculations of the relevant domestic interest groups. Given these domestic interests, governments decided to institutionalize international cooperation on SPS measures outside of the WTO because they believed that such delegation would minimize the political costs of the loss of policymaking autonomy. Buthe notes, however, that in retrospect it …


Journal Staff Jan 2008

Journal Staff

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.


Agency By Analogy: A Comment On Odious Debt, Deborah A. Demott Oct 2007

Agency By Analogy: A Comment On Odious Debt, Deborah A. Demott

Law and Contemporary Problems

DeMott focuses on how one might think about the phenomenon of odious debt from the standpoint of common-law agency. Though this analogy has its flaws, some useful insights can be gathered by examining the similarities and differences between the two doctrines, especially when contemplating the theory of liability in the sovereign context. To illustrate the complexity of comparing odious debt to agency law, she develops a series of comparisons between the consequences of borrowing by a sovereign and that by a private corporation afflicted with inept or corrupt management.


Odious Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo Oct 2007

Odious Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo

Law and Contemporary Problems

In the eighty years since Alexander Sack coined the phrase "odious debt," academics and activists have periodically rediscovered Sack's idea, often arguing for its application or extension-to this point, in vain. Here, Tarullo reveals the degree to which current interest in the problem of odious debt is intertwined with other problems that strike more critically at the well-being of developing-and emerging-market countries. He reasons that the necessarily complex effort needed to institutionalize a doctrine of odious debt is a potentially effective organizing principle for generating the political will to address these other persistent, debilitating problems.


Odious Debt, Old And New: The Legal Intellectual History Of An Idea, James V. Feinerman Oct 2007

Odious Debt, Old And New: The Legal Intellectual History Of An Idea, James V. Feinerman

Law and Contemporary Problems

In a sense, all debts are odious; that is, to use dictionary definitions, "hateful; disgusting; offensive." Yet insofar as international economic law today is concerned, only a certain few debts can be considered "odious debts" in order to contest and perhaps eventually to repudiate them. Here, Feinerman examines the concepts of odious debt and related international legal phenomena, in both historical and contemporary context, with a view of determining the role that denomination of certain debts as odious may play in the overall process of sovereign debt rescheduling.


The Odious Debt Doctrine After Iraq, Jai Damle Oct 2007

The Odious Debt Doctrine After Iraq, Jai Damle

Law and Contemporary Problems

The odious debt doctrine has experienced renewed popularity in the past few years; it has been heralded by academics, political commentators, economists, and politicians as a mechanism to alleviate burdens imposed by illegitimate rulers. In its classic formulation, the doctrine provides that a regime's debt is odious, and thus unenforceable, if the state's people did not consent to the debt, the proceeds from the debt were not used for the benefit of the people, and the regime's creditors had knowledge of the first two conditions. In 2003, the newly instated Iraqi regime began negotiations to restructure that country's debt, much …