Law Commons^™

Targeted Killing: A Legal And Political History, Markus Gunneflo

Markus Gunneflo

Looking beyond the current debate’s preoccupation with the situations of insecurity of the second intifada and 9/11, this book reveals how targeted killing is intimately embedded in both Israeli and US statecraft and in the problematic relation of sovereign authority and lawful violence underpinning the modern state system. The book details the legal and political issues raised in targeted killing as it has emerged in practice including questions of domestic constitutional authority, the norms on the use of force in international law, the law of targeting and human rights. The distinctiveness of Israeli and US targeted killing is accounted for …

The International Politics Of Combating Piracy In Southeast Asia, Christopher Rahman

Chris Rahman

No abstract provided.

Fighting Over The Founders: How We Remember The American Revolution, Andrew Schocket

Andrew M Schocket

The American Revolution is all around us. It is pictured as big as billboards and as small as postage stamps, evoked in political campaigns and car advertising campaigns, relived in museums and revised in computer games. As the nation’s founding moment, the American Revolution serves as a source of powerful founding myths, and remains the most accessible and most contested event in U.S. history: more than any other, it stands as a proxy for how Americans perceive the nation’s aspirations. Americans’ increased fascination with the Revolution over the past two decades represents more than interest in the past. It’s also …

The Life And Times Of Targeted Killing, Markus Gunneflo

Markus Gunneflo

Against the background of the ongoing shift in the perception of the legality and legitimacy of extraterritorial lethal force in counterterrorism, my doctoral thesis analyses the emergence of so-called “targeted killing” in the history of Israel and the US, as well as in international law. It finds that the relationship between targeted killing and law, particularly international law, is not a straightforward case of more or less determinate and legally binding norms being applied to state measures adopted in situations of insecurity (in this case, those of the second Intifada and 9/11) but rather one of a much longer and …

Restoring The Right To Organize In The Private Sector, James Newell

James Newell

No abstract provided.

Policing Terrorists In The Community, Sahar F. Aziz

Sahar F. Aziz

Twelve years after the September 11th attacks, countering domestic terrorism remains a top priority for federal law enforcement agencies. Using a variety of reactive and preventive tactics, law enforcement seeks to prevent terrorism before it occurs. Towards that end, community policing developed in the 1990s to combat violent crime in inner city communities is being adopted in counterterrorism as a means of collaborating with Muslim communities and local police to combat “Islamist” homegrown terrorism. Developed in response to paramilitary policing models, community policing is built upon the notion that effective policing requires mutual trust and relationships among law enforcement and …

The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch’s obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events—among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration’s celebrated leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters—undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, open sources—each of these constitutes a path out …

American Constitutionalism: Volume Ii: Rights & Liberties, Howard Gillman, Mark Graber, Keith Whittington

Mark Graber

Constitutionalism in the United States is not determined solely by decisions made by the Supreme Court. Moving beyond traditional casebooks, renowned scholars Howard Gillman, Mark A. Graber, and Keith E. Whittington take a refreshingly innovative approach in American Constitutionalism. Organized according to the standard two-semester sequence--in which Volume I covers Structures of Government and Volume II covers Rights and Liberties--this text is unique in that it presents the material in a historical organization within each volume, as opposed to the typical issues-based organization.

Revising The Law-Growth Hypothesis: A Case Study Of Reform-Era China, Alice Xie

Alice Xie

The law-growth hypothesis, which holds that the rule of law is essential to economic growth, has been a cornerstone of development and political thought for decades. China, which has broken historic records in GDP growth despite lacking the rule of law, challenges this conventional wisdom. While China has received increasing attention with respect to the hypothesis, this paper is among the first to holistically examine its economic and legal development since the onset of the post-Mao reforms. I argue that China’s legal-economic development followed three stages. First, early growth occurred through spontaneous illegal economic activity. Next, successful private sector expansion …

Janus Capital Group, Inc. V. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination Of The Supreme Court’S Reactionary Rule 10b-5 Jurisprudence Which Protects Fraud At The Expense Of Investors, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination of the Supreme Court’s Reactionary Rule 10b-5 Jurisprudence Which Protects Fraud at the Expense of Investors

“Political” decisions such as Citizens United and National Federation of Independent Business (“Obamacare”) reflect the reactionary bent of several Supreme Court justices. But this reactionary trend is discernible in other areas as well. With regard to Rule 10b-5, the Court has handed down a series of decisions that could be grouped into four trilogies. The article examines the trend over the past 40 years which has become increasingly conservative and finally reactionary.

The …

Harmonizing The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) With The Three Main National Systems For Healthcare Quality Improvement: The Tort, Licensure And Hospital Peer Review Systems, K Van Tassel

Katharine A. Van Tassel

According to an estimate by the Institute of Medicine made over a decade ago, treatment errors in hospitals alone caused 98,000 deaths yearly. This IOM report is proving to be very conservative. A recent Consumer Reports investigation came to the conclusion that “[m]ore than 2.25 million Americans will probably die from medical harm this decade…. That’s like wiping out the entire populations of North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It’s a manmade disaster.”

One of the reasons for this astonishing mortality rate is the normative practice of custom-based medicine in the United States. A large and rapidly growing group of …

Tocqueville And The American Amalgam, Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Any serious attempt to understand the original meaning of the Constitution requires an inquiry into what was, if any, the dominant political theory that guided the founding of the American regime. Recent decades have witnessed a lively scholarly debate between the partisans of the liberal interpretation of the Founding, which posits that liberal political theory is the intellectual foundation of our regime, and those of classical republicanism. The classical republicans argue that the influence of liberal theory on the Founding has been exaggerated, and that the Founders cared more about securing the authority to govern their communities in the name …

Best Practices For Drafting University Technology Assignment Agreements After Filmtec, Stanford V. Roche, And Patent Reform, Parker Miles Tresemer

Parker Tresemer

Since the end of World War II, federally funded universities and private companies have been an integral part of continued American innovation and technological production. However, like most rational economic actors, universities and private companies are only willing to invest in federally funded technologies if they are guaranteed some sort of exclusive return on their investment. By granting federal contractors exclusive patent rights to their employee’s federally funded inventions, the Bayh-Dole Act provided the necessary incentives for private sector investment in federally funded technologies. However, case law subsequent to Bayh-Dole’s enactment has significantly undermined the system of incentives Congress intended …

Professional Identity As Advocacy: The Good, The Bad, The Unseen, Robert Rubinson

Robert Rubinson

The legal profession adheres to a story of a unified profession. Nevertheless, the profession has distinct professional sub-groups which repeatedly represent clients with interests adverse to those represented by attorneys who identify with other sub-groups. The idea of “professional identity as advocacy” describes how such professional sub-groups accuse opposing sub-groups of greed, self-aggrandizement, or worse. This is most notable in two areas: personal injury litigation and criminal cases. This process has two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, it renders narrow areas extraordinarily visible, thus defining popular discourse and conceptions about lawyers and law. Second, it masks vast areas of litigation and …

The Federal Government’S Ability To Respond To A Major Terrorist Attack: Issues, Concerns And Inadequacies In The Disaster Law Construct, M. Jonathan Gil

Michael J Gil

The cunning and zeal of the world’s terrorist organizations require that this country prepare itself for large-scale disaster relief operations. As it stands, the Stafford Act, as well as federal and local government policies are lacking. The federal government has floundered in past situations, and Americans have died as a result. In order to remedy these shortcomings, the government should take two different stances: hands on, and hands off. The hands-on approach is designed to address the shortfalls of past disaster response and the current system, while the hands-off approach is designed to allow the entire relief operation to operate …

Unclear And Unconvincing: The Truthiness Requirement Of California's Ballot Pamphlet Arguments, Michael Boardman

Michael Boardman

“Truthiness,” as defined by TV satirist Steven Colbert, has found its way into the English lexicon. Unfortunately for California, its principles have also been incorporated into the state’s official ballot pamphlet. Misleading, and often demonstrably false, arguments written by special interests distort the political process yet the state continues to publish and distribute them to voters with little judicial recourse. Admirably, California permits private causes of action challenging the accuracy of these arguments, but the statutory scheme it has created to govern the challenges largely fails to promote its main goal: providing a central and convenient place for voters to …

The Financial Reform Act: Will It Succeed In Reversing The Causes Of The Subprime Crisis And Prevent Future Crises?, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: The Financial Reform Act: Will It Succeed in Reversing the Causes of the Subprime Crisis and Prevent Future Crises? By: Professor Charles W. Murdock

The current financial crisis, which could have plunged the world into a financial abyss similar to the Great Depression, is far from resolved. The financial institutions, which this article asserts caused the crisis, have returned to profitability and have paid billions of dollars in bonuses, while ordinary Americans have borne the brunt of the meltdown, with formal unemployment hanging around the 10% mark. This has caused some to comment that profits have been privatized and …

Reaction Or Reformation?: Leo Strauss And American Constitutional Law, Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Andrew C. Spiropoulos

This article explains the importance of the work of the political theorist Leo Strauss to the study of American constitutional law. The foundation of Strauss's work was his belief that the civilization of the West faces a profound crisis. This crisis, he argued, was a crisis of modernity, by which he meant modern political philosophy. The nature of this crisis is the West's loss of faith in reason, the cornerstone of its way of life. This loss of faith threatens the intellectual, spiritual, and even physical health of the West. Strauss argued that this crisis came about because of the …

Reaction Or Reformation?: Leo Strauss And American Constitutional Law, Andrew C. Spiropoulos

Andrew C. Spiropoulos

This article explains the importance of the work of the political theorist Leo Strauss to the study of American constitutional law. The foundation of Strauss's work was his belief that the civilization of the West faces a profound crisis. This crisis, he argued, was a crisis of modernity, by which he meant modern political philosophy. The nature of this crisis is the West's loss of faith in reason, the cornerstone of its way of life. This loss of faith threatens the intellectual, spiritual, and even physical health of the West. Strauss argued that this crisis came about because of the …

How Incentives Drove The Subprime Crisis, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

How Incentives Drove the Subprime Crisis

In order to address any systemic problem, whether the goal is to change the system, regulate the system, or change the incentives driving a system, it is necessary to appreciate all the drivers operating within the system. In the case of the subprime crisis, one of the drivers was the changing nature of the subprime loans, which was not factored into the models used by the investment bankers, the credit rating agencies, and the issuers of credit default swaps.

This paper is an attempt to look dispassionately at the subprime crisis from a particular …

How Incentives Drove The Subprime Crisis, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

In order to address any systemic problem, whether the goal is to change the system, o regulate the system, or change the incentives driving a system, it is necessary to appreciate all the drivers operating within the system. In the case of the subprime crisis, one of the drivers was the changing nature of the subprime loans, which was not factored into the models used by the investment bankers, the credit rating agencies, and the issuers of credit default swaps.

This paper is an attempt to look dispassionately at the subprime crisis from a particular perspective, namely, the incentives that …

The Roberts’S Supreme Court Takes A Sledge Hammer To Ashwander And Cautious Constitutional Jurisprudence: Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The methodology of the Supreme Court in its recent decision permitting unlimited corporate financing of election advertisements is more troubling that the specific holding. All signs of constitutional restraint are abandoned as the court employs a sledgehammer to smash Congresses attempt to eliminate the actuality and fear of corruption from electoral politics.

Fire With Fire: Heterodox Law & Economics, Karl T. Muth

Karl T Muth

This Article first examines, from a historical perspective, the evolution of the law-and-economics movement. It then critically examines the application of economic principles the legal analysis, paying particular attention to how the political process has shaped the law-and-economics scholarship. Finally, it concludes that the principles of law-and-economics, while fundamentally sound, are often misapplied, too narrowly interpreted, and aggregated into a single viewpoint that is politically convenient rather than academically honest.

Connecticut Yankee Speech In Europe’S Court: Alternative Vision Of Constitutional Defamation Law To New York Times V. Sullivan?, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. The NY Times actual malice standard not only over-protects speakers, it denies a name clearing hearing to the target of defamatory speech. This is of increasing importance as new media, such as the internet, make it so easy to communicate false, defamatory statements about anyone, including in particular elected officials and candidates. President Obama was first elected to the U.S. Senate because of a sex scandal that tainted his only serious …

Connecticut Yankee Speech In Europe’S Court: Alternative Vision Of Constitutional Defamation Law To New York Times V. Sullivan?, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. The NY Times actual malice standard not only over-protects speakers, it denies a name clearing hearing to the target of defamatory speech. This is of increasing importance as new media, such as the internet, make it so easy to communicate false, defamatory statements about anyone, including in particular elected officials and candidates. President Obama was first elected to the U.S. Senate because of a sex scandal that tainted his only serious …

Science, Public Bioethics, And The Problem Of Integration, Orlando Carter Snead

O. Carter Snead

Public bioethics — the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods — is an emerging area of American law. The field uniquely combines scientific knowledge, moral reasoning, and prudential judgments about democratic decisionmaking. It has captured the attention of officials in every branch of government, as well as the American public. Public questions (such as those relating to the law of abortion, the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and the regulation of end-of-life decisionmaking) continue to roil the public square.

This article examines the question of how scientific methods and principles can and …

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower

Nation Could Use Dose Of Meritocracy, John Capowski

John J. Capowski

No abstract provided.