Law Commons^™

Imputed Conflicts Of Interest In International Law Practice, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Governing The City Of London In A Global Era: The Promise And Problems Of Transgovernmental Regulatory Networks, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

A New Agenda For The Cultural Study Of Law: Taking On The Technicalities, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article urges humanistic legal studies to take the technical dimensions of law as a central focus of inquiry. Using archival and ethnographic investigations into developments in American Conflict of Laws doctrines as an example, and building on insights in the anthropology of knowledge and in science and technology studies that focus on technical practices in scientific and engineering domains, it aims to show that the technologies of law - an ideology that law is a tool and an accompanying technical aesthetic of legal knowledge - are far more central and far more interesting dimensions of legal practice than humanists …

Bush V. Gore And The Distortion Of Common Law Remedies, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The book The Final Arbiter addresses the legal and political consequences of the Bush v. Gore decision. This article presented as Chapter 4 addresses the lasting impact of Bush v. Gore on the law of remedies. While others have focused on what the Court should or could have done in the case, this article focuses on what the Court actually did by analyzing the text of the decision and the remedial platform that formed the Court's consensus. The Court in Bush adopted a new model of prophylactic relief that provided too much, not too little relief. Yet this prophylactic remedy …

"Offshore” Or “Shorn Off”: The Oecd’S Harmful Tax Competition Initiative And Development In Small Island Economies, Richard Woodward

Books/Book Chapters

The difficulties of developing and executing a sustainable development program in Small Island Economies (SIEs) are well documented. Comparatively small domestic markets, remote export markets, a dearth of natural and human resources, susceptibility to environmental change and natural disasters, plus limitations on the state’s capacity to govern economic activity have narrowed the range of feasible development strategies resulting in a reliance on sectors vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the global economy.

Moderating Politics In Post-Conflict States: An Examination Of Bosnia And Herzegovina, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

The individuals who negotiated the peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina considered ethnicity to be the most salient division within Bosnian society. Consequently they organized Bosnia's political structure around ethnic representation. While it is doubtful that peace in Bosnia would have been possible without guarantees for ethnic-based political representation, such guarantees have proven insufficient for building a functioning, stable, and cohesive state. This article analyzes the role that Bosnia's political framework, which focuses exclusively on ethnic representation, has played in impeding the development of a significant cadre of moderate political actors and in hindering the success …

A Dual Catastrophe Of Protectionism, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that rampant parochial protectionism in the United States, a striking example of which is the recent skirmish over the Vietnamese seafood trade, yields catastrophic effects in domestic constitutional as well as foreign policy terms. Moreover, these harmful effects extend not only to the United States but also to the rest of the world. The Article consists of four Parts. Part I documents the trade dispute over Vietnamese catfish and shrimp exports to the U.S. market, with special attention to the question of how powerful southern lobbies prevailed over the broader economic interests of consuming industries and consumers. …

Deterrence Versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts Among States, Joanna M. Shepherd

Faculty Articles

Recent empirical studies by economists have shown, without exception, that capital punishment deters crime. Using large data sets that combine information from all fifty states over many years, the studies show that, on average, an additional execution deters many murders. The studies have received much publicity, and death penalty advocates often cite them to show that capital punishment is sound policy.

Indeed, deterrence is the central basis that many policymakers and courts cite for capital punishment. For example, President Bush believes that capital punishment deters crime and that deterrence is the only valid reason for capital punishment. Likewise, the Supreme …

The Majoritarian Difficulty: Affirmative Action, Sodomy, And Supreme Court Politics, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

This Article challenges liberal and conservative assessments of Lawrence, Gratz, and Grutter. Although the outcome of these cases might indeed prove helpful to the agendas of social movements for racial and sexual justice, progressive scholars and activists should not receive these cases with elation. Instead, the research of constitutional theorists, critical legal scholars, and political scientists allows for a more contextualized and guarded account of and reaction to these decisions. Instead of representing extraordinary victories for oppressed classes, these cases reflect majoritarian and moderate views concerning civil rights, and the opinions contain many doctrinal elements that reinforce, …

Justice Harry Blackmun And The Phenomenon Of Judicial Preference Change, Theodore Ruger

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Torture Lite, Full-Bodied Torture, And The Insulation Of Legal Conscience, Seth F. Kreimer

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Do Corporations Play Politics? The Fedex Story, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate political activity has been the subject of federal regulation since 1907, and the restrictions on corporate campaign contributions and other political expenditures continue to increase. Most recently, Congress banned soft money donations in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ("BCRA"), a ban upheld by the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC. Significantly, although the omnibus BCRA clearly was not directed exclusively at corporations, the Supreme Court began its lengthy opinion in McConnell by referencing and endorsing the efforts of Elihu Root, more than a century ago, to prohibit corporate political contributions. Repeatedly, within the broad context of campaign …

Health As Foreign Policy: Between Principle And Power, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Democracy Without A Net? Separation Of Powers And The Idea Of Self-Sustaining Constitutional Constraints On Undemocratic Behavior, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

The United States Constitution is designed to achieve good government by relying on two distinct systems: a primary system that achieves good governance through democratic electoral accountability; and a set of self-sustaining structural backup systems designed for situations in which the democratic system fails, and which operate by limiting the ability of bad rulers to do serious harm to the public good. A key premise of this kind of dual structural arrangement is that effective backup systems must operate independently of primary democratic systems; because they are needed precisely when democratic mechanisms have failed, they cannot depend for their success …

Just Blowing Smoke? Politics, Doctrine, And The Federalist Revival After Gonzales V. Raich, Ernest A. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Statutory Interpretation And The Intentional(Ist) Stance, Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Canonical Construction And Statutory Revisionism: The Strange Case Of The Appropriations Canon, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Social Choice, Crypto-Initiaives, And Policymaking By Direct Democracy, Thad Kousser, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The ‘Wall’ Decisions In Legal And Political Context, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Lost In Translation: Social Choice Theory Is Misapplied Against Legislative Intent, Arthur Lupia, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

Several prominent scholars use results from social choice theory to conclude that legislative intent is meaningless. We disagree. We support our argument by showing that the conclusions in question are based on misapplications of the theory. Some of the conclusions in question are based on Arrow's famous General Possibility Theorem. We identify a substantial chasm between what Arrow proves and what others claim in his name. Other conclusions come from a failure to realize that applying social choice theory to questions of legislative intent entails accepting assumptions such as "legislators are omniscient" and "legislators have infinite resources for changing law …

The Unitary Executive In The Modern Era, 1945–2004, Christopher S. Yoo, Steven G. Calabresi, Anthony J. Colangelo

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the impeachment of President Clinton, there has been renewed debate over whether Congress can create institutions such as special counsels and independent agencies that restrict the president's control over the administration of the law. Initially, debate centered on whether the Constitution rejected the "executive by committee" used by the Articles of Confederation in favor of a "unitary executive," in which all administrative authority is centralized in the president. More recently, the debate has focused on historical practices. Some scholars suggest that independent agencies and special counsels are such established features of the constitutional landscape that any argument in favor …

International Legal Pluralism, William W. Burke-White

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Accountability To The Past, Present, And Future: Precedent, Politics And Power, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Solving The Bargaining Democracy Problem Using A Constitutional Hierarchy Of Law, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In the “bargaining democracy” groups form coalitions that are able to grant benefits to themselves through legislation. These benefits may lack popular support. A constitutional hierarchy of conflicting laws is proposed to resolve this democratic problem. In the hierarchy more “rule-oriented” legislation dominate. The hierarchy would create a momentum of the political process towards more rule-oriented legislation and policy debate. The difficulty of defining a rule operationally is overcome by limiting the task of a constitutional court to simply rank conflicting policy actions in terms of criteria for rules.

Judging Partisan Gerrymanders Under The Elections Clause, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Twice in the last two decades, the Supreme Court has come within two votes of declaring partisan gerrymandering – the manipulation of district lines for partisan ends – a nonjusticiable political question. Last Term, in Vieth v. Jubelirer, Pennsylvania Democrats challenged an alleged Republican gerrymander of the state's congressional districts. Four members of the Court thought the question nonjusticiable, and one, Justice Kennedy, thought it justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause but nonetheless rejected the plaintiffs claims. Eighteen years earlier, in Davis v. Bandemer, a three-Justice plurality had held that a political group complaining of partisan gerrymandering – the Democratic …