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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Tort Statute, With Aliens And Pirates, Eugene Kontorovich
A Tort Statute, With Aliens And Pirates, Eugene Kontorovich
Faculty Working Papers
The pirates of the Caribbean are back. Not in another fantastical film but in the litigation over the reach of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). For the first time since they dealt with the legal issues raised by a wave of maritime predation in the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, Supreme Court justices are seriously discussing piracy. This crime has emerged as the test case for evaluating the major controversies about the reach of the statute -- namely, extraterritorial application and the existence of corporate liability. At oral argument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, justices of all persuasions …
Blaming As A Social Process: The Influence Of Character And Moral Emotion On Blame, Janice Nadler
Blaming As A Social Process: The Influence Of Character And Moral Emotion On Blame, Janice Nadler
Faculty Working Papers
For the most part, the law eschews the role of moral character in legal blame. But when we observe an actor who causes harm, legal and psychological blame processes are in tension. Procedures for legal blame assume an assessment of the actor's mental state, and ultimately of responsibility, that is independent of the moral character of the actor. In this paper, I present experimental evidence to suggest that perceptions of intent, foreseeability, and possibly causation can be colored by independent reasons for thinking the actor is a bad person, and are mediated by the experience of negative moral emotion. Our …
Discretion, Delegation, And Defining In The Constitution's Law Of Nations Clause, Eugene Kontorovich
Discretion, Delegation, And Defining In The Constitution's Law Of Nations Clause, Eugene Kontorovich
Faculty Working Papers
Never in the nation's history has the scope and meaning of Congress's power to "Define and Punish. . . Offenses Against the Law of Nations" mattered as much. The once obscure power has in recent years been exercised in broad and controversial ways, ranging from civil human rights litigation under the Alien Tort Statue (ATS) to military commissions trials in Guantanamo Bay. Yet it has not yet been recognized that these issues both involve the Offenses Clauses, and indeed raise common constitutional questions.First, can Congress only "Define" offenses that clearly already exist in international law, or does it have discretion …