Law Commons^™

Procedure And Pragmatism, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, prepared as part of a festschrift for the Italian scholar, Michele Taruffo, I portray him as a pragmatic realist of the sort described by Richard Posner in his book, Reflections on Judging. Viewing him as such, I salute Taruffo for challenging the established order in domestic and comparative law thinking about civil law systems, the role of lawyers, courts and precedent in those systems, and also for casting the light of the comparative enterprise on common law systems, particularly that in the United States. Speaking as one iconoclast of another, however, I also raise questions about Taruffo’s …

Evidence Laundering In A Post-Herring World, Kay L. Levine, Jenia I. Turner, Ronald F. Wright

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Supreme Court’s decision in Herring v. United States authorizes police to defeat the Fourth Amendment’s protections through a process we call evidence laundering. Evidence laundering occurs when one police officer makes a constitutional mistake when gathering evidence and then passes that evidence along to a second officer, who develops it further and then delivers it to prosecutors for use in a criminal case. When courts admit the evidence based on the good faith of the second officer, the original constitutional taint disappears in the wash.

In the years since Herring was decided, courts have allowed evidence laundering in a …

Formalism And Functionalism In Antitrust Treatment Of Loyalty Rebates: A Comparative Perspective, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

It is a widely held belief that U.S. antitrust law has long been characterized by economic functionalism and that European antitrust law has long been characterized by legal formalism.' The received wisdom began to change in Europe a decade ago when the Directorate General Competition of the European Commission (DG Comp) began to advocate a more "effects-based" analysis of abuse of dominance. Two factors arguably contributed to this change. First, the DG Comp became increasingly influenced by economists who had little use for the old formalism. Second, as Europe trie to spread antitrust to developing antitrust regimes across the world-and, …

Balancing Judicial Independence And Accountability In A Transitional State: The Case Of Thailand, David Pimentel

Articles

Balancing judicial independence against judicial accountability is a classic problem, but the debate has often taken place without reference to specific legal cultures and traditions, and there is compelling reason to believe that the “right” balance may be different in different societies. Thailand is in transition, so the models of established Western democracies may be ill-suited to the problems and issues of the Thai judiciary. Moreover, independence and accountability are not ends in themselves, but means to the same end: that of fair, impartial, and effective justice. Independence can help, primarily by bolstering the “judicial courage” exercised by judges called …

Water Law Reform In The Face Of Climate Change: Learning From Drought In Australia And The Western United States, Barbara Cosens

Articles

Western societies have developed three approaches to governance of common pool resources such as water: 1) The division of the resource into private property; (2) government regulation; and 3) local self-organization. This article asserts that all three are needed in varying combinations to rise to the challenge presented by the impact of climate change on water supply and demand. Drought presents a preview of potential future climate scenarios and Australia and the western United States are both responding to its harshness through innovation in water governance. These experiments present an opportunity to compare the approaches of Australia and the western …

A World Elsewhere: Secession, Subsidiarity, And Self-Determination As European Values, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Don't Be Cruel (Anymore): A Look At The Animal Cruelty Regimes Of The United States And Brazil With A Call For A New Animal Welfare Agency, David N. Cassuto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the United States and around the world, animals exploited for human use suffer cruel and needless harm. The group bearing the brunt of this exploitation--agricultural animals--is routinely exempted from the largely ineffective and rarely enforced animal welfare and anti-cruelty regulations that exist today. This Article offers a comparative analysis of the agricultural animal welfare regimes of two countries with globally significant presence in the agriculture industry: the United States and Brazil. Even though the two countries approach agricultural animal welfare differently, they arrive at the same outcome: institutionalized indifference to animal suffering. To remedy the current regulatory structure, this …

Poverty In The Human Rights Jurisprudence Of The Nigerian Appellate Courts (1999-2011), Obiora C. Okafor, Basil E. Ugochukwu

Articles & Book Chapters

The major objective of this article is to examine the extent to which the human rights jurisprudence of the Nigerian appellate courts has been sensitive and/or receptive to the socio-economic and political claims of Nigeria’s large population of the poor and marginalized. In particular, the article considers: the extent to which Nigerian human rights jurisprudence has either facilitated or hindered the efforts of the poor to ameliorate their own poverty; the kinds of conceptual apparatuses and analyses utilized by the Nigerian courts in examining the issues brought before it that concerned the specific conditions of the poor; and the key …

Law In The Shadow Of Violence: Can Law Help To Improve Doctor-Patient Trust In China?, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Can law help to address the lack of trust in doctor-patient relationships in China? This essay examines the role that law, on the books and in practice, has played in the rise and resolution of patient-doctor disputes and conflict in China. Law has generally played a secondary role in medical disputes: most patient claims never make it to court, and there is little evidence that negotiated outcomes are influenced by legal standards. Yet a legal framework weighted in favor of hospitals and doctors almost certainly exacerbated doctor-patient conflict in the 2000s. Patients facing legal procedures and rules that appeared to …

Commentary On The Emerging Constitutional Indigenous Peoples Land Rights In Tanzania, Daniel Halberstam

Articles

The pastoralists and hunter-gatherer indigenous peoples in Tanzania continue lobbying their recognition as such and protection of their land rights. This article discusses the extent to which the indigenous peoples are legally recognized and the state of their security of land tenure. With the hindsight of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007 and the 2003 Report of the African Commission Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Population, this article probes the emerging indigenous land rights within the broader understating of the minority rights in the Draft Constitution of Tanzania 2014 as well as the Draft Policy …

On The Uneven Journey To Constitutional Redemption: The Malaysian Judiciary And Constitutional Politics, Yvonne Tew

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article explores the Malaysian judiciary’s approach toward interpreting the Federal Constitution of Malaysia and situates it within the context of the nation’s political and constitutional history. It traces the judiciary’s tentative movement toward a more rights-oriented approach followed by its more recent retreat in several appellate court decisions. This article argues that the Malaysian courts’ journey toward constitutional redemption has been uneven so far. In order to reclaim its constitutional position as a co-equal branch of government, the Malaysian judiciary must exhibit greater willingness to assert its commitment to constitutional supremacy and the rule of law.

The Constitutionalization Of Indian Private Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines the relationship between private law and constitutional law in India, with particular emphasis on tort law. It considers the Indian Supreme Court’s expansion of its fundamental rights jurisprudence over the past thirty years, as well as its effort to transcend the public law/private law divide. It also explains how the Court’s fusion of constitutional law and tort law has affected the independent efficacy, normativity, and analytical basis of equivalent private law claims in India. It argues that the Court’s efforts have only undermined the overall legitimacy of private law mechanisms in the country, and that this phenomenon …

Harmonizing Multinational Parent Company Liability For Foreign Subsidiary Human Rights Violations, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

A notable development of recent years has been the simultaneous legal invisibility and ubiquity of the giant multinational corporation where its subsidiaries operate elsewhere under legal structures that preserve the parent company from liability for the subsidiary’s conduct. This article focuses on multinationals whose parent company is at home in a developed country and subsidiaries operate in a developing state, and specifically where the foreign subsidiary is alleged to have violated norms of universal human rights. It examines current legal theory, and offers a comparative perspective on legislative and judicial traditions and innovations in several home states of large multinational …

The Day Doctrine Died: Private Arbitration And The End Of Law, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

This story begins in 1980, when a budding anti-lawsuit movement found an energetic champion in a new conservative President. Over time, the movement became a dominant feature of political life, as its narrative of activist judges, jackpot justice, and a thriving lawsuit industry stirred partisan passions. And yet, some thirty years on, it is clear that the primary legacy of the anti-lawsuit movement is the movement itself--not legislative achievements, which have been few and far between, but committed adherents, including future Supreme Court Justices, lower court judges, and business leaders.

Meanwhile, and also in the early 1980s, federal courts began …

Model Law On Lighting For Developed Countries, Lakshman Guruswamy, Jason Aamodt, Anne Aguirre, Yazan Fattaleh, Gianna Fitzsimmons, Teresa Milligan, Giedre Stasiunaite

Publications

Marketing Conserved Water, Mark Squillace, Anthony Mcleod

Publications

Water law scholars have long supported water markets for addressing critical water needs, especially in arid regions like the western United States, and that support seems to be growing among policymakers as well. But translating academic theories about water markets to the field has proved challenging. To be sure, water can be transferred from one use to another use in all western states, but water markets in those states are not presently capable of providing prospective buyers with a reliable source of water when and where they need it. The reasons are myriad, but are primarily related to the high …

Comparative Reflections On Duncan V. Louisiana And Baldwin V. New York, William Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

The United States, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is an example of how three branches of government can stall and derail reform initiatives. The judiciary in particular is central to the US experience with political finance reform, repeatedly striking down legislation on party finance, despite consensus from executive and legislative branches. The most recent Supreme Court ruling, in April 2014, struck down one of the last remaining federal regulations, on the overall campaign contribution limits for individuals. At a subnational level, the United States does, however, see significant variations in terms of regulations on the flow of money into politics at a state level. In …

Early Prerogative And Administrative Power: A Response To Paul Craig, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

What does English experience imply about American constitutional law? My book, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, argues that federal administrative power generally is unconstitutional. In supporting this conclusion, the book observes that eighteenth-century Americans adopted their constitutions not only with their eyes on the future, but also looking over their shoulder at the past – especially the English past. This much should not be controversial. There remain, however, all sorts of questions about how to understand the English history and its relevance for early Americans.

In opposition to my claims about American law, Paul Craig lobs three critiques from across the …

Soes And State Governance: How State-Owned Enterprises Influence China's Legal System, Zheng Lei, Benjamin L. Liebman, Curtis J. Milhaupt

Faculty Scholarship

Most of the existing literature on Chinese SOEs asks how state ownership affects their governance. This chapter turns the question on its head: How do SOEs affect state governance in China? The chapter begins by distinguishing different modes of interaction between the Party-state and SOEs. Focusing on these modes of interaction, the chapter analyzes how SOEs have influenced China’s legal system. This chapter discusses the ideological and positional advantages enjoyed by SOEs in their legal treatment, and provide an analysis of SOEs’ impact on legislation, administrative rulemaking and in particular, the courts. It concludes by exploring a key implication of …

Reflections On Obergefell And The Family-Recognition Framework's Continuing Value, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Unlike a typical law review essay, I offer reflections here based largely on my own past work in LGBT rights advocacy. Together with related scholarship, I rely on these experiences to argue that the 'family recognition" framework underlying earlier advocacy has value going forward, even after the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

Vermeule Unbound, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

My book asks Is Administrative Law Unlawful? Adrian Vermeule answers “No.” In support of his position, he claims that my book does not really make arguments from the U.S. Constitution, that it foolishly denounces administrative power for lacking legislative authorization, that it grossly misunderstands this power and the underlying judicial doctrines, and ultimately that I argue “like a child.”

My book actually presents a new conception of administrative power, its history, and its unconstitutionality; as Vermeule has noted elsewhere, it offers a new paradigm. Readers therefore should take seriously the arguments against the book. They also, however, should recognize that …

Magna Carta In The Late Middle Ages: Over-Mighty Subjects, Under-Mighty Kings, And A Turn Away From Trial By Jury, David J. Seipp

Faculty Scholarship

What did English lawyers know about Magna Carta in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? How did they talk about it? Did they regard the king as above the law or subordinate to it? What did they make of the guarantees that we now think were most important in Magna Carta, the guarantee of judgment of peers or the law of the land, and of speedy justice? The evidence of the Year Books is that Magna Carta was treated as a minor statute, that the king was or ought to be above the law in many respects, and that trial by …

Cultural Paradigms In Property Institutions, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Do “cultural factors” substantively influence the creation and evolution of property institutions? For the past several decades, few legal scholars have answered affirmatively. Those inclined towards a law and economics methodology tend to see property institutions as the outcome of self-interested and utilitarian bargaining, and therefore often question the analytical usefulness of “culture.” The major emerging alternative, a progressive literature that emphasizes the social embeddedness of property institutions and individuals, is theoretically more accommodating of cultural analysis but has done very little of it.

This Article develops a “cultural” theory of how property institutions are created and demonstrates that such …

Legal Interpreter For The Jury: The Role Of The Clerk Of The Court In Spain, Mar Jimeno-Bulnes, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Clerk of the Court (secretario judicial) in Spanish provincial courts is an important legal actor in the proceedings of the modern Spanish jury, introduced in 1995. In contrast to the general verdicts of traditional common-law juries, Spanish juries must answer an often lengthy list of specific questions, and must provide the reasoning supporting these responses. Early on, many Spanish juries found the task of providing legally acceptable responses and reasons challenging. Because the law permits the clerk to enter the deliberation room to assist the jury in its writing of the verdict, the clerk has come to act as …

International Legal Protections For Migrants And Refugees: A Response To Father Brennan, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Journal Articles

Father Brennan’s Essay, “Human Rights and the National Interest: The Case Study of Asylum, Migration, and National Border Protection,” is a complex legal and ethical analysis of refugee law. This Commentary focuses on one aspect of the international law relevant to the Essay, namely, state obligations to migrants. Father Brennan’s main argument that migrants and refugees may be turned back, so long as the action respects human rights law, is consistent with the human right to life. Justly stopping migrants and refugees requires states to stop them before they enter either international waters or the state’s territorial waters. Further, Father …

White Paper: Options For A Treaty On Business And Human Rights, Douglass Cassel, Anita Ramasastry

Journal Articles

The United Nations Human Rights Council decided in June 2014 to establish an Intergovernmental Working Group to “elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.” The first meeting of the Working Group will take place in Geneva in July 2015.

The Council did not further specify what sort of instrument should be drafted. The Center for Human Rights of the American Bar Association and the Law Society of England and Wales have asked the present authors to prepare a “White Paper” on possible options for a …