Law Commons^™

Jazz Improvisation And The Law: Constrained Choice, Sequence, And Strategic Movement Within Rules, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article argues that a richer understanding of the nature of law is possible through comparative, analogical examination of legal work and the art of jazz improvisation. This exploration illuminates a middle ground between rule of law aspirations emphasizing stability and determinate meanings and contrasting claims that the untenable alternative is pervasive discretionary or politicized law. In both the law and jazz improvisation settings, the work involves constraining rules, others’ unpredictable actions, and strategic choosing with attention to where a collective creation is going. One expects change and creativity in improvisation, but the many analogous characteristics of law illuminate why …

The Intenational Crimial Court (Icc) As A Mechanism For Global Justice And Rule Of Law, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Throughout history, institutions have been the chosen platforms for governing and regulating society. However, in the twenty-first century, with unprecedented connectivity and interdependence, working toward multilateral solutions for global challenges, whether in climate change through the UNFCCC or in trade via the World Trade Organization, has become increasingly complex. This rise in complexity within the international landscape has not been met with proportional attention to cooperation, conflict resolution, and harmonizing human values.

It is relevant to highlight the intersection between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and broader questions within international humanitarian law, (IHL) its interconnections and intertwinement with International Criminal …

Exploring The Role Of Mandatory Mediation In Civil Justice, Nayha Acharya

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this article, I offer a framing of the debates around mandatory mediation that rest on the premise that a legitimate civil justice process depends on unhindered access to an adjudicative system, which must be recognized as a procedural right. This is a keystone of the rule of law, and a valid legal system that deserves the authority that it asserts is contingent on this. My central thesis is that requiring mediation (which is independent of the rule of law) before allowing full access to adjudication compromises the procedural rights of legal subjects, and the rule of law principle. Such …

China’S Sanctions And Rule Of Law: How To Respond When China Targets Lawyers, F. Scott Kieff, Thomas D. Grant

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has begun to use sanctions against people who speak out against its policies, including even lawyers in their ordinary work representing the interests of their clients. This paper explores the deleterious impact such sanctions can have on the entire legal profession, the broader community putatively served by the profession, and the rule of law.

Restoring The Rule Of Law Through Department Of Justice Reform, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Richard Painter

All Faculty Scholarship

As the nation’s principal law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice (DOJ) plays a unique role in protecting U.S. democracy. Even though the attorney general is appointed by the president and serves at the president’s pleasure, a recognition of the comparable independence of the DOJ from the political priorities of the rest of the executive branch has been critical for maintaining the department’s integrity and credibility over the course of its roughly 150-year history. The DOJ powerfully reinforces both rule of law norms and democratic governance when it faithfully conforms to law and ethics. But the flip side is also …

The Authoritative Text As Imperative To Comprehensibility Of Legislation, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The most understandable of texts is of little use as law if it is not clear that it is authoritative. This is the comparative lesson of this essay. American law is—Americans say—indeterminate. American law is indeterminate because American texts, clear as they may be in wording, often are not authoritative; other texts apply too and may be inconsistent. German law is rarely indeterminate in this sense.

This essay identifies in bullet-points some comparative aspects of clarity of American and German law. Why is American law indeterminate? Why is German law not? What, if anything, do these differences …

Republicanism: Philosophical Aspects | Republicanismo: Aspectos Filosóficos, Mortimer N.S. Sellers

All Faculty Scholarship

Republicanism is the doctrine that public power should always serve the common good of all those subject to its rule. This raises the question how to do so most effectively, either through particular policies or through constitutional structure (“the republican form of government”). The republican philosophical tradition began with Plato and Aristotle, flowered in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero, and reappeared with the revival of learning in such authors as Machiavelli, James Harrington, John Adams, and Immanuel Kant. More recently Philip Pettit, Jürgen Habermas, and others have returned to the republican conception of liberty as nondomination, and how to …

Limits Of The Rule Of Law: Negotiating Afghan “Traditional” Law In The International Civil Trials In The Czech Republic, Tomas Ledvinka, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Drawing on ethnographic research of judicial cases in the Czech Republic which involve the law in migrants' countries of origin, this Article outlines how multiple strategies handle encounters with the legal-cultural differences of Afghanistan in order to neutralize what may be called the “alterity” of law. The Article suggests that far from being analytical tools, concepts such as “context,” “culture,” and “customary” are strategically used by courts to neutralize unsettling aspects of foreign Afghan legalities. Further, it applies Leopold Pospíšil´s ethnological concept of legal authority as a vehicle for reinterpreting the contextual differentiation of Afghan “traditional” law as an alternative …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

Toolkit Or Tinderbox? When Legal Systems Interface Conflict, Christie S. Warren

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Keeping Faith With Nomos, Steven L. Winter

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial Nullification Of Presidential Elections In Africa: Peter Mutharika V Lazarus Chakera And Saulos Chilima In Context, James Thuo Gathii, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In contemporary Africa, the judicialization of presidential elections between incumbents and challengers in courts is becoming increasingly visible. The latest example of this judicialization is the Malawi case of Peter Mutharika v Lazarus Chakera and Saulos Chilima, which successfully triggered a repeat election in which an opposition politician defeated an incumbent. This article examines the consequences and implications of this case and compares the Malawi decision to cases in Kenya and Nigeria. It further analyzes the backlash on the Malawi justices from the executive and the subsequent solidarity seen from both legal and civil society. The article concludes that the …

General Anti-Avoidance Rules And The Rule Of Law, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

General Anti-Avoidance Rules (“GAARs”) grant tax authorities wide powers to counteract tax avoidance transactions notwithstanding that the taxpayer may have complied with the strict letter of the law. These wide powers raise questions of possible conflicts with fundamental principles such as the Rule of Law, and Distributive and Corrective Justice. The main difficulty arises in attempting to reconcile the need for a GAAR to apply to unpredictable and rapidly developing situations, and the principle of certainty as one of the foundations of the Rule of Law. This paper begins by defining tax avoidance, establishing a moral duty to pay tax …

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, Soft Law, And The Procedural Rule Of Law, Jodi Lazare

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines facilitate discretionary spousal support determinations under the Divorce Act. Non-binding in nature, they are expected to restore some transparency to an uncertain and unpredictable remedy and to benefit dependent spouses who might previously have been deterred from claiming support. They may thus be seen as an important tool for advancing economic justice at family breakdown and promoting substantive economic gender equality. Several Canadian appellate courts have enthusiastically endorsed them. Others object to their application, grounding their resistance in their unofficial and non-binding character. This paper responds to that objection, based on the constitutional separation of …

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, Soft Law, And The Procedural Rule Of Law, Jodi Lazare

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines facilitate discretionary spousal support determinations under the Divorce Act. Non-binding in nature, they are expected to restore some transparency to an uncertain and unpredictable remedy and to benefit dependent spouses who might previously have been deterred from claiming support. They may thus be seen as an important tool for advancing economic justice at family breakdown and promoting substantive economic gender equality. Several Canadian appellate courts have enthusiastically endorsed them. Others object to their application, grounding their resistance in their unofficial and non-binding character. This paper responds to that objection, based on the constitutional separation of …

Another View Of The Cathedral: What Does The Rule Of Law Crisis Tell Us About Democratizing The Eu?, Fernanda Nicola

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: The rule of law in the EU is in crisis. The independence of national judiciaries in Hungary and Poland is under attack by governments that call themselves ‘illiberal’ democracies. Not surprisingly, scholars pointing to the cracks in the EU architecture have offered some solutions to avoid its collapse. These solutions range from the Commission enforcing a rule of law framework by bringing systemic infringement actions based on democratic values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) or by cutting EU cohesion funds to the autocrats. Both solutions seem to have been taken seriously in Luxembourg …

The Internal Morality Of International Law, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Case Of Motivated Cultural Cognition: China's Normative Arbitration Of International Business Disputes, Pat K. Chew

Articles

The centuries-old conception of judges and arbitrators as highly predictable and objective is being dismantled. In its place, a much more textured, complicated, and challenging understanding of legal decision-making is being constructed. New research on “Motivated Cognition” demonstrates that judges and arbitrators are more human than mechanical, pouring themselves – and the cultural and institutional contexts within which they act – into their decision making. This article extends the emerging model of Motivated Cultural Cognition, a form of Motivated Cognition, to the global stage, investigating arbitration of business disputes between two world-powers: United States and China. Through a first-of-its-kind empirical …

Law's Evolving Emergent Phenomena: From Rules Of Social Intercourse To Rule Of Law Society, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Scholarship@WashULaw

Law involves institutions rooted in the history of a society that evolve in relation to surrounding social, psychological, cultural, economic, political, technological, and ecological influences. Law must be understood naturalistically, historically, and holistically. In my usage, naturalism views humans as social animals with natural traits and requirements, historicism presents law as historical manifestations that change over time, and holism sees law within social surroundings. These insights inform my perspective in A Realistic Theory of Law. While these propositions might seem obvious, few works in contemporary jurisprudence build around them.

In this essay, I draw on the notion of emergence …

Commerce, Religion, And The Rule Of Law, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

The rule of law and religion can act as commercial substitutes. Both can create the trust required for material prosperity. The rule of law simplifies social interactions, turning people into formal legal agents and generating a map of society that the state can observe and control, thus credibly committing to the enforcement of the legal rights demanded by impersonal markets. Religion, in contrast, embraces complex social identities. Within these communities, economic actors can monitor and sanction misbehavior. Both approaches have benefits and problems. The rule of law allows for trade among strangers, fostering peaceful pluralism. However, law breeds what Montesquieu …

Joseph Weiler, Eric Stein, And The Transformation Of Constitutional Law, Daniel Halberstam

Book Chapters

This chapter pursues that idea in three parts. Part I reviews the key contributions of The Transformation of Europe. Part II takes us back for a critical analysis of the idea of ‘constitutionalism’ as first developed by Eric Stein and then deployed by Joseph Weiler. On closer inspection, we shall see here that The Transformation of Europe may have neglected a core element of constitutional law, something this chapter terms a ‘generative space’ for law and politics. As this part further explains, recognising this generative element of constitutionalism lies at the heart of the struggle to make sense both practically …

Masking Neo-Liberal Development: Polanyi, Rule Of Law And Dis-Embedding Dynamics, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Purpose: Polanyi in his analysis of market dis-embedding suggests a drift in economic relations from the social to the fictitious. The purpose of this paper is to add two crucial components to the dis-embedding dynamic: rule of law discourse as a market force away from the social, and through suspension of imagination and of disbelief, the incongruous compatibility of actual and fictional markets that further works against embedding.Design/methodology/approach: Theory building through the application and testing of the Polanyian market dis-embedding analysis is a central concern for the paper. Through the example of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the manner in …

What Is Meant By Freedom?, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Freedom is overlooked as a legal and social concept, with few attempts to define it. Lon Fuller articulated the critical question about freedom: “How can the freedom of human beings be affected or advanced by social arrangement, that is by laws, customs, institutions, or other forms of social order that can be changed or preserved by purposive human actions?” Freedom needs to be defined in the context of this question — as an ideal to be advanced by our social institutions, laws, and customs. The article first begins with a framework for freedom established by Lon Fuller in a neglected …

The Rule Of Law, Legal Pluralism, And Challenges To A Western-Centric View: Some Very Preliminary Observations, Peer Zumbansen

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

Despite hundreds of “Rule of Law” projects at the World Bank and a host of research into the foundations and content of the Rule of Law, we are still nowhere near an altogether satisfactory definition. While the Rule of Law is repeatedly being referred to in ‘legal assistance’ and ‘law reform’ projects and lives as a guiding principle in constitutions around the world, we don’t seem able to settle on a commonly agreed-upon approach to its nature and institutional form. In this context, the Rule of Law provides an opportunity to engage critically with the differences in perception and bias …

Introduction: Judges As Diplomats In Advancing The Rule Of Law: A Conversation With President Koen Lenaerts And Justice Stephen Breyer, Fernanda Nicola

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Introduction.On both sides of the Atlantic, Western countries have taken a well publicized and perhaps poorly understood turn toward leaders espousing extremist, xenophobic, and introspective politics that threaten the core tenets of liberal democracy. Electorates appear divided and confused as political leadership in Europe and the U.S. take measures that undermine the basic principles of the rule of law and human rights. Above all else, the designated defenders of the constitutional order, the supreme courts, have come under direct political attack in countries such as Hungary and Poland. Even in traditional bastions of Western democracy, like the United States and …

Opening The Red Door To Chinese Arbitrations: An Empirical Analysis Of Cietac Cases (1990-2000), Pat K. Chew

Articles

This article reveals evidence-based details of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) arbitral proceedings (1990-2000), allowing unprecedented insights into Chinese international business arbitration. It begins by confirming the prominence of Chinese foreign trade and foreign investment in the global economy and CIETAC’s critical role in securing that prominence. Among other results, the empirical study of CIETAC awards finds: (i) the parties were of diverse nationalities, most commonly with disputes between a Chinese party and a foreign party; and (ii) the majority of cases were sales and trade disputes, although a sizable number were investment/joint venture disputes. Regarding …

Integrated Conflict Management Design Workbook : كتاب التصميم المتكامل لإدارة الخلافات (Arabic), Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Mediation Series is a set of three guides that will help policy-makers, organizations and practitioners build mediation practice and culture. The Series include Mediation Essentials, Integrated Conflict Management Design Workbook, and Making Mediation Law. Mediation Essentials serves as a complete orientation guide to ADR in general and to mediation. Making Mediation Law offers a robust perspective on how to design mediation policy and legislation. Guidance in this area is in high demand and scarce (besides the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation and its Guide, there aren’t many other comprehensive resources). We hope that Making Mediation Law will effectively …

Mediation Essentials: The Definitive Deskbook, Nadja Alexander, Jean-Francois Roberge, Fatma Ibrahim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Mediation is one of the most frequently used alternative dispute resolution processes worldwide. Mediation provides faster, cheaper, and better solutions than a traditional court decision can. Benefits are important for individuals as well as for disputing businesses from the private sector and for public sector institutions. Understanding the principles, process, and skills of mediation is essential for anyone whose professional role involves managing disputes of any kind. Mediation Essentials comprises five chapters as follows: 1) Chapter 1 is about How to Manage and Control Disputes and Alternative Dispute Resolution; Chapter 2 describes on How to Make the Most of Mediation; …

Political Economy, Capitalism And The Rule Of Law, David R. Barnhizer, Daniel D. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

There is a symbiotic relationship between a society’s form of economic activity and the Rule of Law institutions that support, facilitate, and limit that activity. Economic activity and Rule of Law institutions interact in a dynamic relation that creates, allocates, denies, and adapts power among competing entities. The core fact is that of transformation of the nature of power and the identities of those who control it. Nothing in such a system remains static and, unlike other systems, it is the natural effect of the system to reward its participants for creative contributions that sustain and advance its dynamism. The …

Language Control, 'Hyper-Sensitivity' And The Death Of True Liberalism, David R. Barnhizer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Rule of Law in America is buttressed by the idea of free speech. Universities are supposed to be centers of free speech, dialogue and learning, in the process educating and preparing students to protect and preserve the unique ideal of the Western version of the Rule of Law. This includes the importance of competing factions attempting to achieve compromise through political discourse. There is a rather significant problem, therefore, when the dynamic and often contentious interactions that produce the ability to recognize the potential legitimacy of others’ arguments and the flaws in one’s own are short circuited by political …