Law Commons^™

In Pittsburgh, Freedom Abridged, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.”

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: Gaffney And The Improper Role Of Politics In The Districting Process, Robert A. Koch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that excessive partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. A plurality of the Court, however, would hold partisan gerrymandering claims to be nonjusticiable due to the lack of a judicially manageable standard. This Note synthesizes the opinions of a majority of the Court in Vieth v. Jubelirer on the precise harms of partisan gerrymandering and argues that excessive partisan gerrymandering unconstitutionally burdens the representational rights of individual voters. This Note proposes a judicially manageable standard to address that representational harm based on the Court's standard in Shaw v. Reno.

Failed States, Or The State As Failure?, Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article seeks to challenge a basic assumption of international law and policy, arguing that the existing state-based international legal framework stands in the way of developing effective responses to state failure. It offers an alternative theoretical framework designed to spark debate about better legal and policy responses to failed states. Although the article uses failed states as a lens to focus its arguments, it also has broad implications for how we think about sovereignty, the evolving global order, and the place of states within it.

State failure causes a wide range of humanitarian, legal, and security problems. Unsurprisingly, given …

Make >Em Fess Up, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Private Practice, Public Profession: Convictions, Commitments, And The Availability Of Counsel, Barry Sullivan

West Virginia Law Review

I would like to start by stating a proposition that may strike you as either simple-minded or self-evident, but, more likely, will simply seem strange because of the way in which I state it. My proposition is this: In a democratic society, the legal profession, its rights and privileges, exist to serve public purposes. The legal profession serves two principal public purposes: to provide representation to those who lack the specialized training to represent themselves, that is, non-lawyers, and to promote justice in society. One might object that representing clients is not a public purpose, but that, I would suggest, …

Giving The Gift Of Public Office, James A. Gardner

Buffalo Law Review

This interpretive essay, written for the Buffalo Law Review's annual essay issue, identifies an increasingly common pathology of American democracy in which voters treat the election of public officials not as an instrumental act designed to influence public policy, but as an opportunity to present public office as a gift to those who have pleased, entertained, or moved them. The reelection of Strom Thurmond to the Senate at age 93 and the election of nearly forty congressional widows to their late husbands' seats exemplify this trend. Although this behavior bears a passing resemblance to eighteenth-century habits of political deference and …

Administrative Procedure And Democracy: The Italian Experience, Fabrizio Fracchia

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Back to Government?: The Pluralistic Deficit in the Decisionmaking Processes and Before the Courts, Symposium. University of Trento, Italy, June 11-12, 2004.

Europe's Darker Legacies; Notes On Mirror Reflections, The Constitution As Fetish, And Other Such Linkages Between The Past And The Future Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe; The Shadow Of National Socialism And Fascism Over Europe And Its Legal Traditions Edited, By Christian Joerges And Navraj Singh Ghaleigh (Eds); European Constitutionalism Beyond The State, By J. H. H. Weiler And Marlene Wind (Eds), Peer Zumbansen

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Privatization, Prisons, Democracy, And Human Rights: The Need To Extend The Province Of Administrative Law, Alfred C. Aman

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Back to Government?: The Pluralistic Deficit in the Decisionmaking Processes and Before the Courts, Symposium. University of Trento, Italy, June 11-12, 2004.

Police And Democracy, David Alan Sklansky

Michigan Law Review

Part I of the Article describes the emergence in postwar America of a particular understanding of a democracy, an understanding generally referred to as "democratic pluralism," "analytic pluralism," "pluralist theory," or simply "pluralism." We will spend a fair bit of time unpacking pluralism, because its fine points will prove important when we turn to the task of tracing its reflections in criminal procedure. That task is taken up in Part II, which examines the ways in which the central tenets of democratic pluralism found echoes in criminal procedure - construed broadly to include not only jurisprudence and legal scholarship but …

Markets & Democracy: The Illegitimacy Of Corporate Law, Daniel J.H. Greenwood

ExpressO

Corporate law does not conform to ordinary democratic norms. Unlike human citizens, corporations may decide which law will govern their most fundamental acts of self-governance. The corporate law corporation choose in turn influences the corporate goals and decision-making processes that determine what the corporation looks for in corporate law in a reflexive system independent of ordinary political processes.

This system seems on its face to violate the most fundamental principle of popular sovereignty–all non-Delaware citizens of the United States are excluded from even formal participation in the process of determining American corporate law, and even Delaware citizens are reduced to …

Robert Dahl's How Democratic Is The American Constitution: An Introduction, With Notes On The Electorial College, Michael Herz

Articles

No abstract provided.

Is There A Future For Leniency In The U.S. Criminal Justice System?, Nora V. Demleitner

Michigan Law Review

The spring 2004 release of the gruesome pictures of sexual humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad revealed how some U.S. troops, intelligence officers, and private contractors treated Iraqi prisoners taken during and after the war. High-ranking government officials may have condoned, if not encouraged, the abuses. Only reluctantly have they agreed to extend protections customarily accorded civilians and military fighters during a war to individuals detained in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Congressional investigations appear to have stalled, military inquiries have been manifold but resultless. Only a handful of low ranking soldiers have been court-martialed, and a …

The End Of American Democracy?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

The Case For Federal Anti-Gerrymandering Legislation, Brian O'Neill

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Partisan gerrymandering is a political tradition the United States can no longer afford. Due in part to the effects of partisan gerrymandering, very few congressional elections are meaningfully competitive. This Note argues that partisan gerrymandering damages both the quality of American democracy and the federal system of the United States. This Note concludes that the important federal interests at stake warrant action by Congress to halt partisan gerrymandering. The Note further concludes that any action by Congress should incorporate the principles of federalism by resisting the temptation to micromanage and Congress should instead require state commissions to draft the boundaries …

Minority Rights, Minority Wrongs, Elena A. Baylis

ExpressO

Many of the new democracies established in the last twenty years are severely ethnically divided, with numerous minority groups, languages and religions. In conflicts between minorities and the state, human rights and minority rights values are one set of battlefields, and claimed abuses are the weapons of choice for all sides.

National human rights institutions stand at the center of these conflicts. Minority groups should be a primary constituency for these institutions. Nonetheless, only a few of the human rights institutions in severely divided states report developing programs directed at minorities, and many shy away from involvement in their conflicts. …

Aaron Peron Ogletree On The Tiananmen Papers Compiled By Zhang Liang, Edited By Andrew Nathan And Perry Link. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. 513pp., Aaron Peron Ogletree

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Tiananmen Papers compiled by Zhang Liang, edited by Andrew Nathan and Perry Link. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. 513pp.

Linking The Rule Of Law And Trade Liberalization In Jamaica, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

Jamaica is one of several smaller countries that hope to improve their position in the global market, raise living standards, and strengthen democracy through trade liberalization. Adapting David Dollar's cycles of good governance, this article argues that sustainable trade liberalization, rule of law, and democracy are linked and that sustainable success in one area requires contemporaneous progress in the other two. It concludes that improving the rule of law in Jamaica is necessary for sustainable trade liberalization.

Democracy And Dissent: Challenging The Solomon Amendment As A Cultural Threat To Academic Freedom And Civil Rights, Elvia R. Arriola

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

'Global Civil Society': A Sceptical View, Kenneth Anderson, David Rieff

Contributions to Books

American University, WCL Research Paper No. 2008-69Abstract:The editors of the leading yearbook of global civil society studies offered to the authors of this article an opportunity to present a skeptical account of global civil society as the opening chapter in the 2004/5 yearbook. The article examines the standard account of global civil society as the transnational equivalent, in a globalized world, of civil society in a domestic society, and further as, in Kofi Annan's oft-repeated view, international NGOs as the representatives of the peoples of the world to international organizations such as the UN. The article attacks this standard view, …

Democracy's Paradox: Popular Rule As A Constitutional Limit On Foreign Policy Promoting Popular Rule, Harry F. Tepker Jr.

Harry F. Tepker Jr.

No abstract provided.

The Syracuse Conference On A World Rule Of Law: American Perspectives An Introduction, Malcolm M. Feeley

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

The working group was charged with exploring virtually all facets of democracy and the rule of law, as they pertain to established constitutional democracies, societies undergoing "transitions to constitutional democracies," and those societies where democracy remains little more than a hopeful wish. Papers and much of the discussion during the two days probed beneath the structural formalities that are obvious and important requisites of democracy, to explore the subtexts of and cultural conditions for democracy and the rule of law, those features that may be so taken-for-granted that they usually go unacknowledged, let alone unexplored in discussion of democratic theory. …

Globalizing Democracy Or Democratizing Globalism?, Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Transnational Democracy: Political Spaces and Border Crossings edited by James Anderson. London: Routledge, 2002. 224pp.

Democratization In Iraq, Kate Lotz, Tim Melvin

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the war in Iraq over, Coalition forces are still present as the cultivation of Iraqi democracy is underway. Coalition-led democratization in Iraq will prove to be a lengthy and complex objective, but one which will be pursued until successfully accomplished.

The Present And Future Of Federalism, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Up Against The Wall Of Separation: The Question Of Religious Democracy, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals.

Felon Disenfrachisement Laws: Partisan Politics In The Legislatures, Jason Belmont Conn

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This examination of the institutional changes to state legislatures, synthesized with an analysis of the handling of felon disenfranchisement laws by state legislatures, presents a troubling realization about the law today: in the twenty-first century, partisan politics moderates decisions about even the most basic and fundamental principles of democracy. This Note suggests that because state legislators follow their party leadership and position, a state's traditional treatment of racial minorities, geographic location, and even ideology are not the strongest indicators of a state's disenfranchisement laws. Rather, partisan politics drives changes to the state laws governing felon voter eligibility.

The Islamic Roots Of Democracy, Ali Iyad Yakub

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Voting Rights At A Crossroads: Return To The Past Or An Opportunity For The Future, Barbara Arnwine

Seattle University Law Review

This keynote address for the 2005 Symposium: Where's My Vote? Lessons Learned from Washington State's Gubernatorial Election was presented by Barbara Arnwine. The focus of the presentation was on "Voting Rights at a Crossroad: Return to the Past or an Opportunity for the Future?" To students who are on the career path to becoming practitioners of law, and to attorneys and law professors, no role is more important than enhancing democracy. Ms. Arnwine's speech addresses the topics of voting rights from a national perspective highlighting the most pressing challenges. In addressing this theme, four areas of voting rights are covered …

Minority Rights, Minority Wrongs, Elena Baylis

Articles

Many of the new democracies established in the last twenty years are severely ethnically divided, with numerous minority groups, languages, and religions. As part of the process of democratization, there has also been an explosion of “national human rights institutions,” that is, independent government agencies whose purpose is to promote enforcement of human rights. But despite the significance of minority concerns to the stability and success of these new democracies, and despite the relevance of minority rights to the mandates of national human rights institutions, a surprisingly limited number of national human rights institutions have directed programs and resources to …