Law Commons^™

Civil War Pension Attorneys And Disability Politics, Peter Blanck, Chen Song

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Professor Blanck and Dr. Song provide a detailed examination of the pension disability program established after the Civil War for Union Army Veterans. They use many original sources and perform several statistical analyses as the basis for their summary. They draw parallels between this disability program and the ADA, and they point out that current ADA plaintiffs encounter many of the same social, political and even scientific issues that Union Army veterans dealt with when applying for their disability pensions. The Article demonstrates that history can help predict the trends within, and evolution of the ADA--essentially leading to a better …

The Lexus And Olive Tree Of Global Communications, Donna Gregg

Federal Communications Law Journal

Book Review: International Communications: Continuity and Change, Daya Kishan Thussu, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2000, 342 pages.

Daya Kishan Thussu's International Communication: Continuity and Change, presents a comprehensive and thoroughly readable overview of the significant global impact of communication from ancient times to the Internet era. The book describes major technological, political, cultural, and commercial breakthroughs and trends, and explains how each has helped to make the world a smaller place. While acknowledging the demonstrated potential of modern communication technology to effect revolutionary change in all corners of the globe, the book also recognizes certain enduring cultural and economic forces …

When Lawyers Were Serial Killers: Nineteenth Century Visions Of Good Moral Character, Roger Roots

Northern Illinois University Law Review

This article provides a historical look at the meaning of the phrase "good moral character" in the context of the fitness of an individual for the practice of law. Going back to the 1700s, the author traces the origins of fitness requirements. This historical timeline uncovers a shockingly violent period when engaging in duels with pistols seemed to be an unwritten requirement to be considered a gentleman and a lawyer.

The Legal Subject In Exile, Kathryn Abrams

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rationalism And Empiricism In Modern Medicine, Warren Newton

Law and Contemporary Problems

The roots of rationalism and empiricism in the Hippocratic tradition are explored. The triumph of the rationalists in the founding of modern medicine is emphasized. The development of clinical epidemiology and the evidence-based medicine over the last 30 years is described. The tension illuminates fundamental clinical and policy questions that doctors, the health care system, and the legal system confront today.

The New Deal Constitution In Exile, William E. Forbath

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Redistricting On Beacon Hill And Political Power On Capitol Hill: Ancient Legacies And Present-Day Perils, Richard A. Hogarty, Garrison Nelson

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article discusses legislative reapportionment and past efforts to manipulate district lines as far back as the legendary Elbridge Gerry in the early nineteenth century. Specifically, it deals with what political history has to tell us about the current furor over House Speaker Thomas Finneran’s proposed congressional redistricting. More than any other state in the Union, the Massachusetts lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have enjoyed disproportionate power as a result of a bipartisan strategy of incumbency protection dating back to the 1940s. That power may be in jeopardy if Speaker Finneran implements his plans to create a new …

Britain And The European Convention, A. W. Brian Simpson

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Lengthening The Stem: Allowing Federally Funded Researchers To Derive Human Pluripotent Stem Cells From Embryos, Jason H. Casell

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Recent developments in fetal tissue research and stem cell research have led to dramatic breakthroughs in the search for cures for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and a host of neurological disorders. Because this research involves fetal tissue and stem cells from human embryos, many complicated ethical and legal implications surround it. This Note explores the history of fetal tissue research and stem cell research, examines the surrounding ethical and legal issues, looks at the current state of federal law, and concludes that Congress should allow federally funded researchers to derive stem cells from discarded human embryos obtained from in …

The Praxis Of Church And State In The (Under)Development Of Women's Religion From France To The New World, Barbara L. Bernier

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Thirteenth Amendment And The Lost Origins Of Civil Rights, Risa L. Goluboff

Duke Law Journal

For the fifteen years prior to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, "civil rights" did not refer to a unified, coherent category. Rather, the content of the term was open, changing, and contradictory. The lawyers of the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice, which was created in 1939, were among those thinking about, and experimenting with, different ways of practicing and framing civil rights in the 1940s. Their practice shows how, as the Great Depression faded and World War II loomed, the most prominent civil rights issues shifted from the labor arena to …

Professor Israel, The Due Process Clause, And The Lessons Of History, Ronald J. Allen

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Super-Statutes, William N. Eskridge Jr., John A. Ferejohn

Duke Law Journal

Not all statutes are created equal. Appropriations laws perform important public functions, but they are usually short-sighted and have little effect on the law beyond the years for which they apportion public monies. Most substantive statutes adopted by Congress and state legislatures reveal little more ambition: they cover narrow subject areas or represent legislative compromises that are short-term fixes to bigger problems and cannot easily be defended as the best policy result that can be achieved. Some statutes reveal ambition but do not penetrate deeply into American norms or institutional practice. Even fewer statutes successfully penetrate public normative and institutional …

E-Obviousness, Glynn S. Lunney Jr.

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

As patents expand into e-commerce and methods of doing business more generally, both the uncertainty and the risk of unjustified market power that the present approach generates suggest a need to rethink our approach to nonobviousness. If courts fail to enforce the nonobviousness requirement and allow an individual to obtain a patent for simply implementing existing methods of doing business through a computer, even where only trivial technical difficulties are presented, entire e-markets might be handed over to patent holders with no concomitant public benefit. If courts attempt to enforce the nonobviousness requirement, but leave undefined the extent of the …

Purchasing While Black: How Courts Condone Discrimination In The Marketplace, Matt Graves

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Given the sweeping language of § 1981 and 1982, it cannot be that sellers of goods can engage in intentional discrimination, so long as they make relatively minor attempts to cover it up. By exploring the interaction between substantive law, procedural law, legal culture, and real-world context, Graves seeks to demonstrate that judges cannot offer any legal or practical justification for heightened pleading requirements in § 1981 and 1982 actions. Through this argument, a conclusion is reached that § 1981 and 1982 plaintiffs must be given the same opportunity to litigate their claims that virtually all other plaintiffs are given. …

Antiterrorism Military Commissions: Courting Illegality, Jordan J. Paust

Michigan Journal of International Law

On November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a sweeping and highly controversial Military Order for the purpose of creating military commissions with exclusive jurisdiction to try certain designated foreign nationals "for violations of the laws of war and other applicable laws" relevant to any prior or future "acts of international terrorism." The Order reaches far beyond the congressional authorization given the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force," including "use of the United States Armed Forces," against those involved in the September 11th attack "in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by …

Remembering Chrystal Macmillan: Women's Equality And Nationality In International Law, Karen Knop, Christine Chinkin

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article both continues and returns to the story of Chrystal Macmillan and the International Law Association. Some seventy-five years later, gender discrimination still exists in nationality law. For an American audience, Thailand's offer of nationality to U.S. golfer Tiger Woods, whose mother is Thai, highlighted the inequality of Thailand's laws on nationality. Although Thai women, as well as Thai men, can now pass their nationality to their children, the law continues to discriminate against women in other matters of nationality. Whereas the foreign wives of Thai men are specially entitled to apply for Thai nationality, the foreign husbands of …

The Historical Origins Of Baseball Grievance Arbitration, J. Gordon Hylton

Marquette Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Pope, Two Presidents And A Prime Minister, Ivana Shearer

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

The modem history-the tragic history-of the people of East Timor can be said to have begun in 1493

Law, Self-Pollution, And The Management Of Social Anxiety, Geoffrey P. Miller

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This article considers the anxieties about masturbation and spermatorrhoea from the standpoint of cultural-legal analysis. Seen from this perspective, the worries about masturbation provided an object onto which social anxieties could be displaced and thereby managed. Norm entrepreneurs who played on public fears manipulated basic cultural polarities in order to present masturbation and spermatorrhoea as objects of horror and disgust-things that needed to be expelled, if possible, from the body social.

Building A Strong Subnational Debt Market, Paul S. Maco

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Decentralization of responsibility for finance and growing infrastructure needs are two trends that are expected to stimulate a growth in government borrowing at the sub-national level. Statistics for the first half of 2000 show a significant increase in sub-national debt volume, with global public finance, excluding Canada and the United States, more than doubling that of the first half of 1999.

Artists, Galleries And The Market: Historical Economic And Legal Aspects Of Artist-Dealer Relationships, Mark A. Reutter

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

With History, All Things Are Secular: The Establishment Clause And The Use Of History, Benjamin S. Genshaft

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Icc’S Jurisdiction Over The Nationals Of Non-Party States: A Critique Of The U.S. Position, Michael P. Scharf

Law and Contemporary Problems

Scharf analyzes the validity of the US argument against the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction over the national of non-party states in the context of historic precedent and the principles underlying international criminal jurisdiction, and demonstrates that it is not the jurisdiction of the ICC over the nationals of nonparty states, but the US government's legal argument, which rests on shaky foundations. He also highlights the potential unintended repercussions of the current US legal position.

Bankruptcy Reform: An Orderly Development Of Public Policy , William T. Bodoh, Lawrence P. Dempsey

Cleveland State Law Review

In legislating the pending bankruptcy "reform," Congress has made many of the key decisions behind closed doors. In fact, the process has been characterized as a congressional effort to pass a "stealth bankruptcy bill." This secrecy brings into question the democratic nature of congressional deliberation. When the Framers designed the legislative branch, open debate was envisioned as the rule, not the exception. Unfortunately, Congress has adopted a secretive, approach to pushing through recent bankruptcy legislation. In a sharp departure from the decades-long congressional approach to bankruptcy legislation, "Congress stopped seeking expert advice and instead turned to special interest lobbyists…” Thus, …