Law Commons^™

A Tale Of Two Maps: The Limits Of Universalism In Comparative Judicial Review, Adam M. Dodek

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

For most of the twentieth century, the dominant paradigm in comparative public law was particularism. This was accompanied by a strong skepticism towards universalist features and possibilities in public law and, especially, constitutional law. With the rise of judicial review after World War I--and especially in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union--comparative judicial review has begun to flourish. However, comparative scholarship on judicial review overemphasizes the centrality of "the question of legitimacy" of judicial review in a democratic polity. This has been a result of the mistaken extrapolation of the American debate over judicial review to other …

The Transformation Of The Laws Of War Into Humanitarian Law, Mark Antaki

Studio for Law and Culture

This study undertakes a genealogy of crimes against humanity. It inquires into key historical transformations that preceded the official birth of crimes against humanity in positive international law. The study brings to light changes in understandings of law, politics, and human being-together that accompany the articulation of crimes against humanity.

To speak of crimes against humanity is to speak the death of God. With the French Revolution, man displaces God as ground and measure of law and politics, leading to the articulation of crimes against humanity. The man who displaces God is “natural man,” a man who is naturally …

Executions, Deterrence And Homicide: A Tale Of Two Cities, Franklin E. Zimring, Jeffrey Fagan, David T. Johnson

Franklin E. Zimring

We compare homicide rates in two quite similar cities with vastly different execution risks. Singapore had an execution rate close to 1 per million per year until an explosive twentyfold increase in 1994-95 and 96 to a level that we show was probably the highest in the world. Then over the next 11 years, Singapore executions dropped by about 95%. Hong Kong, by contrast, has no executions all during the last generation and abolished capital punishment in 1993. Homicide levels and trends are remarkably similar in these two cities over the 35 years after 1973, with neither the surge in …