Comparative and Foreign Law Commons^™

The Honduran Constitution Is Not A Suicide Pact: The Legality Of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's Removal, Frank M. Walsh

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Ethnicity, Elections, And Reform In Burma, David C. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Disproportionate Disenfranchisement Of Aboriginal Prisoners: A Conflict Of Law That Australia Should Address, Megan A. Winder

Washington International Law Journal

In 2006, Australia’s Parliament banned all prisoners from voting. A year later, Vickie Lee Roach, a female prisoner of Aboriginal descent, challenged the blanket ban promulgated in the 2006 amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act of 1918 (“Electoral Act”). Vickie won, but in a limited way. The High Court found an implied right to vote in the Australian Constitution, but held that Parliament could limit such voting, as it did in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment of 2004 (“E & R Amendment”), disenfranchising any prisoner serving three or more years in jail. This Comment argues that the E & R …

Fair Measure Of The Right To Vote: A Comparative Perspective Of Voting Rights Enforcement In A Maturing Democracy, Janai S. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Constitutional text and government action are at times discordant in important ways. This discrepancy occurs in both mature and emerging democracies. It can result in the underenforcement of constitutional norms and implicate the rule of law. When the constitutional norm involves the right to vote, the gap between constitutions and governance inevitably triggers concerns about democracy as well. There is rich and ample debate within American legal scholarship over the effect of the underenforcement of constitutional norms on the scope and meaning of the norm. The arguments generally fall into one of two camps. One strand of argument suggests that …

Extraterritorial Electioneering And The Globalization Of American Elections, Zephyr Teachout

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay explores a fascinating new truth: because of the Internet, governments, corporations, and citizens of other countries can now meaningfully participate in United States elections. They can phone bank, editorialize, and organize in ways that impact a candidate's image, the narrative structure of a campaign, and the mobilization of base support. Foreign governments can bankroll newspapers that will be read by millions of voters. Foreign companies can enlist employees in massive cross-continental email campaigns. Foreign activists can set up offline meetings and organize door-to-door campaigns in central Ohio. They can, in short, influence who wins and who loses. Depending …

Granting Permanent Resident Aliens The Right To Vote In Local Government: The New Komeitō Continues To Promote Alien Suffrage In Japan, Miles E. Hawks

Washington International Law Journal

Throughout the world, the dominant suffrage model has been voting rights based on citizenship. However, the trend of globalization, the increase of cross-border migration, and the advent of supranational institutions such as the European Union have prompted many countries to reconsider the relationship between nationality and voting rights. This has resulted in a growing trend, beginning in Europe and spreading most recently to South Korea, of adopting a notion of suffrage based on residency and community rather than citizenship. Japan is currently considering legislation, known as the “Local Suffrage Bill,” which would allow permanent resident aliens (“PRAs”) to vote in …

What Is A Tragedy Of The Commons? Overfishing And The Campaign Spending Problem, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Absentee Ballot And The Secret Ballot: Challenges For Election Reform, John C. Fortier, Norman J. Ornstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Reforms in the recently enacted federal election reform legislation primarily address improving voting at a polling place, but there is a growing share of the electorate who vote away from the polling place through increased use of absentee ballots and vote-by-mail systems. Voters who vote away from the polling place do not have the same protections as those at the polling place. In particular, these voters do not have a secret ballot, as any ballot cast without a drawn curtain behind oneself is potentially subject to coercion, vote buying and fraud.

This Article looks at the tension between the Australian …

Nationality, Domicile And Habitual Residence - Does The New German Citizenship Law Call For A Change Of A Principal Connecting Factor In Private International Law ?, Marc Cziesielsky

LLM Theses and Essays

The purpose of the new citizenship law which was proposed by the new German federal government was to give legal aliens living in Germany a choice to become German citizens without having to give up the nationality which was conferred on them by their parentage or descent. This thesis will question whether this rigid concept should be completely abolished after an assessment of both the constitutionality and the exact implications of the new citizenship law. In the light of the conclusions, the comparative part of this thesis will then focus on a more general approach and will compare the concepts …

Reducing Malapportionment In Japan's Electoral Districts: The Supreme Court Must Act, William Somers Bailey

Washington International Law Journal

Japan's Constitution does not expressly mandate periodic census and reapportionment of electoral districts. The Election Law only suggests reapportionment. Consequently, rapid population shifts in postwar Japan created endemic voter imbalances. The Japanese Supreme Court has made some attempts to prod the national parliament to take ameliorative action, but the result has always been "too little, too late." Nevertheless, the evidence shows that the parliament does heed the Court's decisions. This Comment urges the Court to tighten the three to one ratio it has developed for allowable voter imbalances to two to one or better, and to abandon doctrines like the …

The Fallacy Of Neutrality: Diary Of An Election Observer, Jeanne M. Woods

Michigan Journal of International Law

Neutrality is one of many conceptual fictions of liberal discourse. A legal fiction is "contrived by the law" to facilitate adjudication of issues. Such fictions may serve as symbols, to make abstract concepts tangible or, they may be myths designed to promote some normative principle or goal. The problem arises when these fictions cease to be recognized as inventions, or as "presumptions about reality," and are believed to have an independent existence in reality. Then, they "purport to provide us with an objective and impersonal criterion, but they do not." According to the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, a fiction is "a …

Self-Determination In The Post-Cold War Era: A New Internal Focus?, Gregory H. Fox

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of International Monitoring of Plebiscites, Referenda and National Elections: Self-Determination and Transition to Democracy by Yves Beigbeder

The Holding Of Free And Fair Elections In Cambodia: The Achievement Of The United Nations' Impossible Mission, Nhan T. Vu

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part II of this paper will chart the historical background of the process that led up to the cease-fire and elections agreement. Part III will study various international instruments which guarantee the right to free and fair elections in order to determine the contours of the right as it exists today. In Part IV, this paper will look at the existing academic literature to give a more complete understanding of the requirements for a free and fair election. Part V of the paper will apply these standards to the elections in Cambodia and conclude that they were, in fact, free …

"We Are The People": Alien Suffrage In German And American Perspective, Gerald L. Neuman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will explore the constitutional debate over alien suffrage in the FRG, both for its own interest and in order to compare it with understandings of alien suffrage in the United States. As the interdependence of national economies deepens and regional "common market" arrangements multiply, more nations (including the United States) may be called upon to rethink the question of alien suffrage. The thoroughness and the explicitness with which the German legal community has debated this issue has brought to the surface arguments and assumptions that remain latent in U.S. commentary on the political status of aliens. Thus, the …

Voting Rights Of Americans Abroad, Kenneth M. Davidson

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

British Elections And Corrupt Practice Acts, J. E. Reeves

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.