Law and Society Commons^™

Dog Meat In Korea: A Socio-Legal Challenge, Rakhyun E. Kim

Animal Law Review

This article explores the dog meat debate in Korea from a socio-legal perspective. It first examines the legal status of dogs and dog meat, and the legal protection for dogs under the old and new legislative frameworks. It then discusses socio-legal challenges to banning dog meat in the Korean context, employing examples of both legal approaches taken by other countries and the politics of dog meat in Korea, specifically. The article argues that the controversy over dog meat must be reframed and dog meat be socially redefined in order to protect dogs, which are currently caught in the conflict over …

Faith In The Rule Of Law, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

This is an essay on Brian Z. Tamanaha's Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law (2006).

For all but the most unflinching consequentialist, "instrumentalism" tends to draw mixed reviews. So it does from Brian Tamanaha. His book, Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law, documents with measured diffidence the ascendancy and current reign of "legal instrumentalism," so entrenched an understanding of law that it is "taken for granted in the United States, almost a part of the air we breathe." Professor Tamanaha shows that in our legal theorizing, …

The Culture Differential In Parental Autonomy, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

When the laws of a community reflect a dominant culture and yet many of its members are from other minority cultures, there is often conflict. When this conflict occurs in the legal regulation of the parent-child relationship, the consequences are tremendous for the children, the parents, and the State. This Article focuses on the federal statute criminalizing female genital surgeries, and, in doing so, it makes two major claims. The first claim is that the decisions of minority parents are scrutinized and regulated to a greater degree than the decisions of parents from the dominant culture, even when their decisions …

The Problem Of Religious Learning, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The problem of religious learning is that religion—including the teaching about religion—must be separated from liberal public education, but that the two cannot be entirely separated if the aims of liberal public education are to be realized. It is a problem that has gone largely unexamined by courts, constitutional scholars, and other legal theorists. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has offered a few terse statements about the permissibility of teaching about religion in its Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and scholars frequently urge policies for or against such controversial subjects as Intelligent Design or graduation prayers, insufficient attention has been paid to …

Barriers To Access To Abortion Through A Legal Lens, Jocelyn Downie, Carla Nassar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In addressing whether the procedure for obtaining abortions was operating equitably across Canada, the 1977 Badgley Report concluded that for many women, access to abortion was “practically illusory.” Sadly, although abortion on request became legally permissible for Canadian women in 1988, access to a safe and legal abortion remains practically illusory for many women today. A woman seeking an abortion in Canada must overcome numerous barriers. She must find a way to secure for herself some of the limited resources that our health care system provides for abortion. She must also expend her own, often scarce, personal resources: her time, …

Contemplating The Meaning Of "The Rule Of Law", Rodney A. Smolla

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Care About The Polar Bear?: Economic Analysis Of Natural Resources Law And Policy [Outline], Lisa Heinzerling

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

1 page.

"Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Law School" -- Agenda

Some Peer-To-Peer, Democratically And Voluntarily Produced Thoughts About 'The Wealth Of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets And Freedom,' By Yochai Benkler, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this review essay, Bartow concludes that The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler is a book well worth reading, but that Benkler still has a bit more work to do before his Grand Unifying Theory of Life, The Internet, and Everything is satisfactorily complete. It isn't enough to concede that the Internet won't benefit everyone. He needs to more thoroughly consider the ways in which the lives of poor people actually worsen when previously accessible information, goods and services are rendered less convenient or completely unattainable by their migration online. Additionally, the …

The Word And The Law, James B. White

Georgia Law Review

The Word and the Law is an extraordinary combination of law, personal statement, literary criticism, and theology. In a sense its central question is whether it is possible to have a life in the law that is good, and the answer is yes-yes, though not at all easy. I have often suggested it as reading to students who are worried about the profession they have chosen, and they frequently return to me with deep thanks for the introduction. Milner's commitment throughout is not to abstraction or theory or generalization, but to particular realities. Partly for this reason he begins the …

A Theology Of Justice: Some Reflections On Milner Ball's Non-Religious Practice Of Belief, Stephen Wizner

Georgia Law Review

For the past twenty years, during the first weekend in March, law students, law teachers, and public interest lawyers have gathered in the snowy woods of rural New Hampshire for a public interest retreat. The annual event is dedicated to the memory and legacy of Robert Cover, a beloved law professor, brilliant legal scholar, and committed social activist who died in 1986 at the age of forty-two. Robert Cover and Milner Ball were close friends and intellectual fellow travelers. They shared not only an academic interest in the inter-relationships between law, theology, and literature, but also a passionate commitment to …

Slides: The Monumental Legacy Of The Antiquities Act Of 1906: The Rainbow Bridge National Monument In Context, Mark Squillace

Celebrating the Centennial of the Antiquities Act (October 9)

Presenter: Professor Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law

35 slides

Antiquities Act Monuments: The Elgin Marbles Of Our Public Lands?, James R. Rasband

Celebrating the Centennial of the Antiquities Act (October 9)

13 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

Slides: The Centennial Of The Antiquities Act: A Cause For Celebration?, James R. Rasband

Celebrating the Centennial of the Antiquities Act (October 9)

Presenter: Professor James R. Rasband, Brigham Young University School of Law

20 slides

Democracy Means That The People Make The Law, Gerald Torres

New England Journal of Public Policy

Gerald Torres delivered the Robert C. Wood lecture at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston in 2006. This is his talk.

Love Doesn't Pay: The Fiction Of Marriage Rights In The Workplace, James A. Sonne

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Toward A New Student Insurgency: A Critical Epistolary, Rachel J. Anderson, Marc-Tizoc Gonzalez, Stephen Lee

Scholarly Works

Taking the form of an epistolary (a collection of letters), this law review article explores the relationship between law and social change in the context of student activism at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Berkeley Law formerly Boalt). The author’s contribution to this essay examines the simultaneously linear and circular history of social justice activism at Berkeley Law and discusses the relationship between social crises and resurging waves of activism, focusing on student activism in the sphere of legal scholarship.

Lord Of The Flies: The Development Of Rules Within An Adolescent Culture, Nancy B. Rapoport

Scholarly Works

This essay, included in the book SCREENING JUSTICE--THE CINEMA OF LAW: Significant Films of Law, Order and Social Justice (Rennard Strickland, Teree E. Foster & Tauyna Lovell Banks, eds., William S. Hein & Co. 2006), discusses the development of the law in Goldman's Lord of the Flies and raises the question of whether an island populated by a mix of boys and girls - or an island populated by only girls - would have developed a different law.

Culture In Our Midst, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

Culture, like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and wealth is one of many ways in which the law is not neutral. Indeed, culture is a source of law. Yet, as traditional legal positivists have taught us, the law or legal doctrine can prove to be more powerful than culture, often outlasting it. The “mirror image” theory states that the laws of a particular locale reflect the culture of that locale. The law merely serves as enforcement of the common decency, propriety and morality of that culture. Not only is this understanding appealingly simple, it is often invoked by judges and …

Culture As Justification, Not Excuse, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

The wide discussion of cultural defenses over the last twenty years has produced very little actual change in the criminal law. This Article urges a reorientation of our approach thus far to cultural defenses and aspires to move the languishing discussion to a more productive place. The new perspective it proposes is justification. The Article asks the criminal law to make doctrinal room for defendants to argue that their allegedly criminal acts are justified acts, and not excused acts, based on the values and norms of their minority cultures. Currently, the criminal law deals with such acts of minority defendants …

Recoiling From Religion, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

This is an essay reviewing Professor Marci A. Hamilton's book, GOD VS. THE GAVEL: RELIGION AND THE RULE OF LAW (Cambridge Univ. Press 2005).

Professor Marci Hamilton has written a forceful and obviously heartfelt book that should give pause to committed champions of religious free exercise. She argues convincingly that religious freedom is too often invoked to shield opprobrious and socially harmful activity, and she describes numerous examples of such abuses that make any civilized person's blood run cold. Her avowed aims are to debunk the “hazardous myth” that religion is “inherently and always good for society” and to increase …

Triptych: Sectarian Disputes, International Law, And Transnational Tribunals In Drinan's "Can God And Caesar Coexist?", Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

Can international law be used to address conflicts that arise out of questions of the freedom of religion? Modern international law was born of conflicts of politics and religion. The Treaty of Westphalia, the seed from which grew today's systems of international law and international relations, attempted to set out rules to end decades of religious strife and war across the European continent. The treaty replaced empires and feudal holdings with a system of sovereign states. But this was within a relatively narrow and historically interconnected community: Protestants and Catholics, yes, but Christians all. Europe was Christendom.

To what extent …

The Honorable Robert R. Merhige, Jr.: A Colleague Remembered, Robert E. Payne

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Weapon Against Piracy: Patent Protection As An Alternative Strategy For Enforcement Of Digital Rights, Dennis S. Fernandez, Matthew Chivvis, Mengfei Huang

ExpressO

This article illustrates how patents and copyrights complement each other to provide a better defense for creative works. Copyrights protect expression, and patents protect underlying functions. Currently, the one-time strengths of copyrights are being eroded as courts allow new technologies to flourish which enable digital reproduction and piracy. This has encouraged companies and industries to move increasingly to patent protection and any company that fails to pursue this trend may be left behind. In sum, patents are a worthwhile strategy because they assist copyright owners in controlling the technology that enables infringement while copyrights alone would leave a company vulnerable …

How And Understanding Of The Second Personal Standpoint Can Change Our Understanding Of The Law: Hart's Unpublished Response To Exclusive Legal Positivism, Robin B. Kar

ExpressO

This Article describes recent developments in moral philosophy on the “second personal standpoint,” and argues that they will have important ramifications for legal thought. Moral, legal and political thinkers have, for some time now, understood important distinctions between the first personal perspective (of deliberation) and the third personal perspective (of observation, cause and effect), and have plumbed these distinctions to great effect in their thought. This distinction is, in fact, implicit the law and economics movement’s “rational actor” model of decision, which currently dominates much legal academic thought. Recent developments in value theory due to philosopher Stephen Darwall suggest, however, …

Law And Human Nature: The Social-Adaptive Function Of The Normative Behavior, Atahualpa Fernandez

ExpressO

The objective of this article is to offer a critical (re)interpretation of genesis and evolution, object and purpose, as well as useful qualified methods for interpreting, justifying and applying modern practical law, all with the intention of putting philosophic thought and contemporary formal theory of reason at the service of hermeutics and juridical argumentation. Law is no more—no less—than an social-adaptive strategy, evermore complex, but always noticeably deficient, used to articulate argumentatively—in fact, not always with justice—through the virtue of prudence, elementary relational social ties through which men construct approved styles of interaction and social structure, i.e., to organize and …

Book Review: Madam Secretary, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Review of Madeline Albright's Memoirs

Gay And Lesbian Adoption: Banishing The Pied Piper, Amy D. Ronner

St. Thomas Law Review

In my recent book, Homophobia and the Law, Robert Browning's Pied Piper, "the strangest figure" with a "queer long coat from heal to head, inducts a core chapter, the one on Children. After all, it is this notorious Pied Piper, who absconds with the town's children, leads them through a "wondrous portal" into the mountain-side cave, and renders their laughter inaudible forever. The Pied Piper has evolved into a menacing conceit that perpetuates discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. It is predicated on an irrational notion that homosexuals will, by coaxing children toward their own sexual orientation, seal them in …

A Search For Reason In Fairy Tales, John F. Fernandez

St. Thomas Law Review

A fairy1 tale: Once upon at time (not so very long ago), in a land (not so far away) lived a beautiful queen (well, actually a "runner up ") with a golden voice. The beautiful queen reined over her people and sang of sunshine. Some of the queen's subjects had felt that they were not treated fairly by the laws of the land and sought to have their unfair treatment prohibited. Apparently, this caused the queen to develop a fear and hatred for these subjects. These subjects had done nothing to the queen. Yet, the queen made it her mission …

Opening Another Exit From Child Welfare For Special Needs Children - Why Some Gay Men And Lesbians Should Have The Privilege To Adopt Children In Florida, Cynthia R. Mabry

St. Thomas Law Review

This article addresses the question of whether some gay and lesbian adults should be permitted to adopt any children in the State of Florida, especially children with special needs. Part I more clearly describes children with special needs. Part II discusses who may adopt special needs children. Part III briefly covers gay and lesbian adoption statistics. Part IV sets forth general and specific factors that may be used in determining whether a particular gay man or lesbian is suitable for adopting children in Florida. This section also enumerates and discusses reasons that are offered to support bans on same-sex adoption. …

The Inner Lives Of Children In Lesbigay Adoption: Narratives And Other Concerns, Lynn D. Wardle

St. Thomas Law Review

This article attempts to review some of the serious, non-stereotyped concerns that underlie some of the objections of thoughtful legal commentators to adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples or partners. These objections fall into four categories of significant concern: (1) the best interests of children, (2) the integrity of the legal institution of adoption, (3) inappropriate judicial behavior, including manifestation of bias and animus, and the exercise of (legislative) policy-making prerogatives, and (4) the failure to explore, much less carefully consider, alternative solutions (and the hasty abandonment of processes of careful, incremental change to embrace a radical, but …