Law and Society Commons^™

The Gender Injustice Of Abortion Laws, Joanna Erdman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This commentary is a response to Katarzyna Sękowska-Kozłowska’s article on the treatment of criminal abortion laws as a form of sex discrimination under international human rights law through a study of the communications, Mellet v. Ireland and Whelan v. Ireland. The commentary offers a reading of these communications, and specifically the sex discrimination analysis premised on inequalities of treatment among women, as an engagement with the structural discrimination that characterises abortion laws, and asa radical vision for gender justice under international human rights law.

Responding Restoratively To Student Misconduct And Professional Regulation – The Case Of Dalhousie Dentistry, Jennifer Llewellyn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The 2015 restorative justice process at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Dentistry is a case study that reveals the connection at conceptual and practical levels between restorative justice and responsive regulation as common expressions of relational theory and practice. Their relationship is clearest when, as in this case, issues are understood in their full contexts and circumstances require a widening of the circle of issues and parties. At this scale the complexity of the situation and the need for responsive interventions capable of supporting and sustaining a just relationship is revealed.

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Jonathon Penney, Danielle Citron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …

Legal Ethics And Canada's Military Lawyers, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

English Abstract: Military lawyers—lawyers who are legal officers in the Canadian Forces— are virtually ignored in the Canadian legal literature. This article assesses what appear to be the most striking potential legal ethics issues facing military lawyers. Several of these issues arise because military lawyers are both lawyers and military officers at the same time, and therefore face two sets of obligations that interact in complex ways. Some issues, however, arise because of the special practice contexts of military lawyers, for example, advising military commanders on the law of armed conflict. As context for this discussion, the article examines the …

Freedom: A Work In Progress, Rusi Stanev, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Rusi Stanev, survivor of an intransigent system of guardianship and institutionalisation, victor in a ground breaking disability rights case against Bulgaria at the European Court of Human Rights, my partner in this writing project and (for too short a time) my friend, died on March 9, 2017, before our chapter could be completed. He was 61. Questions have been raised about the appropriateness of the care Rusi received in his final days; at the time of finalising this chapter, a formal inquest into the circumstances of his death had not issued in a decision. But whether or not Rusi Stanev’s …

Debating Rights Inflation In Canada: A Sociology Of Human Rights, Hannah Steeves

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Dominique Clément’s Debating Rights Inflation in Canada is intended to augment a report he co-authored, “The Evolution of Human Rights in Canada,” published by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2012. The book’s goal is to stimulate discussion on the effects that rights inflation has had and could continue to have in Canada.

Divergence And Convergence At The Intersection Of Property And Contract, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci, Carmine Guerriero

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, we study rules that solve the conflict between the original owner and an innocent buyer of a stolen or embezzled good. These rules balance the protection of the original owner’s property and the buyer’s reliance on contractual exchange, thereby addressing a fundamental legal and economic trade-off. Our analysis is based on a unique, hand-collected dataset on the rules in force in 126 countries. Using this data, we document and explain two conflicting trends. There is a large amount of first-order divergence: both rules that apply to stolen goods and those that apply to embezzled goods vary widely …

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay Fines, Meghan M. O'Neil, J.J. Prescott

Articles

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …

Vulnerability And Social Justice, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

This Article briefly considers the origins of the term social justice and its evolution beside our understandings of human rights and liberalism, which are two other significant justice categories. After this reflection on the contemporary meaning of social justice, I suggest that vulnerability theory, which seeks to replace the rational man of liberal legal thought with the vulnerable subject, should be used to define the contours of the term. Recognition of fundamental, universal, and perpetual human vulnerability reveals the fallacies inherent in the ideals of autonomy, independence, and individual responsibility that have supplanted an appreciation of the social. I suggest …

Building Bridges: Examining Race And Privilege In Community Economic Development: Introductory Overview, Priya Baskaran

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Private International Law As An Ethic Of Responsivity, Ralf Michaels

Faculty Scholarship

The world is a mess. Populism, xenophobia, and islamophobia; misogyny and racism; the closing of borders against the neediest—the existential crisis of modernity calls for a firm response from ethics. Why, instead of engaging with these problems through traditional ethics, worry about private international law, that most technical of technical fields of law? My claim in this chapter: not despite, because of its technical character. Private international law provides such an ethic, an ethic of responsivity. It provides us with a technique of ethics, a technique that helps us conceptualise and address some of the most pressing issues of our …

Sex Wars As Proxy Wars, Aya Gruber

Publications

The clash between feminists and queer theorists over the meaning of sex—danger versus pleasure—is well- trodden academic territory. Less discussed is what the theories have in common. There is an important presumption uniting many feminist and queer accounts of sexuality: sex, relative to all other human activities, is something of great, or grave, importance. The theories reflect Gayle Rubin’s postulation that "everything pertaining to sex has been a ‘special case’ in our culture.” In the #MeToo era, we can see all too clearly how sex has an outsized influence in public debate. Raging against sexual harm has become the preferred …

Not From Guile But From Entitlement: Lawful Opportunism Capitalizes On The Cracks In Contracts, Gastón De Los Reyes Jr., Kirsten Martin

Buffalo Law Review

Few concepts have been more pivotal to contract law scholarship over the last forty years than the opportunism attributed ex ante and ex post to contracting parties, yet the lawful form of opportunism identified by Nobel Laureate Oliver Williamson in 1991 remains surprisingly overlooked in favor of the blatant forms of opportunism that result from “self-interest seeking with guile.” This Article extends Williamson’s inchoate account of lawful opportunism and reports the first empirical study of the phenomenon.

The conceptual analysis of lawful opportunism is developed with reference to the bargaining underlying the classic impossibility decision, Taylor v. Caldwell. Three component …

Third-Class Citizenship: The Escalating Legal Consequences Of Committing A "Violent" Crime, Michael O'Hear

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

For many years, American legislatures have been steadily attaching a wide range of legal consequences to convictions—and sometimes even just charges—for crimes that are classified as “violent.” These consequences affect many key aspects of the criminal process, including pretrial detention, eligibility for pretrial diversion, sentencing, eligibility for parole and other opportunities for release from incarceration, and the length and intensity of supervision in the community. The consequences can also affect a person’s legal status and rights long after the sentence for the underlying offense has been served. A conviction for a violent crime can result in registration requirements, lifetime disqualification …

What Protections Are Available To Graffiti Artists?, Molly Lamovec

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

Dignity And Social Meaning: Obergefell, Windsor, And Lawrence As Constitutional Dialogue, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The U.S. Supreme Court’s three most important gay and lesbian rights decisions—Obergefell v. Hodges, United States v. Windsor, and Lawrence v. Texas—are united by the principle that gays and lesbians are entitled to dignity. Beyond their tangible consequences, the common constitutional evil of state bans on same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and sodomy laws was that they imposed dignitary harm. This Article explores how the gay and lesbian dignity cases exemplify the process by which constitutional law emerges from a social and cultural dialogue in which the Supreme Court actively participates. In doing …

The Demand Side Of Sex Trafficking In Minnesota: The Who, Where, And Why—And What We Can Do About It, Erinn B. Valine

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fifty Years After The Consumer Credit Protection Act: The High Price Of Wage Garnishment, Faith Mullen

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Poverty To Personhood: Gideon Unchained, Ken Strutin

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Convicting Juveniles To Life Without Parole, Bradford Colbert, Alex Baker Kroeger

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Less Trust Means More Trusts, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The word “trust” has multiple meanings. In everyday speech, it refers to a feeling of confidence associated with integrity, such as trusting that a friend will keep a secret. In the financial context, some law students, lawyers and lucky individuals also understand that a trust is a near-magical device that splits legal and equitable title. A trustee holds formal legal title to property for the benefit of a beneficiary simply because the grantor declares it to be so. By turning the spotlight on “trust,” in both senses of the word, one can discern fault lines in contemporary U.S. political and …

Virtual Hearings And Blockchain Technology Solutions In Criminal Law, Chantell Bergquist

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Technology has evolved and raided our personal and professional lives. Although the courts are not immune to the advancement and integration of technology, the courts are not keeping up with relevant technological advancements. Historically, courts have been hesitant to embrace new technologies despite the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure creates the right to a “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Likewise, the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct have determined attorneys must “keep abreast of …

When Big Brother Becomes “Big Father”: Examining The Continued Use Of Parens Patriae In State Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings, Emily R. Mowry

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution grants American citizens numerous Due Process rights; but, historically, the Supreme Court declined to extend these Due Process rights to children. Initially, common-law courts treated child offenders over the age of seven in the same manner as adult criminals. At the start of the 20th century, though, juvenile reformers assisted in creating unique juvenile courts that used the parens patriae doctrine and viewed children as delinquent youths in need of judicial parental guidance rather than punishment. Later, starting in 1967, the Supreme Court released multiple opinions extending certain constitutional Due Process rights to children in juvenile delinquency …

Canines At The Company, Felines At The Factory: The Risks And Rewards Of Incorporating Service Animals And Companion Animals Into The Workplace, Rebecca J. Huss

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

With unemployment rates at historically low levels, the ability of an employer to attract and retain productive employees is key to a company’s success. Simultaneously, the percentage of persons in the United States with disabilities is increasing. Additionally, many persons without disabilities consider allowing companion animals at work a valuable employee benefit. This Article focuses on the legal and workplace implications of incorporating service animals and companion animals at work.

This Article begins by analyzing when an employer must accommodate a request by an employee with a disability to be accompanied by a service animal at work under the Americans …

Where The Constitution Falls Short: Confession Admissibility And Police Regulation, Courtney E. Lewis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

A confession presented at trial is one of the most damning pieces of evidence against a criminal defendant, which means that the rules governing its admissibility are critical. At the outset of confession admissibility in the United States, the judiciary focused on a confession’s truthfulness. Culminating in the landmark case Miranda v. Arizona, judicial concern with the reliability of confessions shifted away from whether a confession was true and towards curtailing unconstitutional police misconduct. Post-hoc constitutionality review, however, is arguably inappropriate. Such review is inappropriate largely because the reviewing court must find that the confession was voluntary only by …

Dr. Tele-Corporation: Bridging The Access-To-Care Gap, Nader Amer

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The United States is currently confronting an access-to-healthcare crisis, which rural regions are experiencing at a disproportionate rate. Many commentators have touted telemedicine as a solution for the access-to-care issue. Telemedicine uses video and telecommunication technology to allow physicians to treat patients from distant locations and thus facilitates a more equal distribution of physicians throughout the United States.

Although the telemedicine industry is quickly growing, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine impedes the industry’s expansion and consequently obstructs a viable solution to the access-to-care crisis. Generally, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine prohibits corporations and limited liability companies from employing …

Private Interests, Public Law, And Reconfigured Inequality In Modern Payment Card Networks, Stephen Wilks

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article examines two phenomena contributing to the racial stratification of consumers in credit card markets. The first phenomenon pertains to the longstanding conflict between card issuers and merchants over payment processing cost allocation. If successful, First Amendment challenges to existing statutory surcharge bans will allow merchants to impose an additional fee when consumers use credit cards as a form of payment. The Article relies on the interplay between socioeconomic class and behavioral theory to suggest subsistence borrowers would be more likely to pay surcharge fees than wealthier consumers. This arrangement disfavors the poor to support a hierarchy of borrowers, …

Whose Market Is It Anyway? A Philosophy And Law Critique Of The Supreme Court’S Free-Speech Absolutism, Spencer Bradley

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the wake of Charlottesville, the rise of the alt-right, and campus controversies, the First Amendment has fallen into public scrutiny. Historically, the First Amendment’s “marketplace of ideas” has been a driving source of American political identity; since Brandenburg v. Ohio, the First Amendment protects all speech from government interference unless it causes incitement. The marketplace of ideas allows for the good and the bad ideas to enter American society and ultimately allows the people to decide their own course.

Yet, is the First Amendment truly a tool of social progress? Initially, the First Amendment curtailed war-time dissidents and …

Pennsylvania’S Need For Permanency: An Argument In Support Of Workable Standards For Representing Children In Involuntary Termination Of Parental Rights Proceedings, Anne M. Bingaman

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In cases of child abuse and neglect, Pennsylvania’s dependency laws both empower courts to act to protect the child and offer opportunities to bolster the parent-child relationship. However, when courts determine that maintenance of the parent-child relationship is not in the child’s best interest, termination of parental rights proceedings play an essential role in freeing the child for adoption.

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly has recognized that termination proceedings are both a necessary mechanism for permanency and a significant intrusion in the life of a child. As a result, the General Assembly enacted 23 PA. CONST. STAT. § 2313(a), a provision in …

Revisiting Controlled Digital Lending Post-Redigi, Michelle M. Wu

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Now that the Second Circuit has ruled on the ReDigi appeal, some libraries and users may be curious to see how the decision factors into controlled digital lending (CDL) efforts. To understand the interest and the implications, we first need to establish the basic contours of copyright, fair use, CDL, and ReDigi.