Rule of Law Commons^™

Standard Textualism, James A. Macleod

Articles

For as long as legal scholars have been writing about the rules-versus-standards distinction, textualism has been understood to produce characteristically rule-like law. This Article argues for the opposite view. Far from generating the “law of rules” that Scalia famously envisioned, the rule of modern textualism produces a law of standards—much more so than anybody, proponent of textualism or critic, appears to have recognized.

Two aspects of today’s textualism produce this result. The first is its emphasis on ordinary language and communication. Modern textualism typically produces standards because ordinary language and communication are typically standard-like. The second is modern textualism’s drive …

Living The Good Life In The Anthropocene, Karrigan Bork, Karen Bradshaw, Rebecca Bratspies, Cinnamon Carlarne, Bruce Carpenter, Robin Kundis Craig, Sarah Fox, Josh Galperin, Francis Hicks, Keith Hirokawa, Kevin Lynch, Ruhan S. Nagra, Michele Okoh, Jessica Owley, Amber Polk, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, J.B. Ruhl, Danielle Stokes, Anastasia Telesetsky

Articles

The Stockholm Resilience Centre has concluded that the number of "planetary boundaries" we are crossing has increased from three in 2009, when the Centre's researchers first introduced the concept, to six in 2023. Crossing these boundaries means humans are changing basic attributes of planetary systems to the point of risking the future of civilization. And the distinction between "safe" and "just" planetary boundaries raises questions regarding how to conceptualize the "good life." In this latest in a biannual series of essays, members of the Environmental Law Collaborative explore conceptions of the "good" as well as the various elements necessary to …

Election Law And Election Subversion, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

Scholars of American election law used to take the rule of law as a given. The legal system, while highly imperfect, appeared sturdy, steady, and functional. Recent election cycles—culminating in dramatic attempts at election subversion—have revealed this assumption beginning to break down. Without the rule of law as a dependable constant, the study of election law quickly expands. Legal experts now are simultaneously occupied with: first, the substance of election laws; second, the design of election institutions; and third, the threat of participants unlawfully undermining elections from within. This Essay identifies and contextualizes the rule-of-law pivot that is reflected in …

Danse Macabre: Temporalities Of Law In The Visual Arts, Jeanne L. Schroeder

Articles

In Danse Macabre: Temporalities of Law in the Visual Arts, Desmond Manderson delves the visual arts for insights into jurisprudence and legal practice. The book is a tour de force. Observing that just as art always fails to capture the image of justice, justice also always escapes positive law, Manderson claims, "We cannot paint the present; nor can we write the present law. . . . painting and lawmaking are always behind the times, late for their rendezvous with a world that has turned without them. . . . they strive to shape a future that they will never live …

The Rule Of Law Collaborative: A Center Of Practical, Interdisciplinary Research, And Engagement On Pressing Rule Of Law Issues Around The World, Joel H. Samuels

Articles

No abstract provided.

In Re Akhbar Beirut & Al Amin, Monica Hakimi

Articles

On August 29, 2016, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (Tribunal) sentenced a corporate media enterprise and one of its employees for contemptuously interfering with the Tribunal's proceedings in Ayyash, a prosecution concerning the February 2005 terrorist attack that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The contempt decision is significant for two reasons: (1) it adopts an expansive definition of the crime of contempt to restrict a journalist's freedom of expression; and (2) it is the first international judicial decision to hold a corporate entity criminally responsible.

Democracy, Law, Compliance, Don Herzog

Articles

Professors Schauer and McAdams both seek a more or less sweepingly general theory of why we obey the law. But we should split, not lump. There are different reasons different actors in different social settings obey different laws–not only, but not least, out of regard for democratic decision making.

Taking Care Of Federal Law, Leah Litman

Articles

Article II of the Constitution vests the “executive power” in the President and directs the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” But do these provisions mean that only the President may execute federal law? Two lines of Supreme Court precedent suggest conflicting answers to that question. In several prominent separation-of-powers cases, the Court has suggested that only the President may execute federal law: “The Constitution requires that a President chosen by the entire Nation oversee the execution of the laws.” Therefore, the Court has reasoned, Congress may not create private rights of action that allow nonexecutive …

Initial Reflections On An Interdisciplinary Approach To Rule Of Law Studies, Joel H. Samuels

Articles

In this essay, we attempt to lay the initial groundwork for a clearer understanding of rule of law both as a concept and as a distinct field. We respond to the assertions that the rule of law field is non-existent or incoherent, and assert that a field of rule of law is not impossible to ascertain. First, we survey how rule of law - as both a term and a state of political being - is understood by practitioners and scholars, as well as how scholars reconcile the lack of a clear, widely universal understanding of the concept of rule …

The Jury And Criminal Responsibility In Anglo-American History, Thomas A. Green

Articles

Anglo-American theories of criminal responsibility require scholars to grapple with, inter alia, the relationship between the formal rule of law and the powers of the lay jury as well as two inherent ideas of freedom: freedom of the will and political liberty. Here, by way of canvassing my past work and prefiguring future work, I sketch some elements of the history of the Anglo-American jury and offer some glimpses of commentary on the interplay between the jury—particularly its application of conventional morality to criminal judgments—and the formal rule of law of the state. My central intent is to pose questions …

Provisional Arrest And Incarceration In The International Criminal Tribunals, Melinda Taylor, Charles C. Jalloh

Articles

This article examines the widely ignored but important issue regarding the provisional arrest and detention of persons suspected of having committed international crimes by international or internationalized courts. The paper examines the pioneer case law and practice of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, as well as the emerging practice of the permanent International Criminal Court, to evaluate how these courts have generally addressed the rights of these individuals to due process and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention before …

Deferred Prosecution And Non-Prosecution Agreements And The Erosion Of Corporate Criminal Liability, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

On April 5, 2010, a massive explosion killed twenty-nine miners at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal, West Virginia. Following the explosion, President Barack Obama vowed that the U.S. Department of Labor would conduct "the most thorough and comprehensive investigation possible" and work with the U.S. Department of Justice ("Justice Department" or the "Department") to address any criminal violations. Later in the month, the President and Vice President flew to West Virginia to eulogize the victims and comfort their families. It was the nation's worst coal mining disaster in forty years. The tragic loss of life at the …

Public Consensus As Constitutional Authority, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Barry Friedman's new book The Will of the People attempts to dissolve constitutional law's countermajoritariand ifficulty by showing that, in practice,t he Supreme Court does only what the public will tolerate. His account succeeds if "the countermajoritarian difficulty" refers to the threat that courts will run the country in ways that contravene majority preference, but not if the "the countermajoritarian difficulty" refers to the need to explain the legitimate sources of judicial authority in cases where decisions do contravene majority preference. Friedman's book does not pursue the second possibility, and may suggest that doing so is unimportant, in part because …

Against Secret Regulation: Why And How We Should End The Practical Obscurity Of Injunctions And Consent Decrees (Symposium: Rising Stars: A New Generation Of Scholars Looks At Civil Justice), Margo Schlanger

Articles

Every year, federal and state courts put in place orders that regulate the prospective operations of certainly hundreds and probably thousands of large government and private enterprises. Injunctions and injunction-like settlement agreements-whether styled consent decrees, settlements, conditional dismissals, or some other more creative title-bind the activities of employers, polluters, competitors, lenders, creditors, property holders, schools, housing authorities, police departments, jails, prisons, nursing homes, and many others. The types of law underlying these cases multiply just as readily: consumer lending, environmental, employment, anti-discrimination, education, constitutional, and so on. Injunctive orders, whether reached by litigation or on consent, suffuse the regulatory environment, …

When Should Original Meanings Matter?, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Constitutional theory lacks an account of when each of the familiar sources of authority-text, original meaning, precedent, and so on-should be given weight. The dominant tendency is to regard all sources as potentially applicable in every case. In contrast, this Article proposes that each source of authority is pertinent in some categories of cases but not in others, much as a physical tool is appropriate for some but not all kinds of household tasks. The Article then applies this approach to identify the categories of cases in which original meaning is, or is not, a valid factor in constitutional decisionmaking.

Craft And Power, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Oliver Wendell Holmes-a great judge-said that "the command of the public force is intrusted to the judges in certain cases, and the whole power of the state will be put forth, if necessary, to carry out their judgments and decrees." Appellate courts command that force in ways that principle and practicalities leave little fettered. Judges must fetter themselves, not least by honoring the judicial duty of craftsmanship. That duty obliges courts to respect procedural rules, for they keep courts within their bounds and promote fair and sound decisions. That duty obliges courts to analyze legal authority scrupulously, since judicial legitimacy …

Double-Consciousness In Constitutional Adjudication, Richard A. Primus

Articles

Constitutional theorists are familiar with epistemic and consequentialist reasons why judges might allow their decision making to be shaped by strongly held public opinion. The epistemic approach treats public opinion as an expert indicator, while the consequentialistapproach counsels judges to compromise legally correct interpretations so as not to antagonize a hostile public. But there is also a third reason, which we can think ofas constitutive. In limited circumstances, the fact that the public strongly holds a given view can be one of the factors that together constitute the correct answer to a constitutional question. In those circumstances, what the public …

Haitian Refugees And The Rule Of Law, Irwin P. Stotzky

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Establishment Clause During The 2004 Term: Big Cases, Little Movement, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Religious Institutions, The No-Harm Doctrine, And The Public Good, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Rule Of Law And The Legitimacy Of Constitutional Democracy, Michel Rosenfeld

Articles

The rule of law is a foundational principle of constitutional democracy, requiring the state to govern through publicly promulgated laws, separate legislative and adjudicative functions, and ensure accountability for all. While the rule of law is essential for legitimate governance, its meaning and implementation remain contested, varying significantly across legal traditions such as the Anglo-American rule of law, German Rechtsstaat, and French état de droit. The article argues that while the rule of law in its narrow sense—emphasizing legal predictability and procedural fairness—is insufficient for legitimate constitutional democracy, it must also incorporate democratic accountability and substantive rights protection to address …

Rulemaking, Michael Herz

Articles

No abstract provided.

America, Defender Of Democratic Legitimacy?, James C. Hathaway

Articles

American exceptionalism - a belief that the United States has a unique mission to lead the world, but ought logically to be exempt from the rules it promotes - is at the root of much of the American academy's effort to rationalize the US government's increasing rejection of multilateralism as the cornerstone of modern public international law. Even American scholars who disagree fundamentally on the problems with multilateralism (Kenneth Anderson arguing that it favours anti-democratic intervention by unelected NGOs, Michael Reisman asserting that it privileges elitist state-based lawmaking in the face of more democratic non-state 'lawmaking' processes) can agree on …

The New Ethiopian Constitution: Its Impact Upon Unity, Human Rights And Development, Minasse Haile

Articles

The 1994 Ethiopian Constitution, while intended to address historical injustices, has exacerbated tribalism, human rights violations, and poverty by establishing a flawed federal system based on ethnic affiliation. The Constitution grants excessive autonomy to ethnic-based states, undermining national unity and central authority. Its lack of enforceable limitations on government power, absence of judicial review, and emphasis on secession have created a system prone to instability and human rights abuses. The article argues that the Constitution's structure, inspired by defunct Soviet models, is ill-suited to Ethiopia's needs, threatening its democracy, development, and cohesion.

Law As Discourse: Bridging The Gap Between Democracy And Rights, Michel Rosenfeld

Articles

No abstract provided.

Liberal Philosophy's Troubled Relation To The Rule Of Law, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article critiques Andrew Altman's defense of liberalism against critical legal studies (CLS), arguing that his account of the rule of law relies on unexamined presuppositions and fails to address the indeterminacy of legal meaning. Altman's metaphor of the rule of law as a checkerboard of zones of freedom is challenged for its definitional ambiguity and reliance on natural law, which undermines his critique of CLS. The analysis suggests that liberalism's inability to tolerate political intrusion into the rule of law exposes its dogmatic underpinnings, while deconstruction offers a more nuanced understanding of legal meaning and its ethical implications.

Of Outlaws, Christians, Horsemeat, And Writing: Uniform Laws And Saga Iceland, William I. Miller

Articles

Our word law is a loanword from Old Norse.1 It makes its earliest appearances in Old English manuscripts in the late tenth century. At that time the Old English word for law was, believe it or not, æ, written as a digraph called "ash." Now most readers, myself included, tend to experience anxiety when we confront a ligatured vowel like ae and so we untie it as a prelude to getting rid of it altogether: we turn an aesthete2 into an aesthete before finally humiliating him (or her) as an esthete, all to resolve our nervousness. King Æthelred the Unready …

A Skeptical Look At Contemporary Republicanism, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

A growing number of scholars have been led by that impulse to an interest in 'the republican tradition," arguing that it offers resources for correcting the deformities they perceive in contemporary life and for which they hold liberalism responsible. Republicanism is a mansion with many rooms, and its modem interpreters emphasize varying possibilities within it, but common to all is the vision of a politics that recognizes and seeks to strengthen the social bonds within a political community. Within the limits set by that vision differences abound, just as differences exist among liberals concerning appropriate political foundations for individual freedom. …

Justice And The Bureaucratization Of Appellate Courts, Joseph Vining

Articles

The author notes the growing bureaucratization of appellate justice in the United States and, in particular, the drafting of opinions by law clerks rather than by judges. Taking the Supreme Court of the United States as an example, and comparing its internal procedure with that of large administrative agencies, he questions whether the method of analysis familiarly used by lawyers to arrive at an authoritative statement of law is applicable to legal texts bureaucratically produced. He suggests that legal method and its presuppositions are ultimately associated with the authority of law, and concludes that there may be critical losses not …

Constitutional Interpretation, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

"[We] must never forget," Chief Justice Marshall admonished us in a statement pregnant with more than one meaning, "that it is a constitution we are expounding."' Marshall meant that the Constitution should be read as a document "intended to endure for ages.to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."'2 But he meant also that the construction placed upon the document must have regard for its "great outlines" and "important objects."'3 Limits are implied by the very nature of the task. There is not the same freedom in construing the Constitution as in constructing a …