Public Law and Legal Theory Commons^™

Cows V. Capitalists: Visions Of A Post-Carbon Economy, Alison Peck

Journal of Food Law & Policy

I was tempted to entitle this book review something like, "Why the Farm Bill Is the Key to Our Energy Future (Hint: It's Not About Ethanol, Methane Emissions, or Carbon Sinks)." But in addition to being too long to fit across the header of a law review page, such a title would have been slightly misleading. Actually, in Simon Fairlie's view, our future is about ethanol, methane emissions, and carbon sinks - but not in the way our current agricultural policies understand and deal with these subjects.

Canadian Food Law Update, Patricia L. Farnese

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Provided below is an overview of the developments in Canadian food law and policy in 2011. This update considers the regulatory and policy developments and litigation activities by the federal government. This focus reflects the significance of federal activities in the food policy realm.

Chief Justices Marshall And Roberts And The Non-Self-Execution Of Treaties, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article is a response to David L. Sloss, Executing Foster v. Neilson: The Two-Step Approach to Analyzing Self-Executing Treaties, 53 Harv. Int'l L L.J. 135 (2012).

David Sloss’s article, Executing Foster v. Neilson, is an important contribution to the literature on the judicial enforcement of treaties. The author agrees with much of it, as he agrees with much of Professor Sloss’ other writing on treaties. In particular, the author agrees that the two-step approach to treaty enforcement that Professor Sloss proposes is generally the right approach, and he agrees that the “intent-based” approach to the self-execution issue …

Contextualing Regimes: Institutionalization As A Response To The Limits Of Interpretation And Policy Engineering, Charles F. Sabel, William H. Simon

Michigan Law Review

When legal language and the effects of public intervention are indeterminate, generalist lawmakers (legislatures, courts, top-level administrators) often rely on the normative output of contextualizing regimes-institutions that structure deliberative engagement by stakeholders and articulate the resulting understanding. Examples include the familiar practices of delegation and deference to administrative agencies in public law and to trade associations in private law. We argue that resorting to contextualizing regimes is becoming increasingly common across a broad range of issues and that the structure of emerging regimes is evolving away from the well-studied agency and trade association examples. The newer regimes mix public and …

Mediation Of Proposition 187: Creative Solution To An Old Problem? Or Quiet Death For Initiatives?, Nicole E. Lucy

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The initiative Proposition 187 has been a catalyst for change. Supporters heralded it as the solution to "Save Our State" from the ills of illegal immigration. Those who opposed it, used Proposition 187 as a battle cry to mobilize a disenfranchised minority. Irrespective of ideology, Proposition 187 ended as no one could have predicted in November 1994 when it passed, 59% to 41%. When Governor Gray Davis inherited the Proposition 187 appeal from former Governor Pete Wilson, Governor Davis took the unprecedented step of seeking to resolve the conflict through mediation rather than actively defending Proposition 187 on appeal to …

Theorizing American Freedom, Anthony O'Rourke

Michigan Law Review

Some intellectual concepts once central to America's constitutional discourse are, for better and worse, no longer part of our political language. These concepts may be so alien to us that they would remain invisible without carefully reexamining the past to challenge the received narratives of America's constitutional development. Should constitutional theorists undertake this kind of historical reexamination? If so, to what extent should they be willing to stray from the disciplinary norms that govern intellectual history? And what normative aims can they reasonably expect to achieve by exploring ideas in our past that are no longer reflected in the Constitution's …

The Gacaca Experiment: Rwanda's Restorative Dispute Resolution Response To The 1994 Genocide, Jessica Raper

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Since its rise to power in July of 1994, the Rwandan government has been committed to prosecuting all those accused of genocide. To prosecute the approximately 130,000 defendants, Rwanda has adopted a program called gacaca, based on Rwanda's traditional customary dispute resolution system. The gacaca law provides a reconciliation component that allows defendants to trade confessions of past genocide crimes for indemnification, as well as a prosecution component that holds the most serious offenders accountable in a Western style prosecution in a formal court of law. One of the main goals of gacaca is to end the so-called "culture …

Negotiation And Settlement In Nagorno-Karabak: Maintaining Territorial Integrity Or Promoting Self-Determination? , Argam Derhartunian

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The little-known region of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh, has been no stranger to conflict. This land, nestled in the historic "Armenian Plateau," has been ruled by many different dynasties and seen the faces of many different ethnicities and cultures. Today, both Armenians and Azeris claim an absolute historic right to Nagorno-Karabakh, periodically fighting over the region. Although the intense fighting ended in 1994, negotiation efforts regarding the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh remain stalemated. This has caused the leaders of Karabakh to declare the region an independent republic, although no state, including Armenia, has recognized this status. This article will …

The Strategic Use Of Public And Private Litigation In Antitrust As Business Strategy, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article claims that there may be a subset of cases in which private rights of action may work with public rights as an effective strategy for a firm to raise costs against rival dominant firms. A competitor firm may bring its own case (which is costly) and/or have government bring a case on its behalf (which is less costly). Alternatively, if the competitor firm has sufficient financial resources, it can pursue an approach that employs both strategies simultaneously. This situation of public and private misuse of antitrust may not happen often. As the Article will explore, it is not …

The Structural Role Of Private Enforcement Mechanisms In Public Law, J. Maria Glover

William & Mary Law Review

The American regulatory system is unique in that it expressly relies on a diffuse set of regulators, including private parties, rather than on a centralized bureaucracy for the effectuation of its substantive aims. In contrast with more traditional conceptions of private enforcement as an ad hoc supplement to public law, this Article argues that private regulation through litigation is integral to the structure of the modern administrative state. Private litigation and the mechanisms that enable it are not merely add-ons to our regulatory regime, much less are they fundamentally at odds with it. Yet, mechanisms of enforcement attendant to private …

Paving The Road To A More Free World: Adr As Sustainable Development - A Look At Bangladesh , Amadea M. Goresh

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In this paper, I will look at the sustainable impact that Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) programs are having in the third world by examining one such nation in particular, the country of Bangladesh. Due to its historical problems combating poverty and corruption, Bangladesh has uniquely devised alternative, extra judicial means of resolving conflict. I will begin by looking at the current state of affairs of the country's government and judicial systems. Next, I will examine the nation's distinctive dispute resolution mechanism, known as shalish, and then discuss the pivotal role non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are playing in adapting the traditional ADR …

Clouded Diamonds: Without Binding Arbitration And More Sophisticated Dispute Resolution Mechanisms, The Kimberley Process Will Ultimately Fail In Ending Conflicts Fueled By Blood Diamonds , Shannon K. Murphy

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

In 2003, under an initiative of the United Nations (U.N.), various nations of the world gave life to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS)-a method by which consumers of all levels could know the origin of their diamonds-with the Scheme only certifying those harvested from legal, government-run mines. The Scheme's drafters believed that, if given the choice, consumers would choose to buy diamonds mined legally, with profits flowing to legitimate sources of power. However, the KPCS as it stands is voluntary and lacks the teeth needed to deter its violators. The KPCS lacks a binding arbitration agreement and needs a …

The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Law & Economics Working Papers

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story does not deny that the results of deinstitutionalization have in many cases been disappointing. But it challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This dispute is not simply a matter of historical interest. The Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that unjustified …

Toward A Unified Theory Of Professional Ethics And Human Rights, Jonathan H. Marks

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article offers a novel account of the relationship between the ethical obligations of professionals and international human rights law and practice. The account is motivated by the role that professionals played in the Bush administration's "war on terror"-in particular, the global detention and interrogation regimes that incarcerated tens of thousands of detainees, and abused many of them. In the most extreme cases, professionals may have committed serious international crimes rendering them liable to criminal prosecution in foreign courts. Serious concerns have also been raised about the ethics of professionals' conduct. Psychologists were the principal architects of the aggressive detention …

Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman

Michigan Law Review

Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard of proof in all criminal cases. Experimental studies as well as real world examples indicate, however, that fact finders often adjust the evidentiary threshold for conviction in accordance with the severity of the applicable sanction. All things being equal, the higher the sanction, the higher the standard of proof that fact finders will apply in order to convict. Building on this insight, this Article introduces a new paradigm for criminal punishments-a paradigm that focuses on designing penalties that will reduce the risk of unsubstantiated …

On Strict Liability Crimes: Preserving A Moral Framework For Criminal Intent In An Intent-Free Moral World, W. Robert Thomas

Michigan Law Review

The law has long recognized a presumption against criminal strict liability. This Note situates that presumption in terms of moral intuitions about the role of intention and the unique nature of criminal punishment. Two sources-recent laws from state legislatures and recent advances in moral philosophy-pose distinct challenges to the presumption against strict liability crimes. This Note offers a solution to the philosophical problem that informs how courts could address the legislative problem. First, it argues that the purported problem from philosophy stems from a mistaken relationship drawn between criminal law and morality. Second, it outlines a slightly more nuanced moral …

Responses To The 11/4/11 Ostp Data Rfi, David Lowe

Published Works

On November 3, 2011, OSTP released a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input on long-term preservation of, and public access to, the results of federally funded research, including digital data ,as required in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. Published here are the responses from David Lowe, Preservation Librarian and Digital Programs Team Leader at the University of Connecticut Libraries.

The Structural Constitutional Principle Of Republican Legitimacy, Mark D. Rosen

All Faculty Scholarship

Representative democracy does not spontaneously occur by citizens gathering to choose laws. Instead, republicanism takes place within an extensive legal framework that determines who gets to vote, how campaigns are conducted, what conditions must be met for representatives to make valid law, and many other things. Many of the “rules-of-the-road” that operationalize republicanism have been subject to constitutional challenges in recent decades. For example, lawsuits have been brought against “partisan gerrymandering” (which has led to most congressional districts not being party-competitive, but instead being safely Republican or Democratic) and against onerous voter identification requirements (which reduce the voting rates of …

Open Secret: Why The Supreme Court Has Nothing To Fear From The Internet, Keith J. Bybee

Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University

The United States Supreme Court has an uneasy relationship with openness: it complies with some calls for transparency, drags its feet in response to others, and sometimes simply refuses to go along. I argue that the Court’s position is understandable given that the internet age of fluid information and openness has often been heralded in terms that are antithetical to the Court’s operations. Even so, I also argue the Court actually has little to fear from greater transparency. The understanding of the Court with the greatest delegitimizing potential is the understanding that the justices render decisions on the basis of …

Senses Of Sen: Reflections On Amartya Sen’S Ideas Of Justice, César Arjona, Arif A. Jamal, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Victor V. Ramraj, Francisco Satiro

Faculty Papers & Publications

This review essay explores how Amartya Sen’s recent book, The Idea of Justice, is relevant and important for the development and assessment of transnational theories and applications to transnational justice and legal education programs. The essay captures a trans-jural dialogue of multinational scholars and teachers, discussing Sen’s contributions to moral justice theory (criticizing programs for “transcendental institutionalism” (like Rawlsian theory) and instead focusing on “comparative broadening” including empirical, relative, and comparative assessments of programs to ameliorate injustice in the world in its comparative concreteness (as in Indian social justice theory and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and related …