Rule of Law Commons^™

Restorative Justice As A Democratic Practice, Daniel S. Mcconkie Jr.

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Our criminal justice system, to be truly democratic, should be more responsive to those most affected by it, and this calls for significant participation from citizens. Unfortunately, the state-centered, professionalized criminal justice system marginalizes citizens at every stage, depriving them of a voice and power. Instead, the system should embody and encourage criminal justice citizenship, which refers to the rights and privileges of ordinary people to participate directly in certain aspects of the criminal justice system and to deliberate in some of its workings. Such citizenship is indispensable to democracy, or rule by the people.

Restorative justice, especially where it …

Anti-Liberal Rights Retrenchment As A Threat To The Rule Of Law, Paul Gowder

Emory Law Journal

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the half-century old constitutional right to reproductive choice, is only the most prominent example of a global series of attacks on rights of personal, sexual, and family autonomy. The attacks on LGBTQ+ rights by the Christian nationalist governments of Hungary and Poland are another important example. A cadre of anti-liberal scholars and public intellectuals such as Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahmari, and Adrian Vermeule serve as the intelligentsia within this global reactionary movement, advocating for the direct importation of far-right values into the law of western states …

The Need For Corporate Guardrails In U.S. Industrial Policy, Lenore Palladino

Seattle University Law Review

U.S. politicians are actively “marketcrafting”: the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act collectively mark a new moment of robust industrial policy. However, these policies are necessarily layered on top of decades of shareholder primacy in corporate governance, in which corporate and financial leaders have prioritized using corporate profits to increase the wealth of shareholders. The Administration and Congress have an opportunity to use industrial policy to encourage a broader reorientation of U.S. businesses away from extractive shareholder primacy and toward innovation and productivity. This Article examines discrete opportunities within the …

Securities Regulation And Administrative Deference In The Roberts Court, Eric C. Chaffee

Seattle University Law Review

In A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, A.C. Pritchard and Robert B. Thompson write, “Securities law offers an illuminating window into the Supreme Court’s administrative law jurisprudence over the last century. The securities cases provide one of the most accessible illustrations of key transitions of American law.” A main reason for this is that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a bellwether among administrative agencies, and as a result, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court is a history of administrative law in the Supreme Court of the United States as well.

Delegated Corporate Voting And The Deliberative Franchise, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Starting in the 1930s with the earliest version of the proxy rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has gradually increased the proportion of “instructed” votes on the shareholder’s proxy card until, for the first time in 2022, it required a fully instructed proxy card. This evolution effectively shifted the exercise of the shareholder’s vote from the shareholders’ meeting to the vote delegation that occurs when the share-holder fills out the proxy card. The point in the electoral process when the binding voting choice is communicated is now the execution of the proxy card (assuming the shareholder completes the card …

Capitalism Stakeholderism, Christina Parajon Skinner

Seattle University Law Review

Today’s corporate governance debates are replete with discussion of how best to operationalize so-called stakeholder capitalism—that is, a version of capitalism that considers the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment alongside (if not before) a company’s shareholders. So much focus has been dedicated to the question of capitalism’s reform that few have questioned a key underlying premise of stakeholder capitalism: that is, that competitive capitalism does not serve these various constituencies and groups. This Essay presents a different view and argues that capitalism is, in fact, the ultimate form of stakeholderism. As such, the Essay urges that the …

The Esg Information System, Stavros Gadinis, Amelia Miazad

Seattle University Law Review

The mounting focus on ESG has forced internal corporate decision-making into the spotlight. Investors are eager to support companies in innovative “green” technologies and scrutinize companies’ transition plans. Activists are targeting boards whose decisions appear too timid or insufficiently explained. Consumers and employees are incorporating companies sustainability credentials in their purchasing and employment decisions. These actors are asking companies for better information, higher quality reports, and granular data. In response, companies are producing lengthy sustainability reports, adopting ambitious purpose statements, and touting their sustainability credentials. Understandably, concerns about greenwashing and accountability abound, and policymakers are preparing for action.

In this …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Marijuana Insurgency: Federalism And Social Reframing In Policy Reform, Matthew P. Cavedon

Seattle University Law Review

After fifty years of federal prohibition, marijuana reform efforts have won political and legal success. These victories hold lessons for anyone seeking to resist federal law without being able to directly affect it.

Victory can come from reframing an issue. For marijuana reform, social reframing—not formal legal analysis or material factors—provides the best explanation for how advocates achieved change. Their unconventional political tactics, akin to those used by insurgents in wartime, undercut federal prohibition by winning hearts and minds.

This is an analysis of the sociology of legal change. It is also the story of how ordinary Americans retook personal …

Shareholder Primacy Versus Shareholder Accountability, William W. Bratton

Seattle University Law Review

When corporations inflict injuries in the course of business, shareholders wielding environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) principles can, and now sometimes do, intervene to correct the matter. In the emerging fact pattern, corporate social accountability expands out of its historic collectivized frame to become an internal subject matter—a corporate governance topic. As a result, shareholder accountability surfaces as a policy question for the first time. The Big Three index fund managers, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, responded to the accountability question with ESG activism. In so doing, they defected against corporate legal theory’s central tenet, shareholder primacy. Shareholder primacy builds …

Verses Turned To Verdicts: Ysl Rico Case Sets A High-Watermark For The Legal Pseudo-Censorship Of Rap Music, Nabil Yousfi

Seattle University Law Review

Whichever way you spin the record, rap music and courtrooms don’t mix. On one side, rap records are well known for their unapologetic lyrical composition, often expressing a blatant disregard for legal institutions and authorities. On the other, court records reflect a Van Gogh’s ear for rap music, frequently allowing rap lyrics—but not similar lyrics from other genres—to be used as criminal evidence against the defendants who authored them. Over the last thirty years, this immiscibility has engendered a legal landscape where prosecutors wield rap lyrics as potent instruments for criminal prosecution. In such cases, color-blind courts neglect that rap …

We Shall Overcome: The Evolution Of Quotas In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of Samba, Stella Emery Santana

Seattle University Law Review

When were voices given to the voiceless? When will education be permitted to all? When will we need to protest no more? It’s the twenty-first century, and the fight for equity in higher education remains a challenge to peoples all over the world. While students in the United States must deal with the increase in loans, in Brazil, only around 20% of youth between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four have a higher education degree.

The primary objective of this Article is to conduct an in-depth comparative analysis of the development, implementation, and legal adjudication of educational quota systems within …

Pacific Islands And The U.S. Military: The Legal Borderlands Of The Environmental Movement, Sonia Lei

Seattle University Law Review

Climate change remains an urgent, ongoing global issue that requires critical examination of institutional polluters. This includes the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum: the United States military. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a massive institution with little oversight, a carbon footprint spanning the globe, a budget greater than the next ten largest nations combined, and overly generous exemptions to environmental regulations and carbon reduction targets. This Comment examines how this lack of accountability and oversight plays out in the context of three Pacific islands that have hosted U.S. military bases for decades. By considering the environmental impact of …

Appoint Judge Ana De Alba To The Ninth Circuit, Carl Tobias

University of Richmond Law Review

The United States Senate must rapidly appoint Eastern District of California Judge Ana de Alba to the Ninth Circuit. This appellate tribunal is a preeminent regional circuit, which faces substantial appeals, has the largest complement of jurists, and clearly includes a massive geographic expanse. The nominee, whom President Joe Biden designated in spring 2023, would offer remarkable gender, experiential, ideological, and ethnic diversity realized primarily from serving productively with the California federal district, and state trial, courts after rigorously litigating for one decade in a highly regarded private law firm. For over fifteen years, she deftly excelled in law’s upper …

Defensive Rule Of Law, Jon Smibert

Emory Law Journal

The rule of law has been tested over the past decade, not only in developing countries but also worldwide. The rule of law community has, in the past, focused mostly on improving the rule of law but has not emphasized building resilience into those rule of law gains. This Article will explore how development programs might encourage more robust features in their partner countries to withstand attempts to undermine the rule of law. This exploration will draw upon an umbrella concept of guardrails and norms, often associated with protecting democracy, and look at four approaches that might be used for …

Vertical And Horizontal Dimensions Of The Rule Of Law, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Emory Law Journal

Scholarly discussions about the rule of law have become a cacophony of disagreement. The more that is written about the topic, it seems, the less that we know. Thus, bringing clarity to basic issues is essential. This Essay draws out the implications of a conceptual distinction between the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the rule of law at domestic and international levels. The vertical dimension—which focuses on liberty and restraints on arbitrary government power—examines the top-down relationship between government officials and private actors in relation to how the ruling regime treats citizens and entities on matters of interest to the …

The Procedure Of Democratic Erosion, Kevin L. Cope, Mila Versteeg

Emory Law Journal

In recent years, several popularly elected leaders have moved to consolidate their power by eroding checks and balances. Courts are commonly the target of such power-consolidating reforms, though they are not the only such target. Depending on their nature, such reforms are variously characterized as eroding democracy or being illiberal. But while they may be substantively undemocratic or illiberal, these reforms tend to be procedurally lawful. That is, they do not subvert the constitution outright but work within the existing constitutional framework, with reformers either formally changing the constitution or seeking new interpretations.

Why would leaders pursuing undemocratic reform follow …

Lessons From A Small And Troubled Country: Bosnia’S Struggling Judiciary Paints An Ominous Picture For The Future Of The Rule Of Law In The United States, David Pimentel

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

The Consumer’S Choice To Boycott, Agnes Bresee

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of employees losing their jobs upon voicing their political opinions concerning Israel, Harvard and Columbia law students’ job offers being rescinded upon expressing support for Palestine, and the names and social media profiles of individuals who support Palestine being collected and listed on Canary Mission, such backlash may leave many Americans wondering what form of resistance to settler-colonialist apartheid is acceptable in the twenty-first century. Recently, the movement to collectively boycott brands like Starbucks, which sued its Worker’s Union for a tweet expressing support for Palestine; Disney, which donated money to Israel; and McDonald’s, where a location …

Civil Appeals Mediation Program 2023 Mediation Colloquy "Thinking 101" And Mediation

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.