British Journal of American Legal Studies最新文献

{"title":"Declared War and American Victory: A Search for Effective Commitment","authors":"Slade Mendenhall","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This Article argues that the act of formally declaring war entails a measure of explicit commitment on the part of American political actors that raises the cost of failure and motivates politicians to see engagements through to a decisive end, fulfilling the role of a contract or institutional commitment device. It argues that undeclared conflicts, lacking such a device, are more likely to end on less decisive and less favorable terms to the United States. On this basis, it explains the emergence of a decades-long trend of protracted, unsuccessful, and indecisive military engagements by the United States as having emerged from the erosion of a constitutionally established separation of powers with respect to the initiation and administration of foreign military conflicts. In defense of this theory, it uses case studies to assess the relevance of its predictions and to weigh potential objections involving selection bias and imperfect information.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138515930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Persuasive or Pipe Dream? The Potential Influence of the Feminist Judgments Project on Future Judical Decision Making","authors":"Kate Webber Nuñez","doi":"10.2478/BJALS-2020-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/BJALS-2020-0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"323-366"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69181403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Administrative Functions of Implementation, Control of Administrative Decisions, and Protection of Rights","authors":"R. Perlingeiro","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay includes a comparative analysis of the traditions of administrative law in Latin American and their impact on the contemporary scene and trends in the general orientations of its administrative justice systems. This analysis is limited to Latin American countries of Iberian origin under the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“I/A Court H.R”). The method followed by the author is to point out the roles attributable to the administrative authorities and to attempt to identify a distinction in Latin America between the “administrative function of implementation”, “control of the legality of administrative decisions” (unrelated to any adjudicative function) and the “protection of rights” (by means of an adjudicative function) while examining their historical genesis and possible future trends. From that perspective, the text discusses certain administrative powers, such as disciplinary or other regulatory powers, and their forms of concrete application; the prerogatives and instruments of the authorities and of their decision-making employees in the exercise of the functions of implementation; the control of administrative decisions by those authorities themselves and by external bodies; and judicial and extrajudicial protection of rights against administrative decisions. The author concludes that Latin American administrative law, despite the fact that its civil-law substantive roots have always coexisted with judicial review typical of common law, is currently tending, on the one hand, to approximate the U.S. model of administrative adjudication and, on the other, to adapt to I/A Court H.R case law with respect to the administrative function of implementation in harmony with the fundamental right to good administration which, combined with a critical re-examination of diffuse control of the legality of administrative rules in court, would safeguard the true role of adjudicating bodies (administrative authorities or courts) in their function of protecting individual rights for the sake of more fair and equitable administrative justice.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42241999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations","authors":"Austin D. Sarat, N. Morgan, Willa Grimes, O. Narcisse, Jeremy Thomas","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions are a pervasive reality in America's criminal justice system. In this paper we examine news coverage of miscarriages of justice in the death penalty system and the release of death row inmates to understand what we call the public life of exonerations. We examine the way newspapers tell the story of exonerations and the various tilts and tendencies that characterize their presentations. We focus on the five states which, from 1972–2019, had ten or more exonerations. During that period, they were Florida, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. We conclude that the public discourse surrounding exoneration, while providing evidence of the death penalty system's most consequential flaws, serves as much to preserve that system as to challenge it.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"209 - 232"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42672038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Oceans Apart?: The Rule of Lenity in Australia and the United States","authors":"J. Murphy","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Occasionally traced back to Byzantine times, the rule that penal statutes are to be interpreted strictly in favor of the subject, also known as the rule of lenity, now finds expression in common law countries across the world. This Article compares the origins and evolution of the rule in Australia and the United States. The comparison is timely because of the current uncertainty in both jurisdictions about the rule's rationale and scope and because of an emerging global trend towards the “constitutionalization” of common law rules of interpretation. In the course of the analysis, various facets of the rule are discussed, including its common law origins; jurisprudential development; purported constitutional foundations; and modifications by state and federal statutes. Tracing the rule's development in each country reveals significant commonalities, but also important differences, in the respective approaches to the interpretation of criminal statutes. Most importantly, despite similarities in the two countries’ constitutional structures, the rule has assumed constitutional significance in the United States but not in Australia. Identification of this marked difference provides an opportunity to reflect on the separation of powers, and the federal structure, of each country.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"233 - 260"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48631149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Living Constitution and the (Almost) Dead Contracts Clause","authors":"T. Halper","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Under pressure to adapt to changing circumstances, the contract clause, though expressed in absolute terms, may now be violated for almost any reason at all. The living Constitution, in short, has virtually killed what was once a key constitutional provision.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"387 - 403"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49138662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Brazilian Constitution: Context, Structure and Current Challenges","authors":"Vanice Regina Lirio do Valle","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Brazilian Constitution was enacted over 31 years ago, and it pioneered several constitutional changes in Latin America, in line with a transformational project which was to be achieved through the protection of human rights including socioeconomic rights. Three decades of this constitutional experience have highlighted aspects in which the original design has proven to be too ambitious, and not capable of overcoming political blockages as was originally intended. This Article describes the historical context in which the Brazilian Constitution was drafted and enacted, and discusses in general terms the political structure and the fundamental rights that the constitution provides. These baselines allow the reader to understand the current challenges that the Constitution now faces in the task of regulating a social ambience and collective expectations that are substantially different from those of the late 1980s which are synthesized in that same political document. Especial attention is given to judicial control over public policies—a relevant trend in the Brazilian judiciary, which raises much debate concerning its compatibility with the checks and balances principle. As a conclusion, the Article recognizes that the Brazilian Constitution is an institutional success, considering its ability to enable redemocratization, and even to overcome deep political crisis. This should not, however, be enough reason to take its strategy in the human rights field, as a successful one, to be uncritically reproduced in other countries.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"423 - 440"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49353037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Freedom of Religion in the Brazilian Supreme Court in a Period of Three Decades","authors":"F. Duarte, Rafael Mario Iorio Filho","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Judicial institutions which provide legal mechanisms for conflict resolution play an important role in maintaining the social order of complex societies. Weaknesses in the performance of their duties can contribute to social conflict developing into outright violence that will be beyond the management of law and the courts. In this sense it is strategic to study the judicial system and the decision-making processes of its judges if one wants to understand the ways conflicts are dealt in a certain place and time. In this article we focus our attention on the role of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court as custodian of the Constitution and the discourses that its decision-making construct when dealing with human rights issues. Specifically we set out to understand how the opinions of Brazilian Supreme Court Justices are constructed when deciding cases concerning freedom of religion. The timeline considered covers 31 years, from 1988 to 2019, a period that begins with the promulgation of the new constitution in 1988 (which symbolically reinstated democracy in the country after the end of the period of military rule that began in 1964) up to the present day. We begin by presenting the legal definition of freedom of religion in Brazil which constitutes the normative background of the discussion. We then discuss our project, stressing the methodological approach we have adopted and finally we present our data findings. We identified 39 cases in total of which 11 were selected and analyzed using the methodology of Semiolinguistic Discourse Analysis in order to define the semantic field related to freedom of religion in Brazil. Even though the number of cases is not large it is possible to identify some features of Brazilian legal culture which are also recurrent when dealing with religious freedom. One of these features is the absence of consensus-building logic in the Justices’ opinions—we attribute this to what we term the disputatio mindset—which contributes to continuing institutional instability and legal insecurity. Our findings suggest that these Supreme Court decisions frequently lack the strong level of rational consistency that lower courts require if they are to identify clear guiding principles that can control the outcomes of new cases","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"441 - 460"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46649833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modernity, the Commons and Capitalism","authors":"George Skouras","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The modern way of life and reflected in modern political philosophy is directed by capitalist activity of both commodities and persons. Entities that do not have commodity value are worthless to the capitalist enterprise, regardless of any intrinsic value in themselves. Modernity is capitalist modernity. Modernity has given preference for objects/commodities over persons. This paper will argue for opening-up the landscape for alternative experiences to capitalism, as an attempt to move away from the capitalist enterprise. That is, be able to provide open space for people to use other than the buying and selling of commodities---where the commodification process breaks down and opens-up spaces for alternative experiences besides the capitalist experience. In other words, this work will attempt to serve as critique of Enlightenment philosophical discourse---that is, serve as a critique of the Age of Enlightenment serving as the foundational head of modernism---a plea for the rebellion against the quantification and mathematization of reality under modernist and industrial societies. It will use the modern landscape as the first effort to break free from the capitalist enterprise.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"367 - 386"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46720292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Structuralist Concept of the Rule of Law","authors":"A. Golanski","doi":"10.2478/bjals-2020-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The prevalent approach to the concept of the rule of law among legal theorists puts attributes first, assigning certain features of laws and sometimes legal systems as rule-of-law virtues. Inquiring at a more basic level, this paper advances a novel, structuralist view of the rule of law. While honoring theoretical constraints that guard against diluting the rule-of-law concept too thinly as a remedy for myriad societal ills, this approach shows that the concept implicates inequalities sustained by a society's social, economic, and political structures. This is accomplished by demonstrating that the rule-of-law project holds a structural position in the collective normative discourse as a vehicle by which people morally evaluate the interplay between the actual capabilities of individuals and groups to participate in law, and the legal system's treatment of those individuals and groups. Law's procedural outputs may formally provide the public with access to the legal system, but the rule-of-law project goes to the actual capabilities of the people to access the system in reality, to have a fair opportunity to participate in the inputs into the system, and to have that participation impartially adjudicated. Conditions impacting a diversity of stakeholders – and particularly the most disadvantaged within the population – perturb the virtues typically associated with the rule-of-law ideal when those conditions, and the power exercised to maintain them, impair capabilities for fair, dignified, and equal access to legal processes. Understanding the rule of law in structuralist terms, as an informal moral operator, (1) makes sense of the schism we normally accept between the concepts of law and the rule of law, (2) reorients the source of rule-of-law thinking from theorists bent on fixing a conceptual definition to communities engaged in first-order interactions with the legal system, (3) helps explain why citizens come not only to expect law to constrain official coercive powers but also to demand that law promote their actual capabilities to participate in the legal system on an egalitarian and dignitarian footing, and hence (4) implicates a critique of conditions of political and material inequalities that cannot but impair the healthy functioning of the rule-of-law project.","PeriodicalId":40555,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of American Legal Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"119 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43537098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}