Brazilian Environmental Laws and Policies, 1934–2002: A Critical Overview

This article describes and analyzes major laws, decrees, regulations, resolutions, and institutional mandates linked to environmental protection policies in Brazil, from 1934 to 2002. It argues that many early regulations resulted basically from centralization and planning policies conducted by a development-oriented state. However, it shows that most recent regulations were demanded by a more environmentally aware and more organized civil society, in the context of a more participatory and democratic political framework and improved scientific knowledge and requirements.     

The Lawrence Inquiry – Incompetence, Corruption, and Institutional Racism

The inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in South London in 1993, which reported earlier this year, documents a catalogue of police incompetence and 'institutional racism'. The report also puts forward a number of far-reaching recommendations, echoing long-standing demands by the black community, for the reform of policing in Britain. Yet, in its approach to 'institutional racism', the report can be seen to have downplayed the need for a critical re-examination of policing policies and priorities at a strategic level. As a result, many of its key recommendations, in such areas as stop and search and the policing of racist crime, may prove ineffective. The government's commitment to 'anti-racism', following the Lawrence report, is also called into question by its subsequent decision to further restrict the rights of defendants and the ability of black people to defend themselves against racist police practices through the criminal justice system.     

The Principle, Politics, and Finances of Introducing Academic Merit as the Standard of Hiring for "the teaching of law as a career," 1870–1900

Compared to the practice in other professional schools and academic fields at universities, law professors are hired at a young age based primarily upon their academic merit determined through grades, class rank, and school rank. This emphasis upon narrowly defined academic merit—apart from achievement demonstrated through original scholarship or experience in professional practice—first emerged during "the professionalization of the American law professor" between 1870 and 1900 at Harvard Law School (HLS). Though normative today, this outcome was neither necessary nor uncontested. In the late nineteenth century the new standard of hiring faculty according to their academic merit was energetically opposed by those favoring the antecedent standard of professional experience and reputation. Only when financial considerations counterbalanced that traditional standard did hiring decisions tip in favor of the new principle. Not until the early 1900s, when the second generation of academic meritocrats dominated the HLS faculty, did the new hiring standard become unequivocally established as policy in the school and, by extension, in legal education.     

Lawyers and Politics in France, 1814–1950: The State, the Market, and the Public

Throughout the 19th century, lawyers in France were deeply involved in political action to pursue an overriding goal–to become recognized as spokesmen for the public. This strategy governed their history; it explains their brilliant social ascent and their subsequent slow decline. As long as the conflict between state and civil society raged, lawyers were able to we assets–political mobilization, the power of the word, the esteem enjoyed by law–which had allowed them faithfully to embody public opinion in its struggle to limit state powers. From this embodiment of public ideals they derived independence, prestige, and a dominant position in the state. But when the nature of the political regime ceased to be a bone of contention and when public life became organized around other cleavages, lawyers were gradually deprived of their representative function. This marked the beginning of a social decline that became visible between the two world wars and lasted until the 1950s.     

The legal education of British Army officers, 1860–1923

Abstract

Most of the published works of Petrus Gudelinus (1550–1619), professor at the Louvain Civil Law Faculty, concern the public law. In his ‘commentaries’ on the Novellae and the Libri feodorum, he did not limit himself to the learned law and classical examples but also discussed the laws and customs of his own days. The same is true of his little-known De jure pacis commentarius, which, though formally presented as a commentary on the Pax Constantiae from the Authenticum, is a treatise on issues from current peace-treaty practice. In the most interesting part, Gudelinus addresses the problem of private property and compensation for damages. On this point, his work is more concurrent with contemporary practices than Grotius’ De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625).     

The Economics of the Grounds for Divorce in Great Britain

Despite similarities in their socio-economic environments and the provision of identical legal grounds for divorce, England & Wales is dominated by fault divorce decrees whereas no-fault divorce dominates in Scotland. Indeed, during the past fifteen years, the shares of fault and no-fault divorce have increasingly diverged across these two regions. The paper proposes an explanation for this remarkable contrast based on cost incentives generated by procedural and legal interventions within the respective legal systems. In particular, the introduction of the Simplified Procedure in Scotland and the reduction in the time bar to divorce in England & Wales are key causal factors.     

标准条款之冲突及其适用——“格式之争”与冲突法

一份合同因“格式之争”而导致的最终命运有如下四种情况,即:(1)合同未能成立;(2)合同依最先提出的标准条款而成立;(3)合同依最后提出的标准条款而成立;(4)在谈判双方已经逐个协商并达成一致的条款方面,合同成立,至于彼此冲突的标准条款,则会被“淘汰出局”(knockout),而用背景规则(backgroundlaw)来取代。“淘汰出局规则”在解决“格式之争”问题上较为合理,并已被广泛承认。“格式之争”与合同准据法的选择、管辖权的选择以及履行地的选择都有关系。我国应完善有关“格式之争”的立法。     

Advocacy in Constitutional Choice: The Cramer Treason Case, 1942–1945

How did advocacy at each level of the federal judiciary help shape the leading decision in American law of treason? This article, adapted from a forthcoming biography of Judge Harold R. Medina, is a case study based on Justice Department archives and the personal papers of Medina, Charles Fahy, and seven Supreme Court Justices. It analyzes the whole case, from the lawyers’standpoint, to illuminate the role of counsel in transforming a minor wartime incident into the first treason case decided on the merits by the Supreme Court and the tribunal's only decision during World War II to limit constitutional war powers. Accenting litigation strategy and the use of history in constitutional interpretation, it is a story also of the struggle by counsel on both sides of the case to uphold high professional standards amid the passions of total war.     

How Their Laws Affect our Laws: Mechanisms of Immigration Policy Diffusion in the Americas, 1790–2010

Why do laws become similar across countries? Is the adoption of similar laws and policies due to factors operating independently within each country? Do countries develop similar rules in response to similar challenges? Or is the similarity of laws and policies due to the interdependent responses that scholars have referred to as processes of policy convergence, transfer, and diffusion? We draw on an analysis of immigration and nationality laws of 22 countries throughout the Western Hemisphere from 1790 to 2010, and of seven case studies of national and international policymaking, to show that policies are often interdependent, even in the domain of immigration law, which scholars have presumed to be relatively immune to external influence. We argue that specific mechanisms of diffusion explain the rise of racist immigration policies in the Americas, their subsequent decline, and the rise of an anti‐discriminatory norm for policies. Most striking among our findings is that at key junctures after 1940, weaker countries effectively advanced an anti‐discriminatory policy agenda against the desires of world powers. We identify the conditions under which weaker countries were able to reach their goals despite opposition from world powers.