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The Spirit of Gun Laws
Get PDFThe firearms debate in the United States often pits public health against freedom. This false dichotomy implies that gun laws, even wise ones, inherently erode individual liberty. Indeed, this appeal to liberty finds fertile ground in the United States, where many Americans intuitively reject any incursion on their freedom. Yet this one-sided conception of liberty is, at best, incomplete: while the government can certainly encroach on our freedom, so too can our fellow citizens.
A historically grounded conception of liberty in the United States includes the sense of security that fosters self-expression without fear of arbitrary constraint. That is, when citizens feel safe, they can properly exercise their will. But this tranquility doesn\u27t exist naturally. To achieve it, the government must exercise a monopoly of force and ensure that citizens do not fear other citizens. Only then can people act and express themselves without fear of reprisal.
Yet when civilians openly wield their guns in public, they impose an arbitrary constraint on others that represses others\u27 ability to exercise their will. Armed goers change the risk calculations for their fellow citizens—often forcing them to avoid areas where guns are present or arm themselves in self-defense. As this Note discusses, each of these options begets a compounding harm to our liberty. And the resulting proliferation of civilian defensive arms in the United States—the modern arms race—does not represent peace, only détente.
By this understanding, open carrying itself subverts liberty, and its regulation upholds it. Although an individual\u27s arms may constitute a productive solution to his own fear, the externalities on others are substantial. The state must prevent these costs to the liberty of others by regulating those wielding firearms in public spaces
The Remedies for Constitutional Flaws Have Major Flaws
Get PDFIn this essay, Professor Pierce describes the many ways in which the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has attempted to use its unique approach to interpretation of the Constitution to restructure the government and to reallocate power among the branches of government. He then describes the problems that the Court has encountered in its efforts to choose remedies for the constitutional flaws that it detects.
Increasingly, the Court must choose between remedies that are ineffective and remedies that make it impossible for the government to function. Pierce predicts that the problems that the Court has experienced to date will increase and will become even more intractable if it continues to apply its present approach to interpretation of the Constitution.
Pierce argues that the choice of remedy problems will diminish significantly if the Court adopts an approach to interpretation of the Constitution that is less rigid. The Court should accord Congress the deference it deserves in recognition of the challenges that it faces in its efforts to create a government that is true to our constitutional values and that is capable of performing the critical functions of government
The Enforcement Value of Disclosure
Get PDFInformation disclosures often “nudge” consumers to make better choices—for example, when manufacturers include nutrition labels on food packaging or fuel economy standards on cars. Yet having to disclose can have a nudge effect on the disclosing entity, too—for example, by incentivizing a manufacturer to make healthier food or more fuel-efficient cars. Recently, regulators around the world have begun to use information disclosures to improve racial and gender equality—for example, by requiring certain businesses to disclose information on things like harassment complaints, board diversity, and employee pay. But are such disclosure efforts worth their costs? And what would indicate that policymakers should continue or expand similar measures?
This Article addresses how to evaluate what it refers to as “equality disclosures,” highlighting the need to account for the often overlooked public enforcement value of the nudge on the disclosing entity. When measuring disclosure as a behaviorally informed intervention, we tend to focus on the welfare effects on the consumer of the information—the now-informed person who chooses (or declines) to eat the food or purchase the car. But disclosure requirements also affect the behavior of the producer of the information, thus serving an important enforcement role in the administrative state. Any assessment of the value of equality disclosures must include the public benefit gained when the act of having to disclose nudges disclosing entities toward self-monitoring and legal compliance
Careers in National Security Law
No full textThe panel discusses the interests, challenges, and rewards of working in the field of national security law.
Moderator: Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap, USAF (Ret.), LENS Executive Director
Panelists: RADM Melissa Bert, Judge Advocate General, U.S. Coast Guard
Mr. Phillip Carter, Senior Director, Public Sector Legal, Salesforce s. Michele Pearce, Of Counsel, Covington & Burling
Ms. Genelle Francis, Assistant General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigatio
The Russo-Ukraine Conflict and the Law of War
No full textThe panel discusses international law concerning war in the context of the Ukraine Conflict.
Moderator:
Col. David E. Graham, USA (Ret.), Senior Fellow, Center on National Security, Georgetown Law
Panelists: Prof. Geoffrey S. Corn, George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy, Texas Tech University School of Law
Prof. Laurie Blank, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law
Prof. Robert Lawless, Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy, West Poin
International Criminal Justice
No full textProf. Adam Oler discusses international criminal justice.
Speaker:
Prof. Adam Oler, Col., USAF (Ret.), National Defense Universit
Beyond Indian Country: The Sovereign Powers of Alaska Tribes Without Reservations
Get PDFThe Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) devised a land entitlement system markedly different from the Indian reservation system that prevailed in the Lower 48 states. It directed the creation of twelve, for-profit Alaska Native regional corporations and over 200 private, for-profit Alaska Native village corporations, which would receive the bulk of Native land in the state. This corporate model left nearly all tribes in Alaska without a land base. As such, there is very little Indian Country land in the state over which tribes can exercise territorial-based sovereignty. Yet, the Supreme Court has long recognized the power of tribes to exercise membership-based jurisdiction. This Comment analyzes a range of state and federal court decisions addressing the authority of tribes and argues that Alaska tribes, through membership-based jurisdiction, can exercise various sovereign powers, like the exclusion of nonmembers. Importantly, this membership-based jurisdiction does not depend on lands over which tribes can exercise jurisdiction. Therefore, the exclusionary orders imposed by several Alaska Native tribes during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were valid exercises of the tribes\u27 sovereign powers
Paternalism in International Human Rights Law
Get PDFThis article argues that international human rights law (IHRL) at a system-wide level produces paternalistic effects that undermine the work it is meant to do for rightsholders. Analyzing the work of four key United Nations human rights treaty bodies, we show how institutional arrangements exclude rightsholders from having a say on their own interests in what IHRL should mean for them, and we are instead left with a body of norms, guidelines, and institutions with self-serving dynamics that reinforce the position of IHRL institutions and only secondarily benefit rightsholders