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Letters from a Fragmented Democracy
No full textThis piece confronts the stakes of our current trajectory by looking to the future. It presents six fictional letters to illustrate where today’s ominous currents could lead. In this imagined tomorrow, contemporary voting restrictions, judicial erosion, and administrative manipulation have gradually hollowed out the franchise, transforming formal democracy into little more than an empty spectacle. Each letter voices a different facet of democratic erosion: a voter disenfranchised by bureaucratic hurdles, a candidate’s voice hijacked by deepfake technology, a neighbor ensnared by punitive voting laws, a community erased by gerrymandering, a campaign drowned in dark money, and even a corporate memo cheerfully touting the “efficiencies” of voter apathy. Pieced together, these forces operate to fragment a withering liberal democracy, turning the franchise into an illusion of choice rather than a vehicle for self-governance. These dispatches from our potential future aim to sound an alarm in the present; the fate of liberal democracy in America hinges on how we respond to current dynamics now
The Lone Dissent
No full textWhat can be learned when a Supreme Court Justice decides to write a lone dissent? There exists a powerful set of incentives for Supreme Court opinions to achieve consensus. Although closely divided cases grab news headlines, unanimous opinions are actually the most commonly issued judicial alignment, and cases in which a single Justice dissents are the most unlikely. Despite voluminous academic discussion of judicial behavior, no legal scholarship has focused on the lone dissent. This Article is designed to insert consideration of lone dissenting opinions into the broader discussion of judicial behavior.
Looking at the set of Supreme Court opinions in which there is a lone dissent from the appointment of Chief Justice Vinson in 1946 through the end of the 2022–23 Term, we explain how lone dissents occur in cases of particular salience to the dissenting Justice. This Article also details that the stakes of the litigation create an incentive for the dissenting Justice to risk institutional opprobrium in order to insert their counter interpretation of the law into the written record. This Article then goes even deeper, examining the moment a Justice decides to issue a lone dissent for the first time. We conclude that these initial lone dissents are crucially important datapoints to explain a Justice’s subsequent jurisprudence and judicial identity. The first lone dissent is carefully selected by each Justice to signal support for important constituencies and to define the Justice who must write in opposition to all of their colleagues for the first time. The examination of a Justice’s legal philosophy and broader jurisprudence is incomplete without an examination of this one seminal moment of judicial behavior
The Character of International Law: A Festschrift for Rob Cryer (Emma J. Breeze, Mark Drumbl, Gerry Simpson & Marianne Wade eds., 2025)
No full textProfessor Robert Cryer was a foundational voice in modern international criminal law. This book celebrates his character, his life, his work, and his influence.
The book is a Festschrift of love and admiration to a voice that is dearly missed. Fittingly, the book also continues to voice the many conversations that Rob started. It thereby doubles as a critical examination of the life of international law.
The book constellates 17 expertly-authored chapters nurtured by four editors through five distinctive sections, each of which reflects on the character of international law. These sections, presented as acts, are: discipline and borders, (re)imagination and continuity, violence and reckoning, acoustics and storytelling, and friendship and kindness.
A wide gamut of touchpoints dovetails into a beautifully eclectic medley. These include criminal law, the law of war, music and harm, gender-based violence, nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence, law after war, the crime of aggression, drones and targets, the domestication of international law, and the role of law in inter-state relations. The book journeys to many places, including Japan, Bosnia and Ukraine, while reflecting on the role of teaching and mentorship in the life of international law.https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/fac_books/1209/thumbnail.jp
Risk, Reimagined: The Untold Story of Liability Laddering in Modern Commercial Dealmaking
No full textIn commercial contracting, bargaining parties regularly allocate risk in various ways, including contractual limitations of liability. However, it can be difficult to appropriately apportion responsibility for high-risk contingencies such as data breach. A seller may be unwilling to accept uncapped liability for a contingency whose cost could exceed the expected value of the transaction. Conversely, a buyer may be unwilling to live with only a general damages cap established as a rough-and-ready compromise for more ordinary contingencies. To surmount this impasse, which typically arises toward the end of a negotiation, deal lawyers have begun to craft elevated dollar caps, or “super caps,” to account for specified high-risk contingencies. This Article draws on interviews with a dozen commercial dealmakers and insights from the contemporary literature on contract design to identify and examine previously unexplored multi-tiered systems of contractual damages caps, or “liability ladders.”
This Article contends that super caps, which represent rungs on a liability ladder, should not be deployed as a last-minute patch but recognized as an integral part of a commercial deal’s overall allocation of risks and responsibilities. Introducing the possibility of multitiered liability caps earlier in the bargaining process would maximize efficiency, encourage appropriate incentives, and amplify value creation
Attendees in the Main Reading Room
No full texthttps://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/scholarcelebration2025/1001/thumbnail.jp
Introductory Remarks - Wilson
No full texthttps://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/scholarcelebration2025/1007/thumbnail.jp
Attendees Listen to Remarks
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Stanton, Trammell, Youngman, and Smith
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Flower Arrangement
No full texthttps://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/scholarcelebration2025/1049/thumbnail.jp
Faculty Cards, Brochures, Tumblers, and Powell Archives Display
No full texthttps://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/scholarcelebration2025/1055/thumbnail.jp