Solutions are not coming from Washington. Solutions are coming from our cities. . . . We are the ones that address the issues that matter to people the most. We are the ones that provide the front line, the last hope. . . . When faced with inaction on climate… Read More »
Politicians, policymakers, and academics will occupy the foreseeable future debating the appropriate lessons to draw in the aftermath of the recent economic downturn. But few observers would question one lesson that has already come into sharp focus: bankruptcy courts play a central role in modern American life. The past two… Read More »
Constitutional scholars generally believe that the majority of the Supreme Court in The Slaughterhouse Cases erred in their narrow construction of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Justice Samuel Miller’s attempt to distinguish the privileges and immunities of Article IV from the privileges or immunities of Section One is particularly vilified… Read More »
I. The Insulation Thesis
The standing doctrine is the Rorschach test of federal courts. In theory, the doctrine serves a distinct function, namely ensuring that a litigant is the proper party to bring a claim in court. Yet standing remains one of the most contested areas of federal law, with… Read More »
Legal fictions are pervasive. Some are hopeful–when Chief Justice Roberts, for the plurality in Parents Involved in Community Schools, writes that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he is alluding to the aspirational fiction that racial categorizations are… Read More »
Legal payments are in many cases probabilistic. For example, in the criminal context, a fine is levied against a criminal only after a series of sequential probabilistic events occur: He must be caught by the police, charged by the prosecution, and convicted by a court in accordance with the procedural… Read More »
There has been a lot of talk about post-racialism since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States. Some have argued that the Obama election illustrates the evolution of the nation from its unfortunate racist past to a more admirable post-racial present in… Read More »
In 2006, thousands of soccer fans showed up to the World Cup game between the Netherlands and the Ivory Coast wearing pants in the colors of the Dutch national team. The pants had been given out as promotional gifts by a beer company. FIFA, the governing body of international soccer,… Read More »
I.
The Conceptual Counteroffensive Against Private Property
This basic theory of property rights identifies three central components of private ownership: the rights to possess, use, and dispose of property. Taken together, these elements facilitate the creation of complex voluntary arrangements to coordinate the activities of multiple actors. The operational… Read More »
Suppose a Belgian resident earns all of his income in Germany. Under the Belgian-German tax treaty and Belgian law, only Germany would tax his income. But which country should grant him personal tax benefits—things like mortgage interest deductions and charitable deductions? Where a worker lives in one country but works… Read More »