Materialization of Natural Law and Legitimacy of Positive Law

Rationality, Legitimacy, & The Law

American legal realism was committed to examining legal reasoning in terms of the actual experiences of judges. Because the realist project sought to use social science tools to examine human nature, the contemporary rise of cognitive neuroscience provides an occasion for reexamining legal realism’s foundational critique of the law. Realism’s attempt to examine “the actual facts of judicial beh...

Law, Legitimacy and Black Revolution

The Rule of Law and the Legitimacy of Constitutional Democracy

The rule of law is a cornerstone of contemporary constitutional democracy1 as was underscored by its role in cementing the recent transitions from authoritarian or totalitarian regimes2 to constitutional democracy in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.3 In the broadest terms, the rule of law requires that the state only subject the citizenry to publicly promulgated laws, that the state’s legislative ...

Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and the Effective Rule of Law

Legal authorities gain when they receive deference and cooperation from the public. Considerable vidence suggests that the key factor shaping public behavior is the fairness of the processes legal authorities use when dealing with members of the public. This reaction occurs both during personal experiences with legal authorities and when community residents are making general evaluations of the...

Natural Law and the Law of Nations: Some Theoretical Considerations

I will argue here that the law of nations, the jus gentium, in fact lies at the heart of many crucial modern social and political issues. NATURAL LAW AND THE LAW OF NATIONS: SOME THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS James V Schall, S.J. * Adjus gentium pertinent ea quae derivantur ex lege naturae sicut conclusiones ex principiis, ut justae emptiones, venditiones, et alia hujusmodi, sine quibus homines ad...