Library News & Events

In 1985 Professor Owen Fiss traveled to Argentina to advise the administration of President Raul Alfonsin, on the trials the country initiated to hold its military accountable for human rights abuses. During his time there, Professor Fiss came to understand human rights not as strictly legal claims, but as universal social ideals, rooted in the country's processes of national self-determination.

His experiences in Argentina informed a new collection of essays, Dictates of Justice. Prof. Fiss explains how states engaging in the transition from dictatorship to democracy can protect human rights through civil, not just criminal, proceedings. He also critiques the turn to international tribunals which tend to supplant national efforts to adjudicate human rights claims. And he examines the human rights issues posed by the fight against terrorism in the post-9/11 era, framing the issues in terms of national law. 

Additional Materials: 

Yale Law School Repository collection of Prof. Fiss' work

Book talk with Prof. Fiss, sponsored by YLS Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Elin Skaar, Judicial Independence and Human Rights in Latin America: Violations, Politics, and Prosecution (2011).

Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions (2d ed. 2011).

The Role of Courts in Transitional Justice (Jessica Almqvist and Carlos Esposito, ed., 2012).

Transition to Democracy in Latin America: The Role of the Judiciary, (Irwin P. Stotzky ed., 1993).

ProQuest has a bibliography of Congressional documents on the issue of same sex marriage available here.  If connected to the Yale network, click on the links to be directed to the full-text online.

In a recent NYU Law Review article, Professor James Forman examines the claim that mass incarceration policies constitute a new form of Jim Crow. He finds that although the New Jim Crow analogy sheds light on the often-hidden injustices of criminal justice policies, the analogy oversimplifies the origins of mass incarceration and limits the effectiveness of efforts to challenge it.    

Prof. Forman agrees with proponents of the New Jim Crow that mass incarceration policies present a profound social crisis. Low income and undereducated African Americans are incarcerated at unprecedented levels. Race-neutral criminal justice policies unfairly target black communities and permanently diminish the opportunities of convicted offenders. (See Part II of the article).

However, Prof. Forman questions the usefulness of the analogy which, he argues, leads to a distorted view of mass incarceration by: failing to consider black attitudes toward crime and punishment; focusing on the War on Drugs and neglecting violent crime; and drawing attention away from the harms that mass incarceration has on the most disadvantaged groups. He also warns that in seeking to find parallels between the Old Jim Crow and mass incarceration, scholars risk overlooking other terrible aspects of the Old Jim Crow. Finding common ground with the New Jim Crow writers, Forman concludes his piece with a few suggestions for opponents of mass incarceration to scale back the prison population and reduce its damaging effects.  

Further Reading:

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010). 

Franklin E. Zimring, The City that Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control (2012).

Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository collection of Prof. Forman's work

In a recent book, Professor Robert Burt, who has written extensively on biomedical ethics and constitutional law, turns his attention to political theory in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Professor Burt's In the Whirlwind: God and Humanity in Conflict examines the authority of God as expressed in the accounts of Adam and Eve, Noah, Cain, Abraham, Moses, Job, and Jesus. 

Burt finds that throughout these narratives there are persistent accusations of betrayal and abandonment -- by God against humanity and vice versa. God demands unconditional obedience and humanity withholds submission and holds God accountable for his promises. Professor Burt shows that in the Bible justice is an imperfect process and he suggests that this imperfect process offers valuable lessons as we struggle with questions of secular political authority today.

Further Reading:

Robert Burt, "Should God Be Obeyed? Should the State?", Washington Post (April 8, 2012). 

Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository collection of Prof. Burt's work