The Volume 96 Lead Piece is an Essay by Catharine A. MacKinnon that criticizes as abstract the existing U.S. Equal Protection approach and offers a substantive alternative, applying it to domestic violence as one illustration.

Claims that tort law is hampering the American economy are common and have produced various forms of tort reform legislation. Yet there is very little economic research on the consequences of existing tort law doctrines. Theoretically, at least, tort law can be economically beneficial. Two state-specific measures have been produced to measure the effects of [...]

Individuals enjoy a host of rights in relation to the government, including voting rights, the right against self-incrimination, the right to public education, pollution quotas, as well as various subsidies and tax attributes. Should individuals be able to sell these public entitlements to others? Markets for voting rights or tax attributes may seem inconceivable. Yet [...]

The traditional approaches to dangerous persons are crime and commitment. The criminal law punishes responsible actors, and the civil law confines the mentally ill. These approaches leave a gap: the state cannot substantially restrict the liberty of responsible actors until they have committed a crime. In response to this gap, the criminal law’s boundaries have [...]

This Article presents a public choice analysis of how the executive branch in the United States determines questions of compliance with international law. In contrast to traditional theories that treat the state as a unitary entity, the public choice approach examines the different interests and incentives of the many executive branch agencies that advise the [...]

Companies may decide to leave patented technologies unused for numerous reasons, a great many of them legal. The patent laws confirm a company’s right to let a patent languish, unpracticed by anyone. But companies with patents on alternative technologies may agree to enter into a joint venture: promoting and licensing one alternative while suppressing the [...]

In order to promote judicial economy, Article III courts routinely delegate decisionmaking authority to probation officers. Probationers increasingly challenge those delegations as violating the Constitution’s command that only Article III judges shall exercise “the Judicial power.” Courts apply either of two standards when evaluating the constitutionality of judicial delegations to probation officers. The first of [...]

As soon as fashion models hit the runway, copycat designers snap photos and quickly replicate the original designs, flooding the market with nearly identical, discount versions of the original garments. In response to this phenomenon of fashion piracy, members of the fashion design community have been advocating for a fashion design copyright for nearly a [...]