When the legitimacy of a government is contested, courts, regional bodies, and states each decide independently who speaks for the state in law. In Recognition Rules, Justin Cole, Alaa Hachem, and Oona Hathaway argue that this fragmentation imposes real costs and propose to cure them by empowering the U.N. Credentials Committee to issue binding determinations of governmental authority across all international law contexts. This Article argues that, beyond Charter obstacles to such a reform, it would be a mistake. The effective-control criterion rewards actors who seize power by force over governments that retain democratic legitimacy; binding credentials decisions would strip international courts and regional bodies of the contextual judgment that standing, immunities, and treaty capacity actually require; and the fragmentation the proposal seeks to eliminate is not a failure of design but a reflection of the fact that legitimacy cannot be reduced to a single criterion decided by a political body. Preserving multiple sites of recognition authority is not a concession to disorder; it is the only approach adequate to the problem.

The Ten Commandments are back on public classroom walls and in federal court, after several states passed new laws requiring school districts to post the text. As attorneys, judges, and amici debate whether First Amendment law has changed enough since Stone v. Graham in 1980 to allow the posting of the ancient religious text, this Essay comes at the situation from an entirely different angle. The precise text proposed by the states might be a good example of “ceremonial deism,” but it removes biblical law from biblical narrative – and, in doing so, unsets the Ten Commandments from their original narrative setting of slavery, Exodus, and Jubilee. Drawing from Roger Williams, this Essay argues that the Establishment Clause operates to preserve religion from the corroding influence of political expediency and suggests that thick, age-appropriate discussions are a more appropriate way to honor the Decalogue than posterization.

Traditionally, courts and practitioners assert that the antitrust laws are simply about protecting competition, not competitors. In essence, these parties perceive competition to be inherently desirable, rather than recognizing that it can be beneficial or harmful depending on its intensity and scope. As a result of this mistaken belief, courts hold that certain conduct is legal under the antitrust laws simply because they determine it to be procompetitive, while conduct deemed anticompetitive is condemned. Courts seldom provide definitive boundaries to this pro-competition trope and instead assert it as if it were a well-established truism and universal societal good.

Without details regarding what specific kind of competition the antitrust laws should promote or condemn, confusing situations arise, such as when a firm purposefully deceives its competitors to obtain a monopoly, but its actions are not seen as rising to the level of an antitrust violation. The confusion is exacerbated when the courts treat conduct that appears fundamentally unfair as procompetitive, or even hypercompetitive, therefore allowing it. Using fairness as a foundational principle would curtail much of the uncertainty that is currently infused into the antitrust jurisprudence.

In this Article, we describe how sports provide a solid, though admittedly incomplete, reference point to refine and conceptualize the contours of the antitrust law’s intrinsic notions of fairness. For too long, the lack of a definitive definition of competition has plagued antitrust law. A more detailed definition of what constitutes fair competition would help antitrust enforcers and judges determine which competitive strategies and tactics should be prohibited or encouraged under the antitrust laws. With a more precise definition, the goals and purpose of the antitrust laws would become much more explicit, ultimately structuring the economy in the way Congress desired.

When the government obstructs a detainee’s ability to communicate with attorneys, normal rules governing the formation of attorney-client relationships break down. While some work-arounds exist to allow lawyers to bring such cases to court, they have significant limitations and can create problems of their own. The legal profession and the courts should adopt new rules modeled on emergency medicine to facilitate the filing of urgent civil rights claims for clients who are not in a position to consent. In emergency medicine, physicians can presume client consent for certain narrow and urgent purposes. Certain lawyers, in extreme cases, should be able to do the same.

Since 2012, several states and municipalities have decriminalized the non-violent use and possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana by adults. These criminal law reforms raise the issue of whether individuals who were convicted in the past should be exonerated retroactively by way of pardons or clemency. Consequently, many past marijuana offenders remain in state prisons for committing acts that are no longer deemed illegal in many states. Furthermore, these prisoners, as well as persons who were formerly accused or imprisoned, suffer from the stigma and negative collateral consequences of their alleged criminality. In response to these injustices, many governors have granted clemency to a broad group of such past offenders. Despite those governors who have granted clemency, there are other governors who want to grant such clemency but have not been able to do so. This raises the quintessential question: “Why have some governors been successful at granting clemency and others not so?” To answer that question, we need to analyze the legal issues and practices surrounding clemency for past offenders of the simple possession of marijuana.

This essay presents a qualitative study that examines various states based on their governors’ ability to pardon individuals convicted of past marijuana offenses. It provides observations and recommendations to improve the clemency process. This study concludes that for true restorative justice to redress the misplaced War on Drugs, state governments should amend, where necessary, their clemency laws to empower the governor of each state to pardon former offenders of the simple, non-violent possession of marijuana.

As an intellectual property infringer, the federal government occupies a unique position as both the entity that approved the infringed patent or trademark and an entity capable of arguing for its invalidity. By arguing for invalidity, the federal government assumes that it should be exempt from the traditional rules of procedural estoppel. Indeed, the government believes that even though it granted intellectual property rights (after careful research and deliberation and following the express review of an officer appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate), it should have a second bite at the apple to invalidate a patent or trademark when it risks liability. Ultimately, permitting the government to argue for inconsistent positions risks making intellectual property litigation—and the government itself—unpredictable and untrustworthy. To remedy this imbalance, this Article advocates for a rethinking of estoppel through Justice Jackson’s Youngstown Sheet concurrence when an examining attorney acts pursuant to unambiguous authority granted by Congress. In doing so, this position equalizes the playing field during litigation that heavily favors the federal government.