Opinio Juris and Theorizing Law

Theorizing The language of law

law transforms reality, de iure and de facto, inasmuch as it attempts to bridge the gap between that which is done de facto and that which is regulated de iure. it is standard practice, for alfonso X of Castile, to reinvent the means of writing the law. he does not limit himself to compiling or revising existing legal statutes; rather, he elevates the corpus of the law to the level of juridical...

Theorizing Time in Abortion Law and Human Rights

The legal regulation of abortion by gestational age, or length of pregnancy, is a relatively undertheorized dimension of abortion and human rights. Yet struggles over time in abortion law, and its competing representations and meanings, are ultimately struggles over ethical and political values, authority and power, the very stakes that human rights on abortion engage. This article focuses on t...

Pancreas divisum: opinio divisa.

The Secret “ Kill List ” and the President

y corner of the national security law world is abuzz today reading the outstanding New York Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” As Ben Wittes says at Lawfare, it is a richly textured, detailed look at how the administration approaches targeted killing (whether with drones or human teams or in combination), and is the mos...

Theorizing Modernity and Technology

Technology made modernity possible. It has been the engine of modernity, shaping it and propelling it forward. The Renaissance was made possible by major fourteenthand fifteenth-century inventions like the mechanical clock, the full-rigged ship, fixed-viewpoint perspective, global maps, and the printing press. The emergence of industrial society in the eighteenth century was the result of an in...