Write On! Access to food & other scarce resources

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers)

Columbia Law School's Center on Global Legal Transformation seeks proposals from "junior researchers" on "Triangulating Property Rights: Governing Access to Scarce, Essential Resources," to be presented as part of a New York conference on scarce-resource access, which the center will sponsor on June 20-21, 2013, in New York.
Our colleague Katharina Pistor (below left), NYU Professor of Law and Director of the Center, is organizing, along with NYU Visiting Law Professor Olivier De Schutter (right), the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who's also a Professor of Law at Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain and College of Europe.
The full call for papers outlines the tension between global scarcities and private property rights, and then continues:

'Proposals should suggest models for governing essential, scarce resources. They can be qualitative or quantitative; make use of empirical data and field research or suggest a new theoretical approach. They should address if and how the following three normative goals (the basis of the triangle to which the title refers) for managing scarce, essential goods can be realized:

• equity (universal access to those resources that are essential for human life);
• efficiency (in managing scarce essential goods and minimizing waste); and
• sustainability (arrangements that do not unduly interfere with future productivity or availability of essentials).'

Interested persons should submit memos of 5-10 single-spaced pages to the project coordinator, Claire Debucquois, at cd2636@columbia.edu.
Deadline is January 15, 2013.

On November 12

U.S. Courthouse

On this day in ...
... 1997 (15 years ago today), a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Ramzi Yousef and another man of plotting the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. This conviction of the Kuwait-born man, plus another, would eventually be upheld on appeal. Yousef was in the news again just a few weeks ago, when it was revealed that a while back, from his Supermax prison cell, Yousef, a cousin of one of the defendants in the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed et al. case pending before a military commission,  had offered to give information to U.S. authorities. The offer was reportedly withdrawn before it could be explored.

(Prior November 12 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On August 27

On this day in ...
... 1979, Judge Anna Moscowitz Kross died at a hospital in the Bronx, 88 years after her birth in Neshves, Russia, and 80 after she and her family immigrated to the United States. She won a scholarship to study law at New York University, and after being admitted to the bar she built up a law practice and was active in women's suffrage and other causes. Kross had an illustrious career in law. Serving as the 1st woman New York City Commissioner of Correction, she was "responsible for wiping out many of the dungeon-like features of the prison system," according to her New York Times obituary. (credit for 1958 photo of Kross, at right, listening as Eleanor Roosevelt talks to inmates at Women's House of Detention in New York) Kross had also been the city's 1st woman assistant corporation counsel and among the 1st women to serve as a city magistrate, holding the latter job for 20 years.
This 'Grrl recently heard about Kross and her feminist colleagues in a fascinating presentation by Mae C. Quinn (left), Professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis and the author of numerous articles that build on her examination of Kross' papers. (prior post) The most recent is "Feminist Legal Realism," published this year in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender.

(Prior August 27 posts  are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On June 25

On this day in...
... 1962 (50 years ago today), issuing its judgment in Engel v. Vitale, a 6-member majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against state officials, first, for composing the following prayer:

'Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.'

and second, for urging that it be recited in the public schools. Both violated the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause, stated the opinion for the Court by Justice Hugo Black. (credit for photo captioned "Happy members of the group that challenged New York's daily prayer in Engel v Vitale.") Two Justices did not take part; Justice Potter Stewart dissented, reasoning that saying what he called "this brief nondenominational prayer" was not equivalent to what he understood the Clause to prohibit; that is, setting up an "'official religion.'"

(Prior June 25 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Comparing the "Interests of Justice"

As readers of this blog know, there is an ongoing discussion over the “interests of justice” at the International Criminal Court. It has arisen in the context of the situations including Uganda and Darfur. In one camp are those who argue that the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC should defer investigations or prosecutions in favor of peace negotiations, relying on Article 53’s “interests of justice” provision. Others contend that justice requires accountability rather than making deals with alleged international criminals. The “interests of justice” provision is ambiguous, and the OTP’s interpretation of it is vague. This has led for calls for the OTP to adopt specific criteria for “the interests of justice,” for example, from Mireille Delmas-Marty at the recent ASIL annual meeting luncheon, posted on IntLawGrrls here. The debate over explicit criteria for the “interests of justice” led me to examine how courts in the U.S. have interpreted dismissals in the interests of justice.
I do so in my forthcoming article, Comparing the 'Interests of Justice': What the International Criminal Court Can Learn from New York Law, 12 Wash. U. Global Studies L. Rev. (forthcoming 2012).  I address the broader debate over whether the OTP should adopt ex ante guidelines for prosecutorial discretion in order to increase transparency and legitimacy. I focus on one of the most ambiguous provisions of the Rome Statute, allowing the Prosecutor to decline to prosecute in the "interests of justice." I examine the experience of New York in operationalizing a domestic statutory analogue: dismissal in the furtherance of justice.
An analysis of New York law yields three core lessons, which carry over to the international sphere despite differences in the systems. First, requiring a written rationale regarding exercise of discretion does not necessarily yield thorough or convincing explanations, undermining arguments that the legitimacy of the ICC will be enhanced by public explanations of prosecutorial discretion. Second, such explanations may backfire when the balancing of nebulous factors leads to apparently inconsistent or arbitrary reasoning and results, which may undercut the credibility of the decision-maker. Finally, the lack of a guiding theory to drive the interpretation of ambiguous criteria can lead to more confusion than clarity when there is no agreement on the theoretical justifications for prosecution, as seen in both the domestic and international systems.
The experience of New York therefore supports skepticism of the efficacy of ex ante criteria for the exercise of discretion, particularly for complex decisions regarding the interests of justice. If such criteria are nonetheless adopted, for example by the new incoming Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the New York experience offers suggestions on crafting a more effective approach.

On February 20

On this day in ...
... 1872 (140 years ago today), in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its doors. Today the Met, as it's known, is among the world's largest galleries, with "more than 2 million works of art, distributed in 19 different buildings in the museum." Now housed on Fifth Avenue (left), in its initial years it was located at a mansion on West 14th Street. (photo credit) A glance at current exhibits attests to the scope of its offerings.

(Prior February 20 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On December 5

On this day in ...
... 1946 (65 years ago today), the Soviet delegate to the United Nations threatened to boycott sessions if San Francisco were named the headquarters of the nascent international organization. As reported by The New York Times, the delegate alleged that the United States was pushing for that city -- and it was, as explained in this prior post. But the Soviet representative, who did not foresee (or perhaps wished to fend off) what's just been dubbed America's Pacific Century,

angrily declared that if the United Nations were to move to the West Coast it would become a second-rate organization, attracting only second-rate diplomats, whose efforts 'cannot lead to anything.'

A day later, the United States supported the East Coast as the U.N. site.

(Prior December 5 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

New York State of Marriage

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Ruthann Robson, who contributes this guest post)

By an act of the state legislature late Friday evening, New York joined several other states in the United States in legalizing same-sex marriage; currently, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Iowa, as well as the District of Columbia.
California and Maine had legal same-sex marriage for a limited time. As detailed in IntLawGrrls posts available here, California's Proposition 8 limiting marriage to opposite sex couples was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge, but that ruling was stayed and the case is presently on appeal.
Although in the United States marriage is within the province of state rather than federal law, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, continues to define marriage as limited to opposite sex couples. DOMA is under serious challenge in the courts, including bankruptcy courts, and in the Obama Administration, which stated earlier this year it will not defend DOMA in court. Nevertheless, same-sex couples in New York who marry will not be married under federal law -- a confusing situation when it comes to immigration, taxes, and federal benefits such as Social Security.
“Marriage Equality,” as the New York statute is entitled, has been a hard fought battle.
New York’s highest court held that there was no state constitutional right to same-sex marriage in Hernandez v. Robles (2006), an opinion stunning in its contortions, as Seattle University Law Professor John Mitchell’s article demonstrates. The New York state Senate failed to pass a law in 2009, despite support of the bill from the then-Governor.
The new Marriage Equality statute has religious exemptions, which were also hard-fought, and several otherwise conservative state senators who voted for the bill specifically referenced the “protections” for religious entities contained in the law, and absent from the previous bill. These exemptions, however, reference solemnization and celebration rather than the status of marriage. In other words, the law articulates protections for religious officials should they decline to perform a same-sex marriage. Given the broad protections for religious officials to decline to perform any sort of marriage (or officiate at funerals for that matter), most speculate that this provision is more cosmetic than substantive.
There has been much jubilation amongst LGBT supporters in New York, especially because the bill - - - quickly signed into law by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo -- came only a few days before the LGBT Pride celebrations of June 26-27, which mark the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1969. Indeed, on the evening that the law was passed, the Stonewall Inn in New York City was crowded.
Even LGBT people who do not support the institution of marriage, same-sex or otherwise, found themselves in a celebratory mood. Phrased as “equality,” support for same-sex marriage has become co-extensive with LGBT rights. Moreover, rhetoric against same-sex marriage, in the legislature and elsewhere, is often demeaning and at times virulently homophobic.
Yet critiques of same-sex marriage need not be conservative.
I’ve wondered whether marriage will now become essentially mandatory. Adapting Adrienne Rich’s critique of “compulsory heterosexuality,” I've argued that "compulsory matrimony" could be just as damaging. Contemplating the passing of the New York law, Columbia Law Professor Katherine Franke voiced similar worries:

'[W]e shouldn’t be forced to marry to keep the benefits we now have, to earn and keep the respect of our friends and family, and to be seen as good citizens.'

Indeed, some of the valorization of marriage is politically problematical. It is deeply troubling to read arguments in favor of same-sex marriage that rest upon marriage as indicating “maturity” or making an “honest woman” out of a woman who was merely “living with” a partner. Does that mean people who live together -- or alone -- are somehow immature or dishonest? Certainly, we can’t be saying that about LGBT people, especially women.
In the United States, “marriage” is freighted with a great deal of religious, social, and political meanings. It’s also, of course, an economic relationship. And it may be a boon to the local economy, with New York same-sex couples no longer having weddings -- and receptions -- in the neighboring states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

On October 23

On this day in ...
... 1915 (95 years ago), "armies of suffrage from all the five boroughs" marched down New York's 5th Avenue in support of granting U.S. women the right to vote. (photo credit) The tens of thousands of demonstrators at the hours-long parade, The New York Times reported, "included men and women of all ages, from veterans in their seventies to babies pushed along in gocarts." Another 8,000 women and men marched in Philadelphia. It would be another 5 years before the marchers' wishes were granted by dint of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

(Prior October 23 posts are here, here, and here.)

On August 6

On this day in ...
... 1890 (120 years ago today), at New York's Auburn prison (left), in an "awful spectacle" that the next-day New York Times proclaimed "FAR WORSE THAN HANGING," convicted murderer William Kemmler became the 1st person ever executed by electrocution. (credit for 1901 photo) Two jolts of electricity -- the 1st lasting 17 seconds, the 2d much longer -- were required to complete the grisly event detailed in The Times. The execution took place after the failure of bids to declare the electric chair unconstitutional.

(Prior August 6 posts are here, here, and here.)

On June 16

On this day in ...
... 1884, the United States' 1st roller coaster (right) began to "hurtl[e] passengers down an undulating 600-foot-long track at speeds of up to a blistering 6 mph" at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. (image credit) "Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, ... cost a nickel to ride." Within decades hundreds of roller coasters could be found at amusement parks around the country.

(Prior June 16 posts are here, here, and here.)

On this day

On February 19, ...
... 1674, England and the Netherlands concluded the Treaty of Westminster, which brought to an end a 2-year-old Third Anglo-Dutch War. As a result of this treaty, the North American province that the Dutch had called New Netherland (right) was returned to the British and renamed New York.
... 1918 (90 years ago today), the Central Executive Committee issued a Soviet decree banning private property. The 1st 2 articles of the law stated:

Article 1. All private ownership of land, minerals, waters, forests, and natural resources within the boundaries of the Russian Federated Soviet Republic is abolished forever.
Article 2. Henceforth all the land is handed over without compensation (open or secret) to the toiling masses for their use.

... 1948 (60 years ago today), U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) was born in Greensboro, North Carolina.