The Jurisdictional Vacuum: Transnational Corporate Human Rights Claims in Common Law Home States

Pages 227–274, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac036

Private MNCs that operate in developing host states through overseas subsidiaries are regularly accused of human rights and environmental violations.

New Media and Freedom of Expression: Rethinking the Constitutional Foundations of the Public Sphere

Pages 222–226, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac028

With the significant increase of the role of online platforms in today’s world, it is natural that attention is often focused on the role of these platforms. 

Proportionality in the Age of Populism

Pages 449–477, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac005

The European-based proportionality doctrine seems to be in vogue in American constitutional scholarship. Recently, the Harvard Law Review has devoted its Foreword by Jamal Greene, to this doctrine. In a provocative and bold article, titled “Rights as Trumps?,” Greene argued that proportionality analysis should be openly adopted in the United States as a more sophisticated and up-to-date doctrine than the rights-as-trumps categorical approach. Current constitutional adjudication, he contended, requires a nuanced and factually based analysis of the sort afforded by proportionality. We argue, contrary to this argument, that proportionality may not be the best doctrinal candidate in the United States, taking into consideration the populist shift in the United States. We wish to make a more general point about the use of proportionality in the new global age of populism. The rise of populism, and the increasing signs of democratic backsliding across the globe, require the employment of a more categorical approach that better serves the purpose of red lining and enhances the democratic process.

The Purposive Transformation of Corporate Law

Pages 478–538, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac004

What is the purpose of a corporation? This fundamental question is as old as corporate law itself, and traditionally it is asked with reference to the ultimate beneficiaries of a corporation’s activities. Modern management theory and the current technology-driven transformation of the economy, however, have breathed new life into the question about corporate purpose. Here, purpose is understood as an animated mission-purpose articulation of the reason for a corporation’s existence; an aspirational idea about its existence that has the capacity to bond internal and external stakeholders to the company, inspiring innovation, productivity, and customer loyalty. This understanding of corporate purpose offers a pathway to a more inclusive and interconnected form of modern capitalism.

Buddhist Rules About Rules: Procedure and Process in the (Theravāda) Buddhist Legal System

Pages 539–573, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avab025

This Article examines rules of procedure and process that structure the Buddhist legal system in the Theravāda tradition, the dominant tradition of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia. Drawing on important Buddhist texts written in Pāli as well as evidence from monastic legal practices in contemporary Sri Lanka, it argues that one can find within the Theravāda tradition a robust body of what H.L.A. Hart would call “secondary rules,” which determine how monks ought to apply prohibitions, manage disputes, and administer sanctions.

Judging as Crime: A Transatlantic Perspective on Criminalizing Excesses of Judicial Discretion

Pages 574–614, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avac003

Drawing on over a century and a half of Germany’s experience with a statute that criminalizes (mis)judging, this Article seeks to substantiate that criminal penalties for judges were largely ineffectual, and that courts proved ill-suited to police themselves even with a judiciary-specific criminal statute in place.

The Contested Concept of Secularism and Bangladesh

Pages 399–448, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avab014

Issue Section: There are different ways in which scholars comprehend secularism. According to some scholars, secularism is the phenomenon in which religion is fully separated from the state and plays no part in the public domain. This Article aims to discuss the various interpretations of secularism, create a classification of secularism models, and examine how secularism is considered in Bangladesh.

The Wuthering Heights of Constitutional Amendment: A Portrait of Contemporary Theory and Practice

Pages 938–944, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avaa033

Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. Richard Albert is the contemporary scholar who has done the most to place constitutional amendment in the global academic spotlight and invite (and actively seek the means to generate) a broad, inclusive, and refreshing discussion on their many dimensions.

A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments: Dismemberment or Amendment?

Pages 934–937, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avaa034

Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. “When is a constitutional amendment an amendment in name alone?”1 Richard Albert poses that question at the very start of Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking and Changing Constitutions

A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments: Constitutional Amendment, Unamendability, and the Democratic Paradox

Pages 929–933, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avaa035

Issue Section: A Symposium on Richard Albert’s Constitutional Amendments. Richard Albert has written a very interesting book discussing various methods of constitutional amendment, which offers a sophisticated multilevel analysis of the topic.