David Ritchie

A growing number of states in the United States, including Georgia, have stepped into the area of immigration policy.  While various rationales are given for this move, one must wonder what is really behind the drive to have states legislate in an area that has traditionally been reserved for the federal government.  This article explores the effect of racial animus and ethnic bias on these state enactments.  There is good reason to suspect that these embedded reasons motivate at least some of those who plan and implement state-based immigration reform.  The fact that these rationales are never explicitly articulated is troubling.  All of the motivations behind politically charged legislative acts should be publicly aired; especially the pernicious ones.  Given that racial and ethnic hatred seems to be at least partially driving the present immigration debate, we should be careful to monitor what our legislators are doing in our name.  The legal questions are important, to be sure, but legislation should be subjected to ethical review as well.  In this context, many of the state immigration enactments currently being debated and implemented fail to pass muster.

Economic constitutionalism is seen by some commentators as an alternative to the major schools of constitutionalism (modern constitutionalism, welfare-state constitutionalism, and socialist-state constitutionalism, etc.).  There are aspects of both the 1988 Brazilian constitution and the 1982 Chinese constitution (with amendments) that incorporate economic constitutionalist principles to help engineer social and institutional structures within those respective countries. While their approaches differ considerably, the deliberate economic focus of the constitutional drafters of those documents has led to structures that enabled both Brazil and China to become macon economic powerhouses.  By exploring these deliberate attempts of social engineering, then, we can see how economic aspects of constitutional models play an important role in the formation of modern nation-states.

Taking a contrarian stance on the justifications for targeted killings, this article posits that the debate surrounding these killings is a type of post-hoc rationalization. The article rejects the assertion that targets in the war on terror are in fact at war with any nation state, and thus, force should be the last resort and only after intense scrutiny. The article then proceeds to shift the burden on the legitimacy of targeting killings by questioning classifications like “enemy combatant,” ultimately arguing that those who commit terrorist acts should be treated as criminals with all the attendant procedural and substantive safeguards, rather than “targeted” for killing-a euphemism for assassination that distracts from the moral and legal issues surrounding this type of state action.

This article calls into question the dominant political narrative surrounding the spread of modern constitutionalism by discussing two competing narratives about constitutionalism and those who advocate for it. Highlighting the normative claims underlying the dominant approach, the article asks a probing question: what is the cost of imposing a normative-laden constitutionalism on newly formed or reformed states? The article answers this question by highlighting the dual nature of this constitutional imposition-colonialism by a different name. Ultimately, the article concludes that, due to a disconnect between the citizens of these re-formed states and their new constitutional system along with the ulterior motives of dominant nation-states, it this colonial imposition of constitutionalism by powerful western states that has birthed international and intra-state violence in the modern age.

Pointing out the strange and premature premise underlying the routine dismissal of pacifism in the modern age, this article seeks to draw distinctions between what pacifism is, what historical figures known for their pacifism actually stood for, and what pacifists espouse as a set of beliefs that should redefine the popular conception of pacifism. The article’s ultimate goal is to bring pacifism into the mainstream by highlighting its myriad points of interest, ultimately seeking to free it from its position as a political stance held by straw men who oppose war at all costs without principled objections or depth of reason. Written as part of a conference, it posits that pacifism is a form of skepticism and principled objection held by a variety of personalities-worthy of serious debate rather than cursory dismissal.

This class is a comparative survey of constitutionalism, ancient and modern. We will explore the theoretical foundations of constitutionalism, and discuss the implications of this widespread phenomenon. Of special interest will be the philosophical underpinnings of founding documents in historical context. We will review the different models of constitutionalism, paying particular attention to modern constitutional movements in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Each student will choose a founding movement, and explore the constitutional development that flowed from that founding.

Law and Cinema focuses on the representations of law and the legal system as they appear in popular cinema. The class will explore several film genres (e.g., film noir, science fiction, and westerns) and discuss the way in which the popular cultural representatives of law both reflect and re-inscribe certain presumptions about law and its role as a social system. Students will watch between 8 to 10 films throughout the term and will read and discuss the academic literature on cinema as a narrative vehicle.

This course will critically examine selected legal and moral doctrines related to international armed conflict, including both the right of states to resort to force (jus ad bellum) and the rules governing the conduct of hostilities (jus in bello). We will look at the relationship of legal rules and moral codes to the just war tradition, and how normative principles shape the conduct and critique of international armed conflict. Topics may include, among others, the nature and scope of legitimate, proportional self-defense; the treatment of prisoners of war/detainees; war crimes; humanitarian intervention; the law governing resort to force against contemporary terrorist networks; the justification for non-combatant immunity and the converse combatant's privilege; proportionality in the conduct of war; drone warfare and other targeted killings; and other contemporary controversies that characterize armed conflict in the early twenty-first century.