Law & Society Blog

The New Jersey Supreme Court today ruled that New Jersey has no business denying “committed” gay couples the benefits of marriage. Here are some quotes from the syllabus:

Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court […]

The French parliament has passed a law, making it a criminal offense to deny the Armenian Genocide of 1915-17, as the BBC reports:
The bill, which provides for a year in jail and a heavy fine, still needs approval from the Senate and president.
Turkey called the decision a “serious blow” to relations with France. It has […]

This week in Ireland, five peace protesters were aquitted by jury verdict of the charge of criminal damage to property. In 2003, the protesters forced their way into an airplane hanger at Shannon airport and attacked a US Airforce transport plane, bashing the airplane’s nose and causing $2.5 million of damage.
The Dublin Criminal Circuit Court […]

Don’t miss Daniel Gilbert’s interesting Op-Ed over at the New York Times: He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t. Gilbert writes about recent experiments that show that (a) we tend to regard our own actions as consequences (of the actions of others) and the actions of others as causes, and (b) that we tend […]

As the BBC reports today, Germany has signed a Nazi-files accord, which will give access beyond victims to the files kept by the Nazis. The accord still has to be ratified by the eleven members of the ITS commission (Germany, Belgium, Britain, France, Israel, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Poland, the Netherlands and the US).
The 47 […]

For a bit of fun and a blast from the past, here is an educational video, Don’t Copy That Floppy, from the Software Publisher’s Association (which merged with the Information Industry Association in 1999 to form the SIIA). I believe it is dated 1992, around the time of the first FBI raids on pirate bulleting […]

What makes a legitimate democratic government? The administration believes that as long as it means well and seeks to protect us, it cannot lose legitimacy. But isn’t it the restraint on the government’s actions placed by the constitution and by the rights of citizens, a restraint that operates whether the government means well or not?
We […]

It has been a while since I read the French declaration of rights, but I went back and looked it up today. It’s a worthy read that I’d like to share with you, to celebrate Bastille Day, the holiday commemorating the start of the French Revolution. Notice particularly Articles 4 and 5: elegant expressions of […]

The Financial Times reports a sharp reversal of the administration’s policies with respect to the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Here is a taste:
The White House confirmed on Tuesday that the Pentagon had decided, in a major policy shift, that all detainees held in US military custody around the world are entitled to protection under the Geneva […]

There is an interesting article in the NY Times this morning (registration required) about yesterday’s decision by the New York Supreme Judicial Court to deny that a right to gay marriage exists under the New York state constitution.
Here is a taste:
Opponents of gay marriage immediately hailed the New York decision as a sign that the […]