New From Hart Publishing: Picart on Countering Jihadi Cool: Narrative, Law, and Philosophy Against Global Jihad (2025)

New from Caroline Joan "Kay" S. Picart, Countering Jihadi Cool: Narrative, Law, and Philosophy Against Global Jihad (Hart Publishing, 2025).

Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

Using an aesthetic culture and techniques termed as jihadi cool, terrorist groups have been able to recruit members from around the world, so how do we begin to respond? This book analyzes the rhetorical and ethical dynamics of a culture of jihadi cool/chic, and why these rhetorical and aesthetic techniques have been such a powerful recruitment force for particular transnational terrorist groups. The author uses an evidence-based approach, with frameworks derived from law, politics, philosophy, rhetoric, feminist theory, and communication studies, to examine various attempts to construct counter-narratives to the jihadi cool master narrative. The book closes with an examination of how to begin to respond critically and effectively to the lure of jihadi cool.

Mitchell on The Narrative Fragmentation of International Legal History

Ryan Mitchell, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, has published The Narrative Fragmentation of International Legal History at 27 Journal of the History of International Law 57 (2025). Here is the abstract.

The historiography of international law is highly pluralistic and resistant to unifying master narratives. This pluralism is reflected in diverging authorial strategies. To categorize such strategies, this article borrows Hayden White's typology of 'emplotments', or narrative logics, as a useful method of classification. As the article shows, leading accounts of international law's history have often involved conflicting forms of subjective identification with protagonists and forces. This article also suggests that the turn from a relatively homogeneous understanding of international legal history to one characterized by inescapable fragmentation can be dated to the geopolitical, ideological, and cultural transitions of the 1950s-60s. Entrenched ideological conflict and decolonization resulted in a stubbornly diverse historiography that remains the essential condition of the field today. For modern historians of international law, it is crucial to recognize this narrative fragmentation as well as the resulting choices it imposes upon authors making sense of the past.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Vasconcelos Vilaça on Broken April, Narratology, Legal Normativity, and the Experience of Law

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) Law School, has published Broken April: Narratology, Legal Normativity, and the Experience of Law, in Law and Critique (2024). Law and Critique, 0[10.1007/s10978-024-09400-w]

This article delves into the intersection of literature and legal normativity through the lens of Ismail Kadare’s novel Broken April. It explores how literary theory enhances philosophical analysis of law by examining the novel’s portrayal of the Kanun, a set of customary laws in Albania, highlighting the complexity of legal normativity and the impact of law on individual subjectivity and social order. The core argument posits that Broken April serves not only as a reimagined narrative of Albanian customary law, but also as a device to question and reflect on the broader implications of law’s normative force, and its reliance on a plethora of aesthetically effective symbols, in constituting both human behavior and the social imaginary. Through the literariness of Broken April, this article explains how law infiltrates and molds the social and psychological dimensions of life, ultimately shaping legal experience. It argues that literature offers a unique vantage point to reassess our understanding of law’s role in society, challenging conventional and nonconventional legal theories that overlook the cultural and emotional dimensions of law.

Access available via subscription.

Herman and Prosenečki on Dads Over Lovers: Why Western Games Favour Parental Relationships Over Romantic Ones, Unlike Other Forms of Art @goteborgsuni

Zoryana Herman and Fabijan Prosenečki, both of the University of Gothenberg, have published Dads Over Lovers: Why Do Western Games Favour Parental Relationships Over Romantic Ones, Unlike Other Forms of Art? Here is the abstract.

Romantic relationships have long been central to various art forms. However, in recent years, Western video games have shifted toward emphasizing parental relationships, particularly father-daughter dynamics, a trend dubbed "the daddification of games." While this shift is often praised for adding emotional depth and maturity to gaming narratives, some critics argue it reinforces traditional gender roles and caters to an aging, male-dominated demographic. This study aims to explore the origins and implications of this trend in Western games and examine the potential consequences of shifting toward romance as the primary narrative focus, aligning gaming with other artistic media. By analyzing the historical evolution and current state of video game narratives, as well as the representation of relationships in past and current media, we propose how this trend was influenced by Western culture around masculinity-specifically linking emotion to femininity-American censorship, and xenophobic attitudes toward Japanese media, where romancedriven narratives are more common. Furthermore, an analysis of player discussions in online forums suggests that players are open to a broader range of relational dynamics, with potential benefits for cultural representation and diversity of experiences offered by the gaming industry.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Proposals: 2025 Applied Legal Storytelling Conference, July 9-11, 2025, University of Michigan Law School @UMichLaw

The University of Michigan Law School is hosting the 2025 Applied Legal Storytelling Conference, July 9-11, 2025.

The Applied Legal Storytelling Conference brings together academics, judges, lawmakers, practitioners, and any other type of legal storyteller.

Applied legal storytelling examines the use of stories, storytelling, or narrative elements in law practice, legal education, and the law. This definition is intentionally broad to allow people creativity in the way they think and present on the topic.

Examples may include:

• ways in which creative nonfiction and fiction-writing techniques or narrative theory can inform legal storytelling
• stories in the law, or law as stories
• legal storytelling and metaphor
• client story advocacy
• counter storytelling
• professional identity formation through legal storytelling
• cognitive nature and psychology of storytelling and narrative
• using legal storytelling to foster empathy and promote civil discourse
• ethical considerations in legal storytelling

Undoubtedly, there are many other avenues to explore.

The conference has previously convened in 2007 (London), 2009 (Portland), 2011 (Denver), 2013 (London), 2015 (Seattle), 2017 (Washington, DC), 2019 (Boulder), 2021 (Virtual/Mercer), and 2023 (London).

Call For Proposals

The Tenth Biennial Applied Legal Storytelling Conference is seeking proposals for creative, engaging, and insightful presentations for our upcoming conference in July 2025. 

We welcome and encourage presentation proposals from faculty, lawmakers, and practitioners engaged in a variety of disciplines and from schools and organizations around the world. We encourage proposals from newcomers and experienced presenters alike.

All selected presenters will be expected to present in person. We encourage creativity in presentation format—this conference will be collegial, inclusive, and supportive of your work.

Presenters will be required to pay the conference registration fee and cover their own costs for travel and accommodations. 

More information and links to submit a proposal available here.

Sheikh on "Betty, I Won't Make Assumptions": The Narrative Jurisprudence of Taylor Swift @dsheikh726 @latrobelaw

Danish Sheikh, LaTrobe Law School, is publishing ‘Betty, I Won’t Make Assumptions’: The Narrative Jurisprudence of Taylor Swift in volume 26 of the Media and Arts Law Review. Here is the abstract.

In the early months of the pandemic, Taylor Swift released her 8th studio album. For a songwriter known for her diaristic body of work, Folklore was a notable stylistic departure. The album was marked by Swift’s attempt to incorporate other voices into her storytelling, written from the perspectives of figures both real and fictional. Amongst the most widely discussed elements of Folklore is a love triangle told over the course of three songs: ‘Cardigan’, ‘August’ and ‘Betty’. Each song is written from the vantage point of a different character, with intertextual references to the other songs filling in the gaps of the story and providing a connecting thread. In this article, I approach Folklore and its central love triangle for the jurisprudential lessons it might offer. A jurisprudent is someone who develops a persona which cares for the conduct of lawful relations. In this article, I ask what forms of training Swift might provide to those of us who care about law. In particular, I approach Swift as a narrative jurisprudent, focusing on how she goes about crafting different personae, how she attempts to take responsibility for each of these personae, how she trains herself through the act of writing other selves, and how she trains her audience to listen well. I place each of these lessons in the context of Swift’s broader oeuvre as a songwriter, while also making a case for how they teach us to better take responsibility for law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bandes on The Sense of an Ending @BandesSusan @DePaulLaw

Susan A. Bandes, DePaul University College of Law, has published The Sense of an Ending at 73 DePaul Law Review 751 (2024).

One of the delights of shows like HBO's Succession is the virtual communal watch party they create, replete with competing interpretations and passionate predictions about plot development. These conversations reveal some enduring truths about the power of narrative expectations, one of which is the tremendous importance we place on the delivery of a satisfying ending. As the influential literary scholar Frank Kermode argued, “we cannot be denied an end, but it must be the right kind of ending.” One of the fascinating aspects of Succession was the uncertainty about what kind of ending would be satisfying. This uncertainty seems closely tied to the difficulty in pinning down the genre to which Succession belonged. This Essay will first examine the notion of a satisfying ending as it applies to Succession. It will argue that although Succession’s ending was, in some ways, letter-perfect, it was not—and could not be—emotionally satisfying. The emotionally impoverished ending was fitting, but dispiriting, and probably unavoidable given the particular generic traditions upon which Succession drew. The Essay will then pose the question: What lessons can the notion of narrative closure—the need for a satisfying ending—convey about legal proceedings? We have grown accustomed to thinking about law as storytelling, but what insights can narrative theory impart about how law stories ought to end? In legal terms, to determine what constitutes a legally satisfying end point, we first must determine what the proceeding is meant to accomplish. Legal finality may not track literary closure or psychological “closure;” and it is important to distinguish the dictates of the legal system from the impulses that drive finality and closure in other contexts. I will illustrate this point with examples from death penalty jurisprudence, in which the question of an ending is unavoidable and takes several forms: finality of judgment, the notion of “closure” for bereaved family members, and the loss of life.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Tewari on MeToo: Rethinking Law and Literature to Define Narrative Justice @DELawSchool

Geeta Tewari, Widener University, Delaware Law School, has published MeToo: Rethinking Law and Literature to Define Narrative Justice. Here is the abstract.

The law and literature movement is transforming into something new. This Article will discuss what that newness is, how it came about, and the different shapes it takes to provide the legal community with a platform to contribute to a working definition for narrative justice. Creatively, technologically, and economically, public institutions and legal culture are rethinking the value of voice and story. With concrete examples of innovations and social movements, this Article will demonstrate how both action and inaction have propelled us as a society toward urgency in defining and claiming narrative justice. The Introduction canvasses U.S. case law to discuss patterns of narrative incorporation—or the concerning lack thereof. Recently, we have seen a new growth in this field: an emphasis by activists, artists, and academics, among others internationally, on applying voice, story, and journey to present conflicts and problems. The next Part discusses the critical points where public and private institutions, as well as individual citizens, have catalyzed to birth a new field of narrative justice. Specifically, I discuss the #MeToo movement, as well as cities’ work, community, individual empowerment, recent interdisciplinary legal scholarship, and teaching models, which are all analyzed for their inclusion of narrative. City government “storytellers” and the action of the #MeToo movement are two rich examples of law and literature’s expansion to activism through narrative justice. Finally, in Part IV, I dissect the lack of narrative presently in corporate law and the growing legal field of environmental, social, and governance advising, which should include the concept of narrative justice. This Article concludes with a proposal for a working definition and function of narrative justice, based on the examples reviewed herein as they relate to each other, the precipitating field of law and literature, and the need for updated terminology and pedagogy to further advance the practice of law as a moral, ethical, and just profession.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Boyd on Storied Pleadings: The Power of Narrative Introductions @LadyLegalWriter @GeorgiaStateLaw

Megan Boyd, Georgia State University College of Law, is publishing Storied Pleadings: The Power of Narrative Introductions as a Georgia State University College of Law Legal Studies Research Paper. Here is the abstract.

This article sits at the intersection of civil procedure, professional responsibility, and legal writing. Narratives, or stories, are essential to the human experience and thus essential to law. While storytelling has typically been reserved for motions practice and trial, lawyers are now beginning to include narrative techniques in complaints and, specifically, in complaint introductions. Narrative Introductions, which employ multiple narrative techniques to paint a more complete and persuasive picture of the plaintiff’s factual or legal contentions, seek to persuade the reader from the outset that the plaintiff’s claims are worth paying attention to. Part I of this article outlines the importance of first impressions in legal writing. Strong first impressions are created through a concept known as priming in which the writer uses narrative techniques to present a particular view of the plaintiff’s case through which all subsequent information will be filtered. Part II of this article considers Narrative Introductions in 12 complaints filed in federal and state courts across the country and demonstrates the ways the complaint drafters use narrative techniques to frame the facts and legal claims that follow. Part III of this article outlines the requirements of Rules 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and considers whether the use of Narrative Introductions is consistent with or violates those rules, using the Narrative Introductions studied as examples. Part III also considers certain Model Rules of Professional Conduct and addresses ethical issues that may arise in the use of Narrative Introductions. This article concludes by explaining why lawyers should not be concerned that well-researched and carefully written Narrative Introductions violate any procedural or ethical rules and advocating for their use more widely. Funder Statement This article was made possible by a grant from the Legal Writing Institute, the Association of Legal Writing Directors, and LexisNexis.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Edmonds on Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration @UMichLaw @nulawreview

Mira Edmonds, University of Michigan Law School, is publishing Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration in the Northeastern University Law School. Here is the abstract.

The movement to decarcerate risks foundering because of its failure to grapple with so-called “violent offenders,” who make up nearly half of U.S. prisoners. The treatment of people serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent is a primary reason for the continued problem of mass incarceration, despite widespread awareness of the phenomenon and significant bipartisan interest in its reduction. People convicted of “violent offenses” are serving historically anomalous and excessively long sentences, are generally denied clemency and compassionate release, and are excluded from a wide array of legal reform and policy changes with decarceral aims. Keeping these people in prison for life or near life sentences is extraordinarily expensive for state budgets, largely unnecessary from a public safety perspective, and cruel and unusual punishment from the viewpoint of international and historical standards. While the moral imperative to release those serving draconian sentences for nonviolent drug offenses is widely if not universally accepted, such efforts will ultimately be a drop in the bucket if we fail to address the 58% of state prisoners who are serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent. Quantitative data about the low rates of recidivism for people released after serving long sentences for violent offenses will not alone shift the focus of our policies or politics. Rather, we need to develop a more nuanced understanding of violent offenses and violent offenders by hearing the voices of people who have been directly impacted by violence and by the system’s response to violence. These are, in many cases, the same people. Their stories are complex and human, defying simplistic narratives about innocent victims and bad offenders. Storytelling offers possibilities for reconceptualizing the stale terminology around violence and for shifting the discourse. This Article draws on insights from the literature on epistemic injustice and criminal law democratization, together with the legal storytelling literature. It explores the power of storytelling as an advocacy tool in the slow work of person-by-person decarceration during back-end processes like clemency, parole, and compassionate release, as well as part of the broader movement for systemic decarceration. Storytelling is an important tool for advocates working within the system, as well as for abolitionists seeking to end the system. In some contexts, advocates and activists are best situated to tell these stories, but ultimately people should be given the opportunity and tools to tell their own stories.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Edmonds on Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration @UMichLaw @nulawreview

Mira Edmonds, University of Michigan Law School, is publishing Why We Should Stop Talking About Violent Offenders: Storytelling and Decarceration in the Northeastern University Law Review. Here is the abstract.

The movement to decarcerate risks foundering because of its failure to grapple with so-called “violent offenders,” who make up nearly half of U.S. prisoners. The treatment of people serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent is a primary reason for the continued problem of mass incarceration, despite widespread awareness of the phenomenon and significant bipartisan interest in its reduction. People convicted of “violent offenses” are serving historically anomalous and excessively long sentences, are generally denied clemency and compassionate release, and are excluded from a wide array of legal reform and policy changes with decarceral aims. Keeping these people in prison for life or near life sentences is extraordinarily expensive for state budgets, largely unnecessary from a public safety perspective, and cruel and unusual punishment from the viewpoint of international and historical standards. While the moral imperative to release those serving draconian sentences for nonviolent drug offenses is widely if not universally accepted, such efforts will ultimately be a drop in the bucket if we fail to address the 58% of state prisoners who are serving sentences for offenses categorized as violent. Quantitative data about the low rates of recidivism for people released after serving long sentences for violent offenses will not alone shift the focus of our policies or politics. Rather, we need to develop a more nuanced understanding of violent offenses and violent offenders by hearing the voices of people who have been directly impacted by violence and by the system’s response to violence. These are, in many cases, the same people. Their stories are complex and human, defying simplistic narratives about innocent victims and bad offenders. Storytelling offers possibilities for reconceptualizing the stale terminology around violence and for shifting the discourse. This Article draws on insights from the literature on epistemic injustice and criminal law democratization, together with the legal storytelling literature. It explores the power of storytelling as an advocacy tool in the slow work of person-by-person decarceration during back-end processes like clemency, parole, and compassionate release, as well as part of the broader movement for systemic decarceration. Storytelling is an important tool for advocates working within the system, as well as for abolitionists seeking to end the system. In some contexts, advocates and activists are best situated to tell these stories, but ultimately people should be given the opportunity and tools to tell their own stories.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

ICYMI: Sherwin on The Narrative Construction of Legal Reality @RKSherwin @NYLawSchool @VTLawReview

ICYMI: Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School, has published The Narrative Construction of Legal Reality at 18 Vt. L. Rev. 681 (1994). Here is the abstract.

If reality and meaning depend, to a significant extent, on perceptual and cognitive constructions, it becomes of no small interest to learn what interpretive frameworks are at work in specific legal contexts. One way to express this inquiry is to ask: what kinds of stories, and what modes of storytelling, are being used by lawyers, judges, and others within the legal system to construct and convey meaning? This path of inquiry leads to a heightened awareness of competing rhetorics and strategies of narration. Such awareness may operate on the plane of broad principle and decontextualized abstraction or on the level of local voices, proper names, and particularized dramas.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Stern on Omniscient Narrative Modes in Law: From Trial Strategy to the Fellow-Servant Rule @ArsScripta @Law_Cult_Huma

Simon Stern, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, is publishing Omniscient Narrative Modes in Law: From Trial Strategy to the Fellow-Servant Rule in Law Culture and the Humanities. Here is the abstract.

Research in law and literature often uses the term “narrative” as a shorthand for various kinds of motivated legal reasoning, indicating that facts, doctrines, and the relations among them have been chosen and arranged for a particular purpose. Alternatively, speaking of “narrative” may be a way of conveying that one is concerned with interpretation, and may be a signal that the discussion will focus on images, symbols, representations, or ideologies, even if their narrative features play little or no role in the analysis. This article shows how research on narrative might help to clarify aspects of trial strategy and legal doctrine. The first section considers omniscient narration as a way of understanding the effects of various defense strategies, in a criminal trial. The second section considers the role of omniscient narration in the development of the “fellow-servant” rule in the nineteenth century. The law of evidence provides an especially fruitful area for such investigations, but questions of narrative form and technique can help to clarify many other aspects of forensic argumentation and analysis, in both procedural and substantive contexts.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Guerra-Pujol on Coase's Parable @PUCPR1

F. E. Guerra-Pujol, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, is publishing Coase's Parable in the Mercer Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Some stories have heroes and villains. Others involve a voyage, a quest, or a monster to be defeated. The law is no exception. Broadly speaking, most legal stories are generally about identifying wrongdoers and vindicating the rights of victims, but what if harms are “reciprocal” or jointly-caused? In other words, what if victims are just as responsible as wrongdoers for their plight? It was Ronald Coase who first proposed this novel counter-narrative to the standard victim-wrongdoer narrative in law. Researching and writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Professor Coase--an obscure, middle-aged English economist at the time--plucked a number of leading cases from the English Law Reports and other sources. Coase then used these old cases to create a compelling but controversial legal counter-narrative: compelling because Coase’s parable forever changed the way many economists, lawyers, and judges see the law; controversial because it was Coase who first conceived of harms as a “reciprocal” problem. Simply put, whenever one party accuses another party of harming them, it is almost always the case that both parties are responsible for the harm--that is the essence of Coase’s novel and unorthodox parable.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Soifer on Remembrance, Group Gripes, and Legal Frictions: Rule of Law or Awful Lore? @UHMLawSchool @TouroLawReview

Aviam Soifer, University of Hawaii, Manoa, School of Law, is publishing Remembrance, Group Gripes, and Legal Frictions: Rule of Law or Awful Lore? in volume 37 of the Touro Law Review. Here is the abstract.

The rise of groups that honor and seek to advance their particular imagined or real pasts has seemed increasingly dangerous in the years since Bob Cover’s death in 1986. This essay briefly examines the challenges such groups pose to Bob’s hope, and even his faith, that law and legal procedure could be bridges to more just worlds. It may not be ours to finish consideration of how to distinguish the Rule of Law from Awful Lore—both composed of exactly the same letters— but we should continue that task, with remembrance, even within our troubled world.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Tay on The Stories We Tell Ourselves: National Memories and Historical Narratives in International Legal Claims

Xuan W. Tay, University of Adelaide, has published The Stories We Tell Ourselves: National Memories and Historical Narratives in International Legal Claims. Here is the abstract.

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” The social sciences recognize that States are motivated by their historical narratives. Narratives play a key role in shaping how States understand their world and their place in it. Scholars of nationalism crisply note, “no memory, no identity; no identity, no nation”. The emerging international relations tagline, Ontological Security Theory, asserts that the conduct of States is also motivated by their self-identity needs. Even so, there are unsettled questions about the motivational strength of historical narratives, the processes by which narratives gain salience, and how narratives are crafted. Contrastingly, the role historical narratives play in motivating international legal behavior is not well-studied in the international law (IL) scholarship. Most scholars employ rationalist assumptions to explain the international legal behavior of States. Whereas other scholars turn to constructivist explanations, the literature here predominantly focuses on how legal norms affect the general conduct of States, not how historical narratives motivate international legal behavior. This is peculiar, given that the practice of international law typically calls on lawyers to navigate the subjective historical narratives States perpetuate. The proposed thesis seeks to contribute to both the social science and IL scholarship by pursuing a comprehensive understanding of how a State’s historical narratives motivate the international legal claims it makes. This is done through a three-stage interdisciplinary inquiry. It first draws on social science insights to conjecture a theoretical model of how a State’s historical narratives may motivate a State’s international legal claims. Secondly, this model is tested against an empirical legal examination of China’s international legal claims from the period of the Unequal Treaties to present day. The hypothesis to be addressed here is whether the theoretical model provides an intelligible basis for explaining how and why China makes the international legal claims it does. The third stage takes into account the empirical findings to modify the conjectured theoretical model, and suggest implications therefrom for both the social science and IL scholarship. At a broader level, it is hoped the inquiry will spur readers to reflexively consider the degree to which the practice of international law is informed by the stories we tell ourselves.

Download the proposal from SSRN at the link.

Dane on Robert Cover and Legal Pluralism--Redux @perrydane @RutgersLaw

Perry Dane, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Rutgers Law School, has published Robert Cover and Legal Pluralism - Redux. Here is the abstract.

This short essay meditates on and reconsiders Robert Cover’s distinct vision of legal pluralism in the light of today’s political and legal environment. In a 2013 talk, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3302988, I discussed three dimensions of Cover’s legal pluralism: its centering of narrative, its frank focus on state violence and non-state resistance in the encounter of legal orders, and its important insight that non-state communities could articulate and defend their own distinct accounts of the state’s legal order. Each of these ideas looks different today than it did even a few years ago. The narrative of the moment is a specific form of polarization that threatens to hollow out whatever nomos comes within its expanding orbit. The state today is no longer just an imperial ruler asserting its will over smaller scale, paedeic communities, but an increasingly fragile legal order that has become deeply vulnerable to a jurispathy from below. And the scholarly effort to chart the complex dynamics of legal encounter can verge on looking precious in the light of our current brokenness. Nevertheless, it remains vital to take up Robert Cover’s challenge and continue to try to search for an account of nomos and narrative that can make sense of both richly thick communities and atavistic teams, of both imperial states and fragile polities.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Backer on Robert Cover and International Law--Narrative Nudges and Nomadic Nomos @BackerLarry @TouroLawReview

Larry Catá Backer, Penn State Law, is publishing Robert Cover and International Law -- Narrative Nudges and Nomadic Nomos in the Touro Law Review. Here is the abstract.

What was once understood as a unified field of international law, emerging from the state system and centered on the rationalization of the relations among public authorities has fractured. What had been the expression of a unified narrative of the organization of human society around the allocation of political authority now searches for new bases for authority as states become market actors, market actors assume governmental authority, markets define the territories within which law is made and applied, and the normative proscriptions of traditional law are quantified and data driven. This essay considers the way that Robert Cover’s insights on nomos, narrative, and the sacral (exogenous) elements both may inform the rationalization and authority of these critical developments in the constitution of international law. Cover advanced the perception that law was neither fixed nor aligned with and expressed through states; it was nomadic and its narrative was nudging. This is founded on the twin premises that, first, narrative produces multi-sourced nomos within a domestic legal order, and second, that international law produces a distinct plane of narrative with its nomos. Assuming both, then it is likely that international normativity will resist its reduction to a singularity, or single expressive force. These insights are first applied to international law’s post-1945 orthodox narrative and its challenges, constructed as a form of animal husbandry. It then considers this orthodoxy against emerging nomic challenges: the private law of public law bodies, the public law of private bodies, data driven international law-norms, and the emerging systems of platform governance at the international level. Each of these expressions of the imaginaries of international law contains its own nomos, and its own narratives within it. Each envisions bridges from quite distinct “here” to very different “there.” Each is grounded in quite distinct sacral foundations. Cover’s insights suggests both the power and permanence of these nomic contests within an international law that has at once lost its moorings in public law but is building new foundations of authority and action interlinked with but distinct from public law. Nonetheless, at its limit we arrive at the current state, where the central challenges the question of the relationship between collectives and the technologies of its production.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Romero on How Judges "Ruin" Victims at Sentencing @MaybellRomero @TulaneLaw @GeorgetownLJ

Maybell Romero, Tulane University Law School, is publishing 'Ruined' in the Georgetown Law Journal. Here is the abstract.

Judges play a critical role in one of the most important states of a criminal case’s adjudication—sentencing. While there have been substantial limitations placed on the discretion judges can exercise in devising punishments, there are little to none on what judges say at such hearings when articulating their rationales for the sentences they impose on convicted defendants. This Article examines the language judges use when sentencing defendants convicted rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse that describes victims of those crimes and the harms they have sustained, especially language that describes victims as “ruined,” “broken,” or “destroyed.” The use of such language, while apparently meant to be empathetic, only serves to uphold misogynistic understandings of rape and sexual assault and actively harms victims. Judges trying to justify harsh sentences for defendants convicted of sex crimes also engage in shaming and exploitation of victims when saying that defendants have left victims “ruined” at sentencing. In this Article I use traditional scholarly methods of reviewing and analyzing cases and legal doctrine to show why the use of such language is harmful to victims and flouts the purposes of criminal punishment. However, I also engage in autoethnographic methods, relying on my own experiences of rape and sexual assault, as well as prosecuting such cases. This Article also considers how other fields such as medicine and public health have approached destigmatizing other historically stigmatized conditions like substance use and mental illness, arguing that judges should take similar steps to destigmatize being a victim of rape and sexual assault by more carefully considering their language use at sentencing. I conclude by reflecting on the use of personal narrative in legal scholarship and in the classroom and argue that it can be a powerful tool that scholars should more openly embrace.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Sheppard, Moshirnia, and Sullivan on What's In a Name: An Experimental Analysis of Law Titles @SetonHallLaw @MonashLawSchool

Brian Sheppard, Seton Hall University School of Law, Andrew Moshirnia, Monash University Department of Business Law & Taxation, and Charles A. Sullivan, Seton Hall University School of Law, have published What's in a Name? An Experimental Analysis of Law Titles. Here is the abstract.

For the last fifty years, Congress has embraced a tactical approach to naming its legislation. In that span, a distinctly American lawcraft has emerged, with official short titles frequently taking the form of acronyms (e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act), victim names (e.g., Megan’s Law), or other evocative phrasings (e.g., the Ryan White CARE Act). What was once mundane and routine has become yet another opportunity for political messaging. At their best, tactical titles may be cute, clever, or even moving, but they still fail to provide useful insights about their underlying measures. It is hardly surprising, then, that they have become an object of scorn or ridicule, with scholars, commentators, and occasionally legislators calling for measures to curb the practice. If tactical titles lack the power to change the likelihood of a law’s passage, then we might be able to disregard the phenomenon as a silly, if trivial, pastime. But what if titles have the power to manipulate people’s opinions of the laws so named? What if titles give laws an advantage by making them more likely to be noticed or remembered? Then these titles become a threat to democratic principles by harming the electorate’s ability to make informed conclusions about laws and those who support them. Remarkably, there has never been an empirical study of the effect of tactical titling on Americans. To fill that void, we have designed a novel experiment that isolates the effects of common title types (acronyms, victim names, sponsor names, and generic titles) on favorability and memory. This experimental design further reveals how these effects are moderated or enhanced by the political ideologies of those who read them. Our results are illuminating. Tactical titles have the power to change people’s opinions of underlying laws. Troublingly, this effect appears to be ideologically asymmetrical: Left-leaning participants’ opinions did not exhibit a titling effect, but Right-leaning participants gave higher ratings to a law with an acronym title and lower ratings when the very same law had a victim-named title. Moreover, the effect was limited to a conservative law; we did not observe it on either a liberal or nonpartisan law. Our results also showed that, regardless of the participant’s or the law’s political leaning, our participants were better at recalling the names of acronym titles than our other title types. The magnitude of the effect was substantial. Regarding opinion, our results indicated an average shift in the favorability of a law from a six to a nine on a ten-point scale. As to memory, participants were nearly twice as likely to remember the names of laws with acronym titles than generic titles. These findings dovetail with political psychology research on negativity and in-group biases. And most importantly, they provide empirical justification for measures that seek to put an end to tactical titling.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.