Cooney on Larry Potter and the Deathly Canon @WMUcooleylaw @jmarkcooney

Mark Cooney, Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, has published Larry Potter and the Deathly Canon at 99 Mich. B. J. 48 (Sept. 2020). Here is the abstract.

This Michigan Bar Journal column discusses the ejusdem generis canon of statutory construction, using a courtroom-based Harry Potter parody as its vehicle.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Schauer on Constructing Interpretation

Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia School of Law, is publishing Constructing Interpretation in the Boston University Law Review. Here is the abstract.

This paper, a substantially revised version of a paper previously entitled (and posted as) “A Critical Examination of the Distinction between Interpretation and Construction,” argues not only that the justifiably prominent and valuable distinction between interpretation and construction loses much of its value when applied to technical language, but also that the point of the distinction is undercut by the existence, following Hart and Searle, of constitutive legal language. When legal instruments, whether contracts or statutes or constitutions, create types of behavior that would otherwise not exist, as opposed to regulating antecedently existing behavioral possibilities, it becomes impossible to interpret the language that constitutes behavior without taking into account all of the legal goals and principles that proponents of the distinction would relegate to the “construction zone.” For such constitutive language, just as with technical language, all of the values, aims, and principles of law in general or of a particular legal provision pervade both sides of the distinction, sharply reducing the importance of the distinction for such language.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Foster on Statutory Construction and Biblical Hermeneutics--Law in the Service of the Gospel? @NeilJamesFoster

Neil James Foster, Newcastle Law School, has published Statutory Construction and Biblical Hermeneutics- Law in the Service of the Gospel? at 252 St. Mark's Review 106 (2020). Here is the abstract.

Explores similarities between statutory interpretation techniques used by courts, and principles of Biblical interpretation used by Bible scholars.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.