Biddleblog

You can find a list of Biddle's new books for this month on our Recent Acquisitions page.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for April 2007.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for May 2007.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for August 2007.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for October 2007.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for November and December 2007.

Happy reading, and Happy New Year!

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for January 2008.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for February 2008.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for March 2008.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for April 2008.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for August 2008.

Since serving in the Army in Vietnam in 1969, I have maintained a keen interest in materials that are produced on this country.  Even after "9-11," the politics and culture of Vietnam are enduring topics for books, articles, and films.

Mark Sidel is Professor of Law at the University of Iowa and a research scholar at the University's Oberman Center for Advanced Studies. His research focuses on comparative law in Asia with a focus on Vietnam, China, India and South Asia. He also taught Vietnamese and Chinese Law at Harvard Law School. He managed the Ford Foundation's programs in Vietnam from 1992 to 1995.

Law and Society in Vietnam (Cambridge University Press, 2008) is an analysis of the struggle to construct a rule of law in a socialist state that is gradually transforming into a market economy. It addresses the formation of a strong civil society and non-profit sector and the emergence of economic law, the rise of lawyers and public interest law, and other key topics. Comparisons are made to parallel developments in the People's Republic of China.

Sidel uses actual cases to allow readers to see legal issues through the lives of the ordinary Vietnamese and their legal problems. He points out the important roles that Chinese, French, Russian and (in the South) American Law have played in the development of different historical stages of Vietnamese law.

In chapter one, "Constitutionalism and the emergence of constitutional dialogue in Vietnam," Sidel discusses Vietnam's adoption of four constitutions since it declared independence from the French in 1945.

Sidel devotes the second chapter, "The Emerging debate over constitutional review and enforcement," to the challenge of enforcing constitutional law in a country with a history of authoritarianism and political corruption like Vietnam.

Chapter three, "Motorbike constitutionalism: the emergence of constitutional claims in Vietnam," is interesting because motorbikes are a prized symbol of autonomy, prosperity and fun in Vietnam and a convenient form of transportation for work and family. When the national police announce a "one person, one motorbike" rule, Vietnam's first mass public assertion of constitutional rights is sparked.

In chapter seven, "Testing the limits of advocacy: the emergence of public interest law in Vietnam," Sidel suggests that law schools should be assisted in establishing legal clinics for the assertion of rights--not merely the drafting of laws--and law colleges should protect those clinics that assert rights.

The book includes two interesting tables that show Vietnamese labor exported from 1980 to 2006, year by year. You can check out my earlier blog entries for other books on Vietnam.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for September 2008.

In light of the fact that a number of courses at the law school focus on the relationship between law and religion, I offer a review of Martha Nussbaum's most recent contribution to the Church-State debate. 

In her most recent book, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Liberty, Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freud Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School, looks historically at the religion clauses of the First Amendment. In her review of the book for the New York Times, Emily Bazelon observes that "as Nussbaum unpacks the court's interpretation of the Constitution's free exercise and establishment clauses, [Nussbaum's] premise is that 'equality is the glue that holds the two clauses together."

A longtime enemy of elitism in a variety of guises, Nussbaum fiercely resists the power of a majority religion, aided and abetted by the state, to create an in-group while subordinating outsiders. Nussbaum anchors the countervailing equality tradition in the writings of Roger Williams and James Madison. Williams, who had extensive friendly dealings with the Narragansett Indians, wrote into the charter for the Rhode Island colony a right to freedom of conscience that shocked the British. He coined the phrase "soul rape" for the limiting of religious expression that does not violate civil law or harm others.

Nussbaum draws a straight line from Williams's fusion of respect and fair play for religious groups to John Rawls's vision of people choosing the basis of their common governance without knowing where they will be situated in the society that results. Williams and Rawls also agree that the state has a moral foundation that is religious for some people and nonreligious for others. Nussbaum finds this construct of "overlapping consensus" to be "a much more helpful idea to think with than the bare idea of 'separation'" between church and state. However, Nussbaum does not read the establishment clause as erecting a wall that discounts the contributions of religion; this she sees as another "type of unfairness." To read Bazelon's entire review of the book, please click here.

Nussbaum gives an engaging and very readable survey of key US Supreme Court cases in their historical context. This is an ideal book for students and other readers new to this area of the law who want an engaging and coherent overview of the key issues in the area of law and religion in the early twenty-first century.

If you're interested in learning more about Nussbaum's ideas, she was recently interviewed by Bill Moyers about Liberty of Conscience. A video of the interview is available on the Bill Moyer's Journal website. For a more personal interview, check out her conversation with Rosanna Greenstreet of the Guardian.

In addition to teaching and serving as a reference librarian for the law school, my outside interests include ethics and religion. So, when Experiments in Ethics (Harvard University Press, 2008) appeared on the library's "New Book Truck," it lept into my hands as I decided to bring it to the attention of our interdisciplinary legal community.

Kwame Anthony Appiah is the Lawrance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. This book is an outgrowth of his 2005 Mary Flexner Lectures at Bryn Mawr College.

Appiah's field is experimental philosophy, which attempts to link classical philosophy ("What is the good life?" "How should we live?") with the burgeoning moral sciences: experimental and cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary anthropology and sociology ("Why do we feel and act as we do?"). Frequently the two areas are in conflict: ethicists claiming that moral judgments should be independent of the sciences and scientists claiming that science undermines the authority of moral reasons. Appiah claims that dialogue, not antagonism, should be the basis for productive discussions between both camps. He argues that experimental philosophy is as old as philosophy itself and has always embraced the sciences.

Experiments in Ethics is deceptively breezy in its appeal to the general public as well as to the specialist. It has inviting chapters like "Introduction: The Waterless Moat," "The Case Against Character," "The Case Against Intuition," "The Varieties of Moral Experience," and "The Ends of Ethics." While the amateur is tempted to enter into the debate and to question his own common sense, the specialist can see at once that Appiah is at home with the whole history of philosophy and the latest developments in science.

What has all this to do with law? Cass Sunstein, the well known law professor at the University of Chicago, has written about Experiments in Ethics: "This dazzlingly written book argues for reconnecting moral philosophy with the sciences, both natural and social--and demonstrates that the reconnection, while in a sense overdue, reconnects philosophy with its ancient interest in empirical issues. Appiah's important argument promises to transform more than one field. It is not only wise and subtle: it is also inspiring."

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for October 2008.

Our cataloging librarian, Judith Vaughan-Sterling, has compiled a list of recent acquisitions for November 2008.

 

There are many interesting projects currently going on in the National Bankruptcy Archives, a repository of records and papers related to bankruptcy, debtor-creditor relations, and the reorganization of debt.

 

Our pilot project funded by the Leon S. Forman Bankruptcy Archives Digitization Program was recently completed.  Approximately 50 oral histories conducted with important bankruptcy figures of the last 50 years have been digitized.  Funding for this project was provided by a fund established with generous contributions from Blank Rome, LLP and the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation.  Many of the oral histories are available on our website.  This page is under construction, so stop by frequently if you want to monitor our progress.

The Archives recently processed a series of reference material that Ken Klee, bankruptcy lawyer and Professor at UCLA Law school, compiled in the course of writing a forthcoming book about the history of bankruptcy argued before the United States Supreme Court.  The Archives already maintains many of Klee's papers from the first phase of his career as a lawyer and counsel to Congress on bankruptcy-related legislation in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.  We feel fortunate to add this new series of papers to his collection, and we look forward to documenting more of Professor Klee's recent activites.

Finally, the Archives has acquired the papers of Henry J. Sommer, a consumer bankruptcy attorney based in Philadelphia.  (Since Mr. Sommer lives in the Philadelphia area, I actually drove to his house in Mount Airy one Saturday morning to help him load his papers into the back of my car!)  This is the first collection of papers in the National Bankruptcy Archives that primarily reflect the field of consumer bankruptcy.  Arguably the most prominent consumer bankruptcy attorney of his generation, Sommer has spent the last thirty years advocating for the rights of ordinary debtors.  In addition to his groundbreaking work at the Philadelphia branch of Community Legal Services in the 1970s and 1980s, Sommer has also served in various governmental and public interest advisory roles.  He recently served as President of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, and he is Editor-in-Cheif of Collier on Bankruptcy.  Sommer's papers are scheduled to be processed soon.

For more information about these and other projects in the National Bankruptcy Archives, please visit our website or contact me directly.

In an effort to expand the National Bankruptcy Archives' holdings in rare material predating the establishment of the nation's first major bankruptcy law in 1898, the Archives has begun to acquire a selection of 18th and 19th century pamphlet and manuscript materials.  Our holdings presently date back to 1789, and document debt culture in the pre-bankruptcy era.  A common topic concerns the abolishment of debtor prisons, which existed from Colonial times to approximately the mid-1800s.

Some of this collection is currently on display in the reference area of the Biddle Law Library.  However, if you can't make it to the onsite exhibit (or, if you would like to whet your appetite), below are images of some of our featured items. 

If you are interested in learning more about this collection or any of our holdings, please contact Jordon Steele or stop by the Archives. 

As natural areas give way to human construction, trees and other parts of the environment often are displaced to make way for progress.  But what if the trees had actual legal rights?   What would be the criteria for a tree, or for a river or an animal for that matter, to have its own rights?  Christopher D. Stone addresses this issue in his 2010 revised edition of Should Trees Have Standing?: Law, Morality, and the Environment (3rd ed., Oxford ; New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press). As most of you know, standing refers to the authority of a person or entity to initiate a legal action. It doesn’t imply winning but it is a key issue that a party has to satisfy to get into court.   

Christopher D. Stone holds the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law at the University Of Southern California School Of Law.  He is an authority on environmental and global issues, including international environmental law, environmental ethics, and trade and the environment. An earlier edition of this book, originally published in 1972, was a rallying point for the then burgeoning environmental movement. The book launched worldwide debate on the basic nature of legal rights that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

 

Presidents and Their Justices, by Douglas Clouatre (Lanham, MD: University Press of America Inc., 2010).

Reviewed by Joe Parsio, Head of Access Services.

The book is based on a 2005 survey of historians, lawyers, and political scientists.   Clouatre is a political science and history instructor at Mid Plains Community College, who writes on the Supreme Court and the American presidency.   Biddle also owns his Ph.D. thesis on the Burger and Rehnquist Courts.

 

Review by Biddle intern Mark Popielarski.

Summer’s here and that means a break from long hours studying case law and statutes. Why not enjoy the summer outdoors with Losing Twice:  Harms of Indifference in the Supreme Court, by Emily M. Calhoun (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2011) a fascinating and accessible new addition to the Biddle Library collection.

 

 

By: Rodney A. Smolla (New York and London: New York University Press, 2011).

 

Biddle Law Library recently acquired four Lexis Nexis databases of foreign law, to assist in researching Chinese law, Canadian law, French law, and European Union law.

Review by Mark Popielarski, Biddle Intern.

Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change

Edited by Jeffrey Rosen & Benjamin Wittes (Washington D.C., Brookings Institution Press, 2011)

By Shenika McAlister, Serials/Electronic Resources Librarian

The Penn Law community now has access to the following resources: 

IEL Energy Law: This subset of the International Encyclopaedia of Laws covers national and  international energy law. Each national monograph contains a general introduction, a description of the country’s energy legislation, an overview of the basic principles of energy law, the historical background, the role of governmental institutions, and the sources of energy law in that country’s legal system.  

IEL Environmental Law: This set in the International Encyclopaedia of Laws covers national and international environmental law. National monographs contain, besides a general introduction, a description of the country’s environmental legislation, an overview of the basic principles of environmental law, the historical background, the role of governmental institutions, and the sources of environmental law.