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Symposium

Law Clinics and Racial Capitalism

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Law schools are disorienting spaces, particularly for those who arrive seeking tools for justice and transformation. The basic 1L curriculum is steeped in our country’s history of settler colonialism and slavery, and the law taught in the first year largely constitutes a legal infrastructure that has fostered and protected racial capitalism. This symposium. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: November 4, 2022

By LPE Editors

SAQ week at the blog, featuring Ntina Tzouvala on Marxism and international law, Wendy Brown and Amy Kapczynski on democracy, and Veena Dubal on essentially dispossessed workers. Plus, a new site on progressive competition policy, an interview with Karen Levy, and how ex-twitterati can keep up with the blog.
Symposium

On Being Essentially Dispossessed

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During the pandemic, many workers deemed “essential” were nevertheless denied access to even the most rudimentary social safety net. How did this cruel paradox become possible? And how should we make sense of the antagonistic terms of the law in the lives of workers during this moment of extreme crisis?
Symposium

International Law and (the Critique of) Political Economy

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International law has a thriving critical scene, arguably bigger and more institutionally established than any other field. Yet political economy has been an unstable point of focus for critical international lawyers, in part because the justifications of the status quo in the international domain never coalesced into anything akin to a ‘21st-century synthesis.’. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 28, 2022

By LPE Editors

Noah Zatz on the importance of law to democracy, Carly Knight on the transformation of the corporation from creature of the state to creature of the market, and Scott Skinner-Thompson on recent books by Paisley Currah and Eric Stanley. Plus, upcoming events with Talha Syed and Saule Omarova, an interview with Gary Gerstle, and Adam Tooze on the current politics. . .
Essay

Trans Emancipation Through Challenging the State

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With unrelenting devastation, the lives of transgender people are being targeted in prisons, streets, schools, and state capitals. This all-encompassing violence toward trans/queer people is often framed as a product of individual hate and transphobia, a cynical political ploy, or both. And the solution to such violence is often framed as recognition of. . .
Essay

How the Corporation Lost Its Image as a “Creature of State”

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Previously recognized as quasi-public institutions whose shareholders received corporate privileges in exchange for the fulfillment of public goods, corporations are today primarily understood to be private economic actors. This conceptual shift is in some ways quite puzzling. Despite the changing nature of the relationship between states and corporations throughout. . .
Essay

Democracy Without Law?

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Two different mortal threats to democracy have been on vivid display this past year: Trump’s January 6 insurrection and the Supreme Court’s rampage through statutory and constitutional law. Considering these events on split-screen raises some uncomfortable questions about LPE analysis of democracy, law, and courts. In particular, certain law-is-just-politics views. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 21, 2022

By LPE Editors

Jules Gill-Peterson offers a materialist analysis of recent anti-trans legislation, Liat Ben-Moshe and Dean Spade discuss the influence and legacy of Marta Russell, and Zohra Ahmed examines the right to counsel in the neoliberal age. Plus, an upcoming mentoring session for those interested in teaching at a law school.
Essay

The Right to Counsel in a Neoliberal Age

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Over the past forty years, the Supreme Court has increasingly recognized the rights of defendants in criminal proceedings to exert autonomy over their own representation, including dispensing with counsel. Analyzing these developments in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, this post argues that encoding defendant choice into constitutional rules will likely deepen,. . .
Symposium

Disability and the Cisgender State

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In the escalating wave of anti-trans legislation and administrative violence sweeping the United States over the past several years, the credo on the left has often been that political violence against trans people is mere pretense: a right wing culture war meant to distract from issues more properly political-economic, or a cynical ploy to motivate a. . .

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Managing Editor James Brandt Editoral Board Amna Akbar Corinne Blalock Veena Dubal Luke Herrine Amy Kapczynski Caroline Parker Aziz Rana Kate Redburn Karen Tani Noah Zatz Student Editors Liz Brown Chloe Miller Sohum Pal Elliot Setzer Eve Zelickson
Student Editor Emeriti Sam Aber Ashraf Ahmed Will Bloom Adam H. Bradlow Matthew Buck Brett Davidson Isabel Echarte Tariq El-Gabalawy Berto Elysee Molly Gordon Jeff Gordon Ruthie Lazenby Talya Lockman-Fine Andrew Miller Roxana Moussavian Lydia Nicholson