American Constitutional Law

Conventional understandings of Catholicism, especially the claim that the pope held temporal power over all civil rulers, presented a signal challenge to early American Catholics’ civil and religious liberty. Yet reform-minded Catholics in the North Atlantic world asserted their independence from the temporal powers of external authorities, including the pope. Catholics who participated in the American founding, such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Carroll, drew from an intellectual tradition of conciliarism that was rooted in Catholic thought yet compatible with republicanism. The Carrolls’ public support of the nation’s foundational documents and their development of the American Catholic Church presented to the broader political and religious public a Catholic tradition that advocated not only a republican view of temporal independence but also a juridical, nonhierarchical understanding of church and state. Catholics of this sort were not a foil to American religious and political arrangements; instead, they fit their beliefs within the ideologies of the American founding and thereby answered Protestant charges that Catholics should be legally penalized. These conclusions offer compelling reasons to include the conciliarist tradition within the “multiple traditions approach” of American founding historiography.

Le contrôle légal des armes à feu aux États-Unis Dans le cadre du cours POL 2102 « Pensée politique contemporaine » Enseignant : Charles Blattberg Correcteur : Charles Blattberg Deṕartement de science politique Université de Montreál Le mercredi 25 octobre 2017 Dans le monde politique d'aujourd'hui, rien ne va plus, tensions à l'échelle internationale, guerres civiles, terrorisme, inégalités des richesses ou soulèvement des populations, chaque partie du globe fait face à des situations conflictuelles. Plusieurs de ces situations se retrouvent au coeur de conflits moraux, de conflits opposants diverses idéologies, principes, cultures ou religions. La pensée contemporaine tant en vain de comprendre et d'en prélever des solutions face à un monde en péril. C'est aux États-Unis que certains de ces conflits

This 2014 essay discussed the issue of same-sex marriage in the context of judicial review principles.  Although the U.S. Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right in 2015, the reflections in the paper on judicial review were not modified by that decision.

Стаття присвячена аналізу ідеї верховенства права в американському правознавстві. Пропонуються окремі підходи до визначення досліджуваного поняття, його складових компонентів та вимог для ефективної реалізації. Автор доходить висновку, що питання пов’язані із верховенством права, на сьогодні залишаються не вирішеними.

The article published in 1890 by Warren and Brandeis in the Harvard Law Review entitled «The Right to Privacy», is considered the foundational essay of the protection of privacy in the United States and the most influential law review article of the American legal literature. Indeed, its influence has been unquestionable, has led to the collective concern for the recognition and guarantee of privacy, has generated at least four civil actions for their protection and has framed and substantiated the constitutional discourse of the right to privacy in the United States throughout the twentieth century. However, in the design made by Warren and Brandeis in «The Right to Privacy» can be recognized not only an individual or subjective dimension, but also a collective and social that contributes to the maintenance and advancement of the democratic system, since, ultimately, privacy helps set the limits of state control over individuals and to define the essential attribute of citizenship.

«THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY». LA GÉNESIS DE LA PROTECCIÓN DE LA PRIVACIDAD EN EL SISTEMA CONSTITUCIONAL NORTEAMERICANO: EL CENTENARIO LEGADO DE WARREN Y BRANDEIS / «The Right to Privacy». The Genesis of the Protection of Privacy in the American Constitutional System: The Centenary Legacy of Warren and Brandeis. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256544041_THE_RIGHT_TO_PRIVACY._LA_GNESIS_DE_LA_PROTECCIN_DE_LA_PRIVACIDAD_EN_EL_SISTEMA_CONSTITUCIONAL_NORTEAMERICANO_EL_CENTENARIO_LEGADO_DE_WARREN_Y_BRANDEIS__The_Right_to_Privacy._The_Genesis_of_the_Protection_of_Privacy_in_the_American_Constitutional_System_The_Centenary_Legacy_of_Warren_and_Brandeis [accessed Apr 3, 2015].

In multicultural societies, which are characterized by the diversity of cultures, religions, and lifestyles, it is sometimes necessary to reconcile the right of freedom of speech with other rights, like the right to dignity, equality, religion, or the right to be free from discrimination. This reconciliation can transform a set of problems, because these rights are all key elements of a "democratic society."
However, even with the wide scope of freedom of speech, some restrictions on the exercise of this right may, in some circumstances, be necessary. This right as an outward manifestation or externum forum is not an absolute right. The exercise of the freedom carries with it responsibilities and obligations and is subject to certain restrictions, particularly, those that concern the protection of rights of others.
One of the plain limits of the freedom of speech is the doctrine of hate speech. The term "hate speech" refers to insults, stigmas or epithets targeted at a specific group of people based on shared characteristics of this group. These characteristics are race, gender, or religion; this list can also include ethnicities, sexual orientation, and even disabilities.
This paper compares different legal systems as they regulate the hate speech doctrine. Each country’s legal system treats the issue of restriction of the freedom of speech differently, considering other fundamental rights equally relevant. The paper will provide a short discussion of the actual overview about hate speech in different legal systems, showing emblematic cases resolved by the European Court of Human Rights, the United States Supreme Court, and the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil.
The critical theory will be used to question the reality of different legal systems with a view of the democratic state of law by using statutes, case law and bibliographical analysis of some authors, focusing on the theory of Jeremy Waldron about “The Harm of Hate Speech.”
All things considered, the study will show the huge distinction between the decisions around the world concerning hate speech with different approach considering different historic background and culture of each country. The paper will show a specific preference for one
standard of decision and proposes a unified standard according to the doctrine of hate speech, which at the same time imposes more protection to human rights inside a global legal system.

This article demonstrates the overlooked contribution of the ancient Near East to the development of constitutional law. The legal corpus of Deuteronomy provides a utopian model for the organization of the state, one that enshrines separation of powers and their systematic subordination to a public legal text—the “Torah”—that delineates their jurisdiction while also ensuring their autonomy. This legislation establishes an independent judiciary while bringing even the monarch under the full authority of the law. Deuteronomy’s implicit model for a political constitution is unprecedented in legal history. Two of its cornerstones are fundamental to the modern idea of constitutional government: (1) the clear division of political powers into separate spheres of authority; and (2) the subordination of each branch to the authority of the law. This legislation was so utopian in its own time that it seems never to have been implemented; instead, idealism rapidly yielded to political pragmatism. Nonetheless, Deuteronomy’s draft constitution provides an important corrective to standard accounts of constitutional legal history.

Keywords:
Constitutional theory; rule of law; separation of powers; Deut 16:18-18:22; Laws of public officials; Law of the king; independence of the judiciary; Deut 17:14-20; Ämtergesetze; Verfassungstheorie; Torah monarchy; Sophocles Antigone law; Herodotus Demaratus; Greek kingship; Mishnah King; mishnah Aboth 1:1; American constitution; Josephus πολιτεία [politeia]; origin of judicial system; Hammurabi; founding myth; independent judiciary.

A look at the history and legacy of the Magna Carta elucidates the many ways in which it shaped American jurisprudence and the law of Texas.  The Magna Carta is held in high regard because the unknown drafters understood the importance of legal principles, fair procedures, proportional punishment, official accountability, and respect for human dignity.  Its unquestionable commitment to the primacy of legal principles and anticipation of the development of judicial ethics significantly influenced and contributed to the construction and content of the Texas Constitution, Bill of Rights, and many Texas cities’ ethics codes.  Although it was intensely focused on the issues of feudal England, the Great Charter set the high expectations that have inspired lawyers and reformers for 800 years.

It is impossible to tell the history of American antitrust law and economics during the so-called formative era (1890-1915) without a preliminary understanding of the economic rationale underlying that major phase of American constitutional law commonly called laissez faire constitutionalism, or Lochner era. The essay is a preliminary effort to locate such a rationale in the almost perfect overlap between classical political economy, especially the notion of competition as the supreme organizing principle of thriving societies, and classical liberalism, in particular the notion of liberty of contract. It is argued that the well-known Progressive interpretation of the Lochner era fails to recognize the true meaning and extent of this overlap. The protagonists of our story are economists Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Francis Wayland, and Supreme Court Justices James Wilson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Rufus Peckham.

Existen dos afirmaciones centrales en las cuales convergen todos, o al menos casi todos, los autores que se autodenominan «originalistas»: 1) la tesis de la fijación que mantiene que el contenido semántico de cualquier disposición constitucional fue fijado al momento en que el texto constitucional fue aprobado o ratificado; salvo que mediase una reforma o enmienda constitucional. 2) La tesis de la contribución por la cual se afirma que el significado original de la Constitución contribuye al contenido y desarrollo de las prácticas constitucionales actuales. Sin embargo, las teorías originalistas se diferencian por el alcance o modo de comprender esas dos afirmaciones centrales de la tradición originalista. El estudio del originalismo que se desarrolla en esta monografía se estructura a partir de cuatro capítulos en los que se reconstruye y examina críticamente la consistencia de los presupuestos semánticos de las teorías originalistas contemporáneas en el ámbito estadounidense. En la primera parte se delimita el marco del debate para el resto de la monografía. En la segunda parte se describe y evalúa críticamente tanto el originalismo de intenciones como el originalismo del significado público. Finalmente, en la tercera parte, sobre la base de una respuesta a cada una de las limitaciones de las teorías originalistas examinadas en los capítulos anteriores, se presentan las bases para desarrollar una práctica originalista anclada sobre un realismo semántico; esto es, una teoría del significado que prioriza elementos rígidos o no convencionales por sobre el aspecto socialmente construido de todo lenguaje.

The 1954 United States Supreme Court decision in Oliver L. Brown et.al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (KS) et.al. 1 is perhaps one of the most discussed judgments because of its significant judicial turning points in the development of civil rights movements not only in America but also in other parts of the globe. Brown in fact dismantled the legal basis for racial segregation in schools and other public facilities in the disguise of "separate but equal' doctrine. As well as it laid the foundation for shaping future national and international policies regarding human rights. Brown confronted a vivid sense of social realities, a sense that was entirely missing from the legal culture at that time. Though Brown has always enjoyed a very high and sophisticated profile in the literatures and jurisprudence of constitutional law discussion, this article tends to find out the other side of the story; where courts' decision making was much influenced by other factors and not by merely interpretation of the normative constitutional theories. The significance of Brown decision lies in the fact that it teaches certain important positive constitutional theory. It also shows how government and political institutions influence and interact with each other, and how features of politics and institutional structure influence the creation and development of constitutional doctrine, i.e. how constitutional doctrine works and develops over time.

Il libro Eleggere il Presidente», scritto insieme con G. Passarelli (Marsilio, 2020 - https://amzn.to/2Hdf6C6 ) è un lavoro che presenta il processo di elezione del Presidente degli Stati Uniti e le dinamiche che scatena dentro la rete delle istituzioni separate dell'ordinamento statunitense.
L'allegato che si presenta è l'Indice, sempre utile a capire il filo rosso del ragionamento, e l'Introduzione.

focus TMT |n. 1/2015 federalismi.it -focus TMT |n. 1/2015 comunicazioni 4 . Già prima dell'indipendenza, del resto, il diritto alla riservatezza personale era garantito in alcune colonie 5 , e patrioti del calibro di Patrick Henry o Benjamin Franklin enfatizzarono pubblicamente -anche a fini propagandistici -la sua importanza come diritto fondamentale ed inalienabile dell'uomo 6 . Una volta sconfitti gli inglesi, questo diffuso sentimento di diffidenza per l'eccessivo controllo da parte dello Stato fu codificato nel Quarto emendamento della Costituzione, che ancora oggi sancisce il diritto dei cittadini «to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures» 7 . Liberatisi dell'oppressione dell'impero britannico, i Framers americani vollero, infatti, circoscrivere i limiti del Governo federale, ovvero di quel nuovo potere che -soprattutto al tempo della approvazione del Bill of Rights -era visto con sospetto dai singoli Stati. Dal punto di vista storico, pertanto, il Quarto emendamento «non scaturisce da 4 Le origini del Quarto emendamento sono profondamente legate alle ragioni che condussero alla guerra d'indipendenza americana, perché sebbene il sistema della Common Law inglese riconoscesse una parziale protezione delle abitazioni e del domicilio dei cittadini (c.d. castle doctine), spesso tale pur minima tutela non era applicata nei territori delle colonie di fine diciottesimo secolo. Nella seconda metà del diciottesimo secolo, in particolare, i coloni inglesi, contrari alla eccessiva pressione fiscale imposta dal Re, cominciarono ad aggirare i controlli doganali sulla importazione/esportazione delle merci attraverso la predisposizione di efficaci reti di contrabbando. Proprio per combattere questo fenomeno, il Parlamento inglese approvò l'Exercise Act del 1754, attribuendo agli ufficiali inglesi (e in particolare a quelli doganali) ampi poteri di ispezione dei carichi e di sequestro dei beni. Gli americani considerarono particolarmente sgradevole questo atteggiamento imperialista della corona inglese, e provarono anche ad opporsi a tale legge ricorrendo senza fortuna presso le Corti inglesi eccependo il divieto di general warrants. La perseveranza del Governo britannico nell'adozione di tale misure liberticide giocò così un ruolo chiave nella rivoluzione americana. Sulle origini storiche del Quarto emendamento v. (tra gli altri) T.Y. DAVIES, Recovering the

This chapter examines the legal implications of reparative therapy litigation in the United States, which recognized the tight of gay and lesbian children to be spared reparative therapy, even when prescribed by their parents. It argues that, in acknowledging this right, federal courts ultimately defended the right of the children to be gay. Such a recognition has a wider positive e ect on American society in terms of acceptance of homosexuality and the homosexual population by signi cantly restricting the viability of gay conversion in all respects.

Il testo intende indagare le radici filosofiche del Secondo Emendamento statunitense, mostrando come il diritto di portare armi provenga direttamente dal diritto naturale e da una visione sussidiaria del potere politico. Esso rompe fondamentalmente con la costruzione moderna del politico che vede nello Stato un potere sovrano.

The text intends to investigate the philosophical roots of the U.S. Second Amendment, showing that the right to bear arms directly originates from the natural law and a subsidiary vision of the political power. It basically violets with the modern building of politics that thinks at the State like a sovereign power.

El originalismo del significado público es en la actualidad el punto de partida ineludible del constitucionalismo norteamericano contemporáneo, tanto para criticarlo como para defenderlo. Una de las novedades más significativas que introduce esta versión actual del originalismo consiste en una distinción conceptual entre la interpretación y la construcción constitucional. La primera refiere a la dilucidación del significado lingüístico del texto constitucional por medio de una remisión a lo que la sociedad de la época entendía que significaba tal o cual disposición constitucional. En cambio, la construcción remite a los modos de implementar tales disposiciones normativas que recoge la constitución. En este trabajo se defenderá la imposibilidad de defender una clara distinción entre tales cuestiones. Con todo, no se trata esto de una maniobra cuyas consecuencias operan exclusivamente en un plano conceptual. Esta imposibilidad de distinguir entre construcción e interpretación no permite al neooriginalismo lograr una de sus finalidades prácticas: la arbitrariedad judicial.

La emergencia y el proceso de conceptualización del derecho constitucional a la privacidad de la información personal en el sistema constitucional norteamericano, reflejan la consideración de la privacidad de la información personal como un "valor constitutivo" que coadyuva a la configuración de la identidad individual y a la conformación social en el paradigma de sociedad democrático-tecnológica del siglo XXI. Sin embargo, las avanzadas tecnologías de las comunicaciones que en aras de la seguridad nacional contribuyen al desarrollo de medios de vigilancia más invasivos de la información personal al alcance de instituciones estatales, poseen la potencialidad de frustrar la participación ciudadana al amenazar la esfera privada y la autonomía individual, y, con ella, la sociedad democrático-tecnológica del siglo XXI. De ahí que la protección de la privacidad de la información personal con el máximo rango normativo resulte ineludible, aunque ahora la cuestión es si será suficiente el amparo de la Constitución nacional en el paradigma global de la Sociedad de la Información y del Conocimiento del Tercer Milenio.

Modern Fourteenth Amendment doctrine is difficult to square with constitutional text. The text of the Equal Protection Clause, for example, makes no distinction between racial classifications and other discriminatory practices; it requires equal protection of the laws for every "person" within a state's jurisdiction. Nor does the text require equal treatment or equal rights; it requires equality only in the "protection of the laws." Yet the Supreme Court assumes that the Equal Protection Clause is implicated whenever a state treats people differently—without pausing to ask whether the state has withheld the equal "protection of the laws." And the Court has created a textually unsupportable distinction between racial discrimination, which it subjects to "strict scrutiny," and other discriminatory practices that receive "rational basis review."

Yet textualism has been enjoying a resurgence in both constitutional and statutory interpretation. This resurgence raises two questions for the Court's equality doctrines. The first is whether those who embrace textualism must reject the Court's equality jurisprudence as textually illegitimate. The second is whether those who embrace the Supreme Court's landmark equality pronouncements must reject textualism as incompatible with those rulings. The answer to both questions is no. Almost all of the Supreme Court's canonical racial-equality decisions have a firm textual foundation in congressional civil rights legislation—a fact that the Supreme Court has all but ignored by insisting on grounding its equality pronouncements exclusively in the Equal Protection Clause. And Congress enacted most of these civil rights statutes before the Supreme Court invoked the Equal Protection Clause to declare a discriminatory practice unconstitutional. So these civil rights statutes can and should be used to supply textual support for the Court’s decisions and doctrines, especially in cases where the Equal Protection Clause and other constitutional provisions are textually ill suited for the task.

Situé dans le comté de Grafton, dans l'État du New Hampshire, le village d'Ellsworth n'offre pas, au premier abord, un visage très différent de celui de ses voisins. Pourtant, cette petite communauté de 83 habitants est singulière dans cet État américain du Nord-est puisqu'il s'agit d'une des deux dernières localités prohibitionnistes (avec le village de Monroe-788 habitants-situé dans le même comté)… Loin d'être une exception, cet exemple reflète au contraire une dimension souvent méconnue du système américain en ce qui concerne le commerce et la consommation d'alcool : la persistance de la prohibition avec toutes ses conséquences. Dans l'imaginaire collectif, la prohibition de l'alcool aux États-Unis renvoie à une période précise, les années 1920. Initiée avec le XVIII e amendement, adopté en 1919, cette interdiction de la fabrication, du commerce et du transport de l'alcool est au coeur du système juridique jusqu'à l'adoption d'une nouvelle révision constitutionnelle, le XXI e amendement, en 1933. Trop souvent, le regard étranger s'arrête à cette dimension historique. Mais, il s'agit d'une surinterprétation du texte de 1933. De fait, l'abandon de la prohibition, qui est consacré à cette date, ne concerne que le niveau fédéral. Le niveau fédéré, étatique par conséquent, demeure en charge de la politique en la matière. Au regard de la situation actuelle, aux États-Unis, on peut difficilement parler de détail… En effet, c'est même cette origine-une révision constitutionnelle qui s'intègre dans une transformation des niveaux juridiques américains entre gouvernement fédéral et États fédérés-qui explique la rare complexité qui caractérise le système américain actuel. Certes, il n'existe plus d'État prohibitionniste. Le dernier à avoir abandonné cette politique est le Mississippi, la décision remontant aux années 1960. Néanmoins, certains États ont choisi de laisser au niveau local la liberté d'agir. Cette première précision est loin d'épuiser le sujet, car le singulier est inadéquat : il faut parler des niveaux locaux puisque, là aussi, les réglementations et dispositions peuvent varier en fonction des États. De surcroît, les pratiques divergent, lorsqu'on examine l'application des textes et leurs conséquences. En résumé, aux États-Unis, il existe, d'un côté, des États qui ne pratiquent plus la prohibition et, de l'autre, des États qui l'autorisent au niveau des comtés, ou des municipalités, ou de certains districts, créant ainsi des zones potentiellement dry, en fonction du choix des habitants de ces régions. En pratique, on constate par conséquent la présence de comtés wet, c'est-à-dire ne pratiquant pas la prohibition, et de comtés dry, ayant choisi d'interdire la fabrication et/ou le transport et/ou le commerce de l'alcool, mais aussi la possibilité dans des comtés wet d'avoir des municipalités dry, et inversement… Dernier point remarquable, les particularismes ne s'arrêtent pas là car les réglementations, qu'elles soient locales ou étatiques, peuvent facilement être qualifiées d'instables. Pour ne prendre que deux exemples, dans les années récentes, deux Etats ont lancé des procédures pour mettre fin aux prohibitions locales. En Arkansas, en 2014, le référendum qui devait valider cette mutation s'est soldé par un échec. A l'inverse, en 2015, le congrès du Wisconsin a officiellement tourné la page de la prohibition.

While nearly everyone can recognize the text of the United States Constitution, there remains significant disagreement regarding how to interpret and apply the text of the Constitution. In this memo, I examine the 8th Amendment and the practice of judicial review in support of my recommendation that the next nominee to the Supreme Court should hold a framework of interpretation which primarily focuses on the general democratic purposes embedded in the Constitution and the expected consequences of decisions.

Starting from the recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in  DirecTV v. Imburgia, this article highlights the differences between the American and the European approaches to mandatory consumer arbitration. While U.S. law now considers arbitration clauses valid and enforceable no matter whether they concretely allow consumers to access arbitration, EU law has decided since long time not to allow such arbitration. This differences, among others, has been pointed out in DirecTV's dissent, that makes of it an argument against the majority's stance.

eve essere stato proprio questo the best is yet to comeil mantra che Barack Obama ha continuato a ripetere a se stesso sin dall'autunno del 2011 quando il fallimento delle trattative con lo Speaker della Camera dei Rappresentanti John Boehner gettava una lunga ombra sulla possibilità di una sua rielezione alla carica di Presidente degli Stati Uniti. La lenta ripresa della crescita economica, l'impennata del livello di disoccupazione e la persistente sfiducia dell'elettorato nella ripresa del Paese e nella capacità della sua amministrazione di riportare gli Stati Uniti sul tetto del mondo, non hanno tuttavia tratto in inganno gli analisti più attenti che avevano predetto con convinzione il risultato che sarebbe uscito dalle urne il 6 novembre 2012. Obama ha ricevuto l'investitura per il secondo mandato. In combinazione con le precedenti rielezioni di Bill Clinton e George W. Bush, la vittoria di Obama segna la seconda volta che tre presidenti americani abbiano ottenuto la rielezione in maniera consecutiva (i primi tre sono Thomas Jefferson, James Madison e James Monroe).

Although the federal Constitution of the United States does not expressly recognize a «right to privacy», however, the Supreme Court, over a long and gradual case law, has considered it implicit in the guarantees of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. Therefore, in the American constitutional system the right to privacy is a broad concept, which is set along more than a century to progressively delimit those areas of the private sphere which tend to preserve those interests of solitude, sanctuary, autonomy, individuality, personal development, freedom of choice in personal matters, control of personal information, as well as the essential substrate of the inviolable human dignity. These essential individual interests contribute to the formation of an active and participatory citizenship, constituting thus the right to privacy a fundamental legal interest for the very existence of the democratic system.

Este ensayo tiene por finalidad analizar el contenido y los problemas interpretativos que ha suscitado la Decimotercera Enmienda a la Constitución estadounidense, que tuvo por finalidad abolir la esclavitud. Para tal efecto, se estudia la protección que la Norma Fundamental
americana confirió inicialmente a esta institución, con el objeto de demostrar el papel central que jugó en la configuración del orden político, social y económico de dicho país. Después, se explora el contenido de las dos secciones de la Decimotercera Enmienda, poniendo de relieve su potencial transformador y los principales problemas de interpretación
que han obstaculizado su eficacia. Finalmente, se examinan los institutos que surgieron tras la adopción de la citada enmienda y que dieron paso a un auténtico sistema de esclavitud encubierta, conocido como peonaje negro, y se indaga en el papel que desempeñaron los tribunales federales —incluido el Tribunal Supremo— en combatir dichas instituciones.

here is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated fro m the legislative and executive" (C.L. de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book XI, 6 Of the Constitution of England, 1748). Così si esprimeva Montesquieu nel XVIII secolo a proposito della separazione dei poteri, principio cardine del costituzionalismo liberale sul quale si basa anche l 'assetto istituzionale statunitense.

This article critically discusses the normative definition of liberal-democratic constitutional theory, by focusing on some of the most significant authors. After a brief introduction, the first section engages normative constitutional theory by recalling John Rawls' political liberalism and its fundamentals (liberal principle of legitimacy, public reason, the role of the Supreme Court). Rawlsian arguments will be confronted with two alternative liberal-democratic proposals: Bruce Ackerman's understanding of dualist democracy and Ronald Dworkin's foundationalist position. Moreover, the second section illustrates two different, albeit normative, liberal-democratic proposals: Frank Michelman's post-Rawlsian political liberalism and Luigi Ferrajoli's substantial defence of democracy. This section aims at highlighting similarities between these two models and the theoretical and philosophical-political points they have in common. Eventually, Ferrajoli's constitutionalism will be discussed, by articulating an analysis of the current crisis of the liberal-democratic model.

This is the case brief my partner and I wrote for the Carpenter v. United States Supreme Court case for our American Constitutional Law class. We wrote this brief on behalf of the petitioner, Timothy Carpenter. The relevant question presented is whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cell phone records revealing the location and movements of a cell phone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment. We argue that the time is ripe for the Supreme Court to consider how the third-party doctrine should not aply to cellphones and records detailing CSLI. In other words, we argue that pre-digital cases pertaining to the third-party doctrine do not govern this case. We also assert that seizing or searching cell site location information (CSLI) is unreasonable without a warrant.

Sommario: 1. Premessa. 2. Un'analisi preliminare delle presidenziali del 2016. 3. Le due fasi del processo di elezione del Presidente: la fase intra-partitica. 4. Il compromesso in fase costituente e l'adozione del metodo del collegio elettorale: la fase inter-partitica. 5. La selezione dei Grandi Elettori a livello statale.

Credible, verifiable reports on covertly supported violent conflicts in Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar and Solomon Islands are cited as examples of US illegal  interventions designed to slow down China’s efforts to bring infrastructure development to some of the world’s least developed nations and regions. Though the G7 promised to work together to provide help to underdeveloped nations, they have failed to do and instead keep exporting covert aggression and weapons. Examinations of specific individuals and mechanisms of corruption behind the American now digitalized Oz-like information curtain protecting the most corrupt politicians and intelligence chiefs in world history, and laws prohibiting such activities are presented. This article illuminates the incredible stupidity, infinite cruelty, and absolute wastefulness of war – and how saturation-level corruption in the US government is dragging the world back into the Age of Reptiles. It is concluded that hatred of “the other” is not a sustainable ideology conducive to the long-term survival of any individual, nation or civilization. At the end of this article are references relating to the psychology of prejudice and casual cruelty today’s western political leadership would be wise to reflect upon.

Nella sua celebre commedia, rappresentata per la prima volta a Londra nel 1895, Oscar Wilde mette in luce attraverso il ricorso ad un arguto espediente linguistico la vacuità dell'attaccamento della società vittoriana all'apparenza. Nel redigere questo contributo, dedicato alle novità di carattere politico-costituzionale che hanno interessato l'ordinamento statunitense nell'ultimo quadrimestre del 2019, il richiamo a questa rinomata opera della letteratura inglese mi è parso felice. Com'è noto, il paradosso linguistico attorno al quale il genio di Wilde costruisce la divertente trama della sua commedia è dato dall'aggettivo "earnest" (la cui traduzione in lingua italiana è quella di "serio, affidabile, onesto") e il nome proprio "Ernest". Da lungo tempo gli studiosi sottolineano come la discussa ascesa di Donald Trump alla Casa Bianca non sia altro che il sintomo di un malanno che affligge lungamente l'ordinamento statunitense, le cui cause sono da rintracciarsi, sul piano interno, principalmente nella difficoltà manifesta del Congresso di reagire a quella che ormai è una più che decennale fase di preminenza della Presidenza e nello sbandamento dei partiti politici tradizionali, attraversati da forti divisioni interne e segnati dall'inadeguatezza nell'individuare leadership carismatiche che non strizzino l'occhio al populismo. Sul piano internazionale, la progressiva perdita di egemonia, da tempo avviata in ragione dello spostamento degli  Contributo sottoposto a peer review.  Dottore di ricerca in Teoria dello Stato e istituzioni politiche comparate. Sapienza, Università di Roma. N