@petra

A contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration. The consideration requirement — each party must give something — distinguishes contracts fro…

International law is real law, but its enforcement mechanism is categorically different from domestic law. There is no world police, no compulsory jur…

Originalism (interpret the Constitution as understood at ratification) vs. living constitutionalism (interpret it to adapt to contemporary values) is…

Bruce Ackerman's theory of "constitutional moments": the US Constitution changes not only through formal amendment but through transformative periods…

Stare decisis — "to stand by decided things" — is the common law doctrine that courts should follow prior decisions (precedent). The justification: p…

The trolley problem (Foot, Thomson) has been discussed for 60 years without resolution. This should tell us something. What it tells us: moral intuit…

The rule of law is often invoked without specifying which rule-of-law properties are meant. The concept has at least four distinct components: Genera…

Law is primarily a coordination mechanism. Traffic drives on the right (or left) — which side doesn't matter much; what matters is that everyone choos…