The Legal Pragmatism of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the Predictive Theory of Law

«Yo entiendo por “Derecho” las profecías acerca de lo que los tribunales harán en concreto; nada más ni nada menos». Con estas pocas palabras, Holmes, Jr. resumía su antiformalista Teoría predictiva del Derecho. Este artículo sostiene que dicha construcción fue pensada para el abogado practicante y que responde a la corriente filosófica pragmática, habiendo Holmes también recurrido ocasionalmente al pragmatismo para resolver casos difíciles en su rol de juez. Pero como el pragmatismo judicial ha sido tachado de antijurídico y amorfo –y, por ende, impredecible–, intentaré determinar hasta qué extremo este último es compatible con la idea de que la conducta de los jueces puede ser anticipada para así descubrir el contenido del Derecho.«The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law”. With these few words, Holmes, Jr. summarized his anti- formalistic Predictive Theory of the Law. This article claims that such construction was conceived for the practicing attorney and that it is the by-product of pragmatic philosophical thinking, having Holmes also occasionally resorted to pragmatism to decide hard cases as a judge. But since the pragmatic approach to judicial decision-making has been accused of being lawless and formless –thus unpredictable– I will try to determine to what extent the latter can be reconciled with the idea that a judge’s conduct may be anticipated so to discover the content of the law.Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociale

The Legal Pragmatism of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the Predictive Theory of Law

«Yo entiendo por “Derecho” las profecías acerca de lo que los tribunales harán en concreto; nada más ni nada menos». Con estas pocas palabras, Holmes, Jr. resumía su antiformalista Teoría predictiva del Derecho. Este artículo sostiene que dicha construcción fue pensada para el abogado practicante y que responde a la corriente filosófica pragmática, habiendo Holmes también recurrido ocasionalmente al pragmatismo para resolver casos difíciles en su rol de juez. Pero como el pragmatismo judicial ha sido tachado de antijurídico y amorfo –y, por ende, impredecible–, intentaré determinar hasta qué extremo este último es compatible con la idea de que la conducta de los jueces puede ser anticipada para así descubrir el contenido del Derecho.«The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law”. With these few words, Holmes, Jr. summarized his anti- formalistic Predictive Theory of the Law. This article claims that such construction was conceived for the practicing attorney and that it is the by-product of pragmatic philosophical thinking, having Holmes also occasionally resorted to pragmatism to decide hard cases as a judge. But since the pragmatic approach to judicial decision-making has been accused of being lawless and formless –thus unpredictable– I will try to determine to what extent the latter can be reconciled with the idea that a judge’s conduct may be anticipated so to discover the content of the law

Privatization of Inherently Governmental Functions

La delegacion de poderes entre los distintos departamentos del Gobierno ha sido un tema de recurrente y profundo analisis en nuestro ambito; en particular, el ejercicio de potestades legislativas por parte del Poder Ejecutivo. La delegacion de funciones inherentemente estatales a particulares, por su lado, ha recibido menos atencion. El presente trabajo intenta determinar que se debe entender por tales y, consecuentemente, si la transferencia de su ejercicio a manos privadas es tolerada por nuestro ordenamiento –y, en cuyo caso, bajo que circunstancias– a la luz de la doctrina de la no delegacion, la garantia al debido proceso y la forma democratica de gobierno.Interbranch delegation of powers has been an issue of deep and recurrent analysis in our field; particularly, the exercise of legislative powers by the Executive branch. Conversely, the delegation of inherently governmental functions to private parties has received less attention. This essay tries to determine what should be understood by such, and consequently, if the transfer of certain quintessential state matters to private hands is tolerated by our legal system –and if so, under what circumstances– in light of the non-delegation doctrine, due process of law and the democratic form of government.Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociale

Discovery of four recessive developmental disorders using probabilistic genotype and phenotype matching among 4,125 families.

Discovery of most autosomal recessive disease-associated genes has involved analysis of large, often consanguineous multiplex families or small cohorts of unrelated individuals with a well-defined clinical condition. Discovery of new dominant causes of rare, genetically heterogeneous developmental disorders has been revolutionized by exome analysis of large cohorts of phenotypically diverse parent-offspring trios. Here we analyzed 4,125 families with diverse, rare and genetically heterogeneous developmental disorders and identified four new autosomal recessive disorders. These four disorders were identified by integrating Mendelian filtering (selecting probands with rare, biallelic and putatively damaging variants in the same gene) with statistical assessments of (i) the likelihood of sampling the observed genotypes from the general population and (ii) the phenotypic similarity of patients with recessive variants in the same candidate gene. This new paradigm promises to catalyze the discovery of novel recessive disorders, especially those with less consistent or nonspecific clinical presentations and those caused predominantly by compound heterozygous genotypes

Opposition parties and the voters in South Africa's general election of 1999

Variance in partisan choice among South African voters can be predicted on the basis of what is known about the way voters see economic trends, evaluate government performance, perceive political parties, and rate party leaders. However, in this analysis it is demonstrated that factors related to racial divisions shape and filter how voters perceive political performance, and to some extent lead different voters to emphasize different performance criteria. But race does not affect the way voters make decisions. Thus, South Africa's opposition parties are weak not because black voters, the overwhelming majority of the electorate, operate with?a decision-making apparatus that emphasizes unity over performances or is hostile to pluralism and opposition. Rather, support for the African National Congress can be accounted for first, by positive ratings of its performance in government and second, by the fact that those black voters dissatisfied with the performance of the African National Congress (ANC) do not see a legitimate alternative among the existing opposition partie

Huile de palme rouge de Colombie : un équivalent tropical de l’huile d’olive

The characterisation of the studied columbian red palm oil (fatty acid composition, regiodistribution, solid content…) makes it a potential oil of speciality which may be passed for the tropical equivalent of olive oil