Amending the Amendment Procedures of Article V

Until the 1950s, Swedish cross-country skiers relied on natural training. But in the wake of failure at the 1952 Winter Olympics, the Swedish Ski Federation initiated a scientification of training. They sought aid from physiologists to “rationalize” the training of elite skiers. But the advocates of natural training resisted this new, scientific model. A battle was fought between the two sides, and a number of different power strategies were used by the federation and the physiologists to promote scientific training. In this article, the battle between different training regimes is analyzed using theories of power and sportification. The article concludes that the shift towards rational training during the period 1948-1972 was part of a larger rationalization of Swedish society. And the relative slowness of implementation was due to a lack of professionalization (of coaches). Rationalization should therefore be seen as one of the later stages of sportification. QC 20150114Rationell träning: Vetenskapliggörandet av träning för längdskidåknin

Copyright Easements

When authors assign the copyright in their work to publishers, some productive uses of the work are impeded. The author loses opportunities to use or to authorize others to use the work unless the publisher consents; the publisher does not permit all uses of the work that the author would like or that would benefit a consuming audience. Copyright easements can solve the problem. Under a system of copyright easements, an easement holder would have designated rights in a creative work that would permit uses of the work that would ordinarily require permission of the copyright owner. If the author later assigns the copyright to a publisher, the copyright is held subject to the rights of the easement holder. The easement thus ties the author’s own hands: the author can no longer assign an unfettered copyright—and the publisher can no longer ask for it—because of the existence of the easement holder’s interests in the work. Copyright easements can protect the ability of authors, after they assign the copyright, and of others, to make productive uses of works in ways that are unlikely to affect the publisher’s economic interests. Copyright easements can also ensure that uses of works that do not require a copyright owner’s permission but which publishers frequently seek to prevent, such as fair uses, could occur more easily. Copyright easements thus benefit authors and the public alike. These benefits can be easily and immediately produced without any change to the Copyright Act

Above Politics: Congress and the Supreme Court in 2017

The Supreme Court figured prominently in the November 2016 elections because of the vacancy on the Court that resulted from the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. This Essay picks up the story by examining the place of the Supreme Court in national politics during 2017. It traces congressional efforts to respond to statutory and constitutional rulings by the Court as well as steps to regulate the operations of the Court and the work of the Justices. Although in 2017 Republicans and Democrats introduced numerous bills directed at the Court, these bills were generally modest in scope and, even so, did not make it through the legislative process by the close of the year. The Supreme Court prides itself on being above politics in the sense that it is guided solely by the rule of law. The 2017 experience suggests the Court may be above politics in a quite different sense: that it is beyond the reach of the political process and can decide cases with little risk of response from Congress

The Commandeerer in Chief

As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, federalism can impede the government\u27s ability to plan for and respond to emergencies. Many emergencies transcend federalist divisions of power and responsibility, rendering unclear which level of government should respond. In addition, while emergencies may require a coordinated response by heal, state, and national government, getting different levels of government to work together in times of crises is difficult. Further, even when states and localities call for outside assistance, they tend to resist undue federal interference in their affairs;a national government that lacks experience working with local actors on the ground can find it difficult to implement relief programs. Given the widely recognized failures of the government\u27s response to Katrina and the urgent need for reform, some federal officials have proposed that, in a future emergency, rather than try to work with state and local response personnel, the federal government should simply deploy the military to take over the relief effort. This Article presents an alternative solution: emergency commandeering. This solution would allow the federal government, when it responds to certain kinds of emergencies, to call into periods of mandatory federal service the emergency response personnel of the state in which the emergency occurs, and, if necessary, emergency response personnel from other states. These state employees—police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, urban search and rescue teams, and public health specialists—would serve with compensation under the command of the President. Emergency commandeering allows the national government to mount an effective response, one that draws upon the skills and experiences of state and local personnel, without the hindrance of multiple command structures or other forms of state and local resistance. Emergency commandeering is authorized by the Constitution, consistent with federalism, and, compared to the alternative of sending the military into our streets, good for democracy. Cedant arma togae.—Cicero(FN1) Reprinted by permission of the publisher