Professional Commentary

Jack Balkin, Yale Law School:"From Newsday:Departing Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday lashed out at federal judges who have dealt setbacks to President George W. Bush's anti-terrorism and wartime policies, accusing them of "invasive oversight and micromanagement.""The danger I see...

Peter Friedman, Case Western Reserve Law School:"Alberto Gonzalez, the nominee to be chief law enforcement officer of the land, prepared 57 confidential memos on the merits of granting death-row inmates clemency. 56 of the inmates were executed. As Philip Carter...

Joost Pauwelyn, Duke Law School :"This is a true David against Goliath story. This dispute illustrates once more how deep WTO commitments penetrate the regulatory powers of its member countries.Under...

John Norton Moore, University of Virginia Law School:"As a matter of national honor we owe a special debt to our prisoners of war. Surely this country also should adhere to treaty obligations that are designed to deter torture of our...

Jack Balkin, Yale Law School: "There are two reasons why Bush might have nominated Gonzales to be Attorney General. The first is that he is grooming him for a further appointment to the Supreme Court. The second is that he...

Erwin Chemerinsky, Duke Law School:"It is hard to imagine a more conservative or more repressive attorney general than John Ashcroft. The Ashcroft Justice Department took the unprecedented position that the government could hold human beings, including American citizens, forever as...

Stephen Bainbridge, UCLA School of Law:"Cruising around the blogosphere, one notes proposals that John Ashcroft be replaced by as Attorney General such legitimate luminaries as Randy Barnett or Fred Thompson. Sorry, guys. Blogospheric prognostication has proved fallible. Bush just went...

Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law:"he White House may be thinking of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as the next Attorney General.That would be the same Gonzales who is up to his eye teeth in not just...

Peter Henning, Wayne State University Law School:"On Tuesday, November 9, the jury in the Enron/Merrill Lynch trial concluded that the loss caused by the defendants' fraudulent misconduct was $13.7 million. A story in the Houston Chronicle (Nov. 10, 2004) reviews...

Larry Ribstein, University of Illinois College of Law:"The SEC announced yesterday rulemaking initiatives aimed at so-called "self-regulatory organizations" such as stock exchanges. These include specific proposals to change the rules on ownership, governance, reporting and transparency by these organizations. The...