Conference on Federalism and Sovereignty at St. John's Law School

This Friday, March 3, 2006, St. John’s Law School will host a conference entitled Federalism Past, Federalism Future: A Constitutional Law Symposium. The full brochure is available here and the symposium papers will be published this spring in a 20th anniversary issue of the St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary.

The Conference will have well-known Constitutional Law luminaries, such as Akhil Amar, Michael Dorf, and William VanAlstyne, but what may be of greatest interest to Opinio Juris readers will be a paper presented by (lesser-known but no less great) ConLaw scholar Tim Zick, one of my colleagues at St. John’s. Over a series of papers, Tim has been working at “unpacking” the concept of sovereignty, particularly in how we conceive of the sovereignty of states of the U.S. by analogy to the sovereignty of countries and also to individual rights (a recent article, entitled Are the States Sovereign?, is available here). He will present a paper at the conference entitled Active Sovereignty that will consider, among other things, the law and practice of states of the U.S. undertaking foreign relations.

It should be a very interesting day and I hope to see many of you there.

Federalism Past, Federalism Future:
A Constitutional Law Symposium

Friday, March 3, 2006

St. John’s University School of Law
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439

9:30 Registration/breakfast reception


10:00 Opening Remarks

Mary C. Daly
Dean & John V. Brennan Chair of Law and Ethics, St. John’s University School of Law


10:05 Opening Lecture

"Federalism Over the Centuries: The State Constitutional Backdrop of the Federal Constitution"
Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law, Yale Law School


10:30 Book Signing

America’s Constitution: A Biography (Random House, 2005)
Akhil Reed Amar


10:50 Panel I: Federalism Past: The Current State of the “Revolution”

"Facts on the Ground and Federalism in the Air:
The Solicitor General's Effort to Defend Federal Statutes During the Federalism Revival"
Barbara D. Underwood
Counsel to the United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York;
formerly both Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States and Acting Solicitor General of the United States

"Was the Recent Federalism Revival Really About the States?"
Preeta D. Bansal
Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP;
former Solicitor General of the State of New York

"On Winning Wars Without Fighting Battles: Rethinking the Supreme Court's Federalism Revival"
Neal Devins
Goodrich Professor of Law, Professor of Government &
Director, Institute of Bill of Rights Law, College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law

"The 'Federalism Five' as Supreme Court Nominees: Where Was the Federalism?"
John Q. Barrett
Professor, St. John’s University School of Law &
Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow, Robert H. Jackson Center


12:15 Lunch

"A Journalist's Take on the Supreme Court"

Jeffrey Toobin
Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Senior Legal Analyst, CNN


1:30 Panel II: Federalism Future: the prospects for future revolutions

"Whose Ox Is Being Gored? When Attitudinalism Meets Federalism"
Michael C. Dorf
Michael I. Sovern Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

"Stop Federalism Before It Kills Again: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina"
Stephen M. Griffin
Rutledge C. Clement, Jr. Professor in Constitutional Law, Tulane Law School

"A Brief Memorial Tribute to the Short-Lived Revival of Federalism Review in the Supreme Court"
William W. Van Alstyne
Lee Professor of Law, College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law

"Active Sovereignty"
Timothy Zick
Associate Professor, St. John’s University School of Law


3:10 Closing Reception