Showing papers by "Joseph Blocher published in 2006"

Building on Custom: Land Tenure Policy and Economic Development in Ghana

Abstract: This Note addresses the intersection of customary and statutory land law in the land tenure policy of Ghana. It argues that improving the current land tenure policy demands integration of customary land law and customary authorities into the statutory system. After describing why and how customary property practices are central to the economic viability of any property system, the Note gives a brief overview of Ghana’s customary and statutory land law. The Note concludes with specific policy suggestions about how Ghana could better draw on the strength of its customary land sector.

Combatant Status Review Tribunals: Flawed Answers to the Wrong Question

Abstract: This Comment argues that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were not competent to deny Prisoner of War status because they were charged only with identifying enemy combatants, a broad category that by its own terms includes many POWs. Given the substantial overlap between the definitions of "enemy combatant" and "POW," a CSRT's affirmative enemy combatant determination actually supports a detainee's POW status. Thus, even after their enemy combatant status has been adjudicated by the CSRTs, Guantanamo detainees should still be treated as presumptive POWs.

Selling the Name on the Schoolhouse Gate : The First Amendment and the Sale of Public School Naming Rights

Abstract: In the past fi ve years, the sale of naming rights to public school events and facilities has grown from fodder for humor columnists into a nationwide, multimillion-dollar enterprise.1 And although commercialism in schools is nothing new, granting naming rights to public school facilities in exchange for remuneration raises novel and diffi cult First Amendment problems that schools and their attorneys will fi nd increasingly diffi cult to ignore.2 Th e basic First Amendment issue arises out of schools’ understandable desire to choose the sponsors whose names will adorn their facilities or events. In the past, naming rights mostly involved “safe” sponsors like grocery stories and banks. But these days the fi rst would-be sponsor to show up with a check may not be as innocuous as the local grocer. For example, to the many schools that have recently taken stands against the in-school sale of soft drinks and junk food as a way to address concerns about childhood obesity, CocaCola and Nestle may be sponsors non grata.3 Moreover,

Private Business as Public Good: Hotel Development and Kelo

Abstract: In the summer of 2004, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. announced plans to demolish the all-but-derelict New Haven Coliseum and replace it with a publicly financed redevelopment that would include a 300-room hotel. Critics of the plan immediately objected that the hotel - even if it were completed - was a poor public investment, that there was no demand for such a hotel, and that the money could be better spent elsewhere. Some critics pointed to New Haven's own checkered history of major development projects, especially the failed downtown mall and the famously catastrophic Oak Street redevelopment. As of February 2006, the city was still considering variations on the hotel plan, though a report from the city's own Office of Economic Development suggested that the proposal was not financially viable without subsidies from the city. Just a few blocks from the site where DeStefano sought to build a new hotel, two other prominent buildings bear mute witness to New Haven's past development follies: the Omni Hotel of New Haven (formerly known as the Park Plaza) and the Hotel Taft. Together, the two remain the most towering figures in New Haven's hotel history, and their interwoven stories have much to say about the relationship between the hotel industry, the city, and the "public" benefits of private businesses. This Note tells the story of New Haven's well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous attempts to revitalize its hotel industry, and relates that story to the current nationwide debate about the scope of state and federal eminent domain power. The history of New Haven hotels demonstrates that similar public redevelopment projects are unlikely to provide benefits sufficient to outweigh their significant costs. This history thus offers a valuable lesson both for legislators working to limit the use of eminent domain in their states, and for New Haven itself, as the city struggles to decide how to fill the void left by the Coliseum's destruction.