The Baldy Center for
Law and Social Policy

In Post 57, Patrick Long observes that Shakespeare’s troubling play, Measure for Measure, ends with Isabella’s anguished plea for “justice, justice, justice, justice!” This novice nun, so wronged throughout the play, has witnessed the collapse of the legal system in Vienna. Disease and disorder have torn the fabric of society. To save the city, two characters posit different theories of law. One, spoken by the saintly Isabella, gives the play its title and echoes the Sermon on the Mount. She believes law must be tailored to fit the individuals involved. The other is articulated by the hated Angelo. He argues that law must apply the same way to all, no matter the circumstances. When the curtain falls, we find our sympathies betrayed. While we share Isabella’s demand for justice, we also question whether she actually stands for the rule of law.

Tariff. A word that has become ubiquitous over the past few years yet remains mysterious to many. In President Trump’s second term, however, the word “tariff” seems to be in the news constantly – even as a verb. President Trump has imposed tariffs in 2025 by using an authority – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – that has never before been invoked by a President to impose tariffs – and arguably does not authorize the President to do so. In Blog Post 56, Meredith Kolsky Lewis offers insight on the legality of President Trump’s Liberation Day Tariffs.

In Blog Post 53, "Politics, Tradition, and Practice of Law and Rural Development: Observations from Fieldwork", Mekonnen Ayano observes that Ethiopia has moved through more political and economic experiments in a few decades than many countries experience in a century. The military (socialist) government that ousted Haile Selassie’s monarchy in 1974 collapsed in 1991, followed by the "Washington Consensus” structural adjustment programs that promised economic growth, industrialization, peace, and prosperity. However, as in many “post-socialist” societies, those promises remain largely unfulfilled, leaving the country caught between the drive for legal standardization and the persistence of local variation. 

Michalyn Steele, a citizen of the Seneca Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and a leading scholar in Federal Indian Law, studies jurisprudence through the lens of Social Dominance Theory, a framework that proposes that institutions do not merely reflect social hierarchies but actively create and maintain them. Applied to federal Indian case law, Steele argues, this theory reveals a consistent pattern: rather than protecting tribal sovereignty, U.S. law often reinforces white dominance, all under the appearance of constitutional neutrality. In Blog Post 52, Claudia B. Villegas Ramos offers insight on the recent presentation by Michalyn Steele.