The New Realism and Lawlessness in Kaleidoscope
When Harold Laski writes on the topic of Mr. Justice Holmes he draws upon nearly a lifetime of correspondence between them, a correspondence in which they critically shared and compared some of the leading and the emergent ideas of their time, including the theory of signs and the pragmatic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. It is from the writings of the patriarchs of pragmatism -- Peirce, James, Dewey -- that Holmes drew his major insights for the movement in Legal Realism of which he is the acclaimed founder, I claim. The Legal Realism which directly followed Holmes, mainly through the work of Garland, Frank, Llewellyn and others of that period, was not a unified movement; rather, it shared certain tenets which, in spite of the diversity of views among its spokesmen, can be thought of as a cohesive “school” or movement in American law.
Judges, Critics, and the Realist Tradition
In reviewing contemporary criticism of the constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court during the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Judge J. Skelly Wright1 characterized as the "scholarly tradition" a way of thinking about constitutional law that he found exemplified by the early Oliver Wendell Holmes lectures, the Harvard Law Review's annual Supreme Court forewords, and particularly the recent writings of Professor Alexander Bickel and Professor Philip B. Kurland.2 The judge's critique of the critics raises the question whether the criteria of this "scholarly tradition" are the proper measure either of constitutional law or of the performance of the Supreme Court. Characteristically, questions of constitutional law and questions of the role of the Supreme Court are generally treated as the same thing. This faithfully reflects the tradition of two generations of legal realism -the common core of tradition shared by most scholarship and most appellate judging today. The identity between the law in operation and the role of courts is a premise first year students absorb in such time-hallowed epigrams as Holmes's definition of law as a prophecy of what a court will do in fact,3 and Hughes's "the Constitution is what the judges say it is." 4 It is "the realist school of jurisprudence to which both sides of the alleged controversy over the Warren Court pretend to adhere" wrote Kurland,3 and Bickel devoted a brilliant opening chapter of The Supreme Court and the Idea of Progress to sketching the intellectual and political ascendancy of the "Progressive Realists" in constitutional law.0 But there is more to the scholarly tradition of legal realism than a facile derivation of law from the judicial function. Never a closely
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.