Adrian Vermeule
Contra Nemo Iudex in Sua Causa: The Limits of Impartiality
122 Yale L.J. 384 (2012). Regularly invoked by the Supreme Court in diverse contexts, the maxim nemo iudex in sua causa—no man should be judge in his own case—is widely thought to capture a bedrock principle of natural justice and constitutionalism. I will argue that the nemo iudex principle is a misleading half-truth. Sometimes rulemakers in public law do and...
Chevron as a Voting Rule
116 Yale L.J. 676 (2007) In Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Supreme Court created a new framework for judicial deference to agency interpretations of law: courts should defer to an agency interpretation unless the relevant statute is clear or the agency interpretation is unreasonable. In the past two decades, however, the doctrinal Chevron framework has...
Legislative Entrenchment: A Reappraisal
111 Yale L.J. 1665 (2002) There is a principle of constitutional law holding that "one legislature may not bind the legislative authority of its successors." The Supreme Court recently discussed that principle at length in United States v. Winstar, and although the case was decided on other grounds, it is clear that the Court sees the principle as a constitutional...
Veil of Ignorance Rules in Constitutional Law
111 Yale L.J. 399 (2001) A veil of ignorance rule (more briefly a "veil rule") is a rule that suppresses self-interested behavior on the part of decisionmakers; it does so by subjecting the decisionmakers to uncertainty about the distribution of benefits and burdens that will result from a decision. A veil rule may produce this distributive uncertainty by either of...