Poverty Law Prof Blog

Harvard Law Review Note: Never Again Should A People Starve in A World of Plenty

A new Harvard Law Review Note of interest: Never Again Should A People Starve in A World of Plenty, 121 Harv. L. Rev. 1886 (2008). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Article: The Internationalization of Public Interest Law

An article of interest that places great weight on immigration to explain a change in public interest law... Scott L. Cummings, The Internationalization of Public Interest Law, 57 Duke L.J. 891 (2008).  Abstract below:

This Article is an account of profound changes in the organization and practice of public interest law that have emerged over the past 25 years against the backdrop of globalization. Its central claim is that as the United States has become more globally interdependent, the institutional context of public interest law has been transformed, elevating transnational mobility as a basic feature of legal practice. The Article specifically examines three vectors of global change that have reshaped the terrain of US public interest law: the increasing magnitude and scope of undocumented immigration; the growth of free trade and its governing institutions; and the heightened political influence of human rights. It suggests that each of these trends has contributed to important institutional revisions within the US public interest system: the rise of immigrant rights as a distinctive category of public interest practice; the emergence of transnational advocacy as a response to the impact of US economic policy abroad; and the movement to promote domestic human rights, both as a way to resist the deregulatory thrust of market integration at home and to defend civil rights and civil liberties in the face of domestic conservatism and the War on Terror. After mapping the institutional scope and density of these changes, the Article appraises their influence on the goals public interest lawyers pursue, the tactics they deploy, and the professional roles they assume in the modern era.

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu

Article of Interest: Child Support Harming Children

A paper that got mailed to me may be of general interest: Daniel L. Hatcher, Child Support Harming Children: Subordinating the Best Interests of Children to the Fiscal Interests of the State, 42 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1029 (2007) [it is not yet up on Wake Forest's page, but it is on SSRN].  A related article is: Erik Eckholm, "Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support," NY Times, Dec. 1, 2007.  The abstract is below:

This Article examines the government policy of seeking reimbursement of welfare costs through child support enforcement. Under our welfare program, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), custodial parents applying for benefits are required to establish child support obligations against the absent parents and to assign the resulting child support payments to the government. As a result, half of the $105 billion in national child support debt is owed to the government rather than to children. The government's fiscal interests are in direct conflict with the best interests of the children - the controlling legal standard in child support matters. The conflict results in legal confusion, and the welfare cost recovery efforts harm children, families and society. Children in welfare families struggling to become self-sufficient lose out as their support payments are redirected to the government. Fragile relationships between mothers, fathers and children are often broken. The fiscal benefit to the government is minimal, at best. And the social fabric is torn, as significant numbers of welfare fathers retreat from the workforce and their families. This Article thoroughly examines the conflict and resulting legal and policy questions. The Article explores the history of the competing interests and purposes of child support in America, describes the framework and impact of the current government welfare cost recovery system, addresses the long ignored and unresolved legal questions that result from the conflicting missions, and concludes with suggestions for reform including the Article's primary conclusion that welfare cost recovery is a failed effort - and should therefore end.

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu