Peter L. Strauss

Last updated

Peter L. Strauss (born February 26, 1940) is an American lawyer, author and academic who is the Betts Professor of Law Emeritus at Columbia Law School.

Contents

Strauss taught courses in Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Family Law, Legal Education, Legal Methods, and Legislation and the Regulatory State. He is the author of several legal textbooks and has served as an attorney with the U.S Government.

Background

After graduating Harvard College (1961) and Yale Law School (1964), Strauss spent two years clerking for federal judges in Washington, D.C., and two years lecturing on criminal law at the national university of Ethiopia. Returning to the United States, he spent the next three years as an attorney in the Office of the Solicitor General, briefing and arguing cases before the United States Supreme Court. Strauss joined the faculty at Columbia Law School in 1971, and taught there until the fall of 2021. During 1975 to 1977, he became the first General Counsel of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Publications

Strauss's published works include Administrative Justice in the United States (1989, 2002 and 2016); Gellhorn's & Byse's Administrative Law: Cases and Comments (most recently, 2018, with Rakoff, Metzger, O'Connor and Barron); Legal Methods: Understanding and Using Cases and Statutes (2005, 2008, and 2014); Legislation, Understanding and Using Statutes (2006), Administrative Law Stories (2006) and numerous law review articles, generally focusing on issues of rule making, separation of powers (with particular attention to presidential authority), and statutory interpretation. He also edited the English translation of the traditional Ethiopian Codex, The Fetha Nagast = The Law of the Kings (1968), [1] translated by Abba Paulos Tzadua, later made Cardinal of the Catholic Church.

Recognitions

In 1987 the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association presented Strauss its third annual award for distinguished scholarship in administrative law for his essay “The Place of Agencies in Government: Separation of Powers and the Fourth Branch." [2] In 1992 to 1993, he served as Chair of the Section. He has been reporter for rulemaking on its APA and European Union Administrative Law projects, and was a member of its E-Rulemaking task force. In 2008, the American Constitution Society awarded Strauss the first Richard Cudahy prize for his essay "Overseer or 'The Decider'? The President in Administrative Law." [3] He is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Senior Fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Strauss has visited at the European University Institute, Harvard and NYU, and lectured widely on American administrative law abroad, including programs in Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Mexico, Turkey, the UK, and Venezuela. During 2008 to 2009 he was Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European Law Institute and Parsons fellow at the University of Sydney Law School.

See also

Related Research Articles

In administrative law, rulemaking is the process that executive and independent agencies use to create, or promulgate, regulations. In general, legislatures first set broad policy mandates by passing statutes, then agencies create more detailed regulations through rulemaking.

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 435 U.S. 519 (1978), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a court cannot impose rulemaking procedures on a federal government agency. The federal Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 and an agency's statutory mandate from Congress establish the maximum requirements for an agency's rulemaking process. An agency may grant additional procedural rights in the regulatory process. However, a reviewing court cannot "impose upon the agency its own notion of which procedures are 'best' or most likely to further some vague, undefined public good"; to do so would exceed the limits of judicial review of agency action.

United States federal administrative law encompasses statutes, regulations, rules, common law rulings, and directives issued by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Executive Office of the President, that together define the extent of powers and responsibilities held by administrative agencies of the United States government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. federal government cannot always directly perform their constitutional responsibilities. Specialized powers are therefore delegated to an agency, board, or commission. These administrative governmental bodies oversee and monitor activities in complex areas, such as commercial aviation, medical device manufacturing, and securities markets.

A regulatory agency or independent agency is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulating capacity.

The Fetha Negest is a theocratic legal code compiled around 1240 by the Coptic Egyptian Christian writer Abu'l-Fada'il ibn al-Assal in Arabic. It was later translated into Ge'ez in Ethiopia in the 15th century and expanded upon with numerous local laws. Ibn al-Assal took his laws partly from apostolic writings, and partly from former law codes of the Byzantine rulers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Katzmann</span> American judge (1953–2021)

Robert Allen Katzmann was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He served as chief judge from September 1, 2013, to August 31, 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Coast Guard Legal Division</span>

The Coast Guard Judge Advocate General oversees the delivery of legal services to the United States Coast Guard, through the Office of the Judge Advocate General in Washington, the Legal Service Command, offices in the Atlantic and Pacific Areas, nine Coast Guard Districts, the Coast Guard Academy, three training centers, and a number of other activities and commands. Legal services are delivered by Coast Guard judge advocates and civilian counsel in ten legal practice areas: criminal law/military justice, operations, international activities, civil advocacy, environmental law, procurement law, internal organizational law, regulations and administrative law, legislative support and legal assistance.

The Administrative Law, Process and Procedure Project is a bipartisan undertaking of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. It consists of a comprehensive study of the state of administrative law, process and procedure in the United States. A description of the Project was included in the Judiciary Committee's Oversight Plan for the 109th Congress, as approved by the Committee on January 26, 2005. The Project will culminate with the preparation of a detailed report with recommendations for legislative proposals and suggested areas for further research and analysis to be considered by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) requested the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to assist Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (CAL), in conducting the Project.

Bernard Bell is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty Professor of Law and Herbert Hannoch Scholar at Rutgers School of Law–Newark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John F. Manning</span> American legal academic (born 1961)

John F. Manning is an American educator and lawyer. Manning is currently the Morgan and Helen Chu dean and professor of Harvard Law School.

Matthew Caleb Stephenson is the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he teaches he administrative law, legislation and regulation, anti-corruption law and the political economy of public law. His research interests include the application of positive political theory to public law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Administrative Procedure Act</span> US federal statute allowing courts oversight over agencies

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law  79–404, 60 Stat. 237, enacted June 11, 1946, is the United States federal statute that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations and it grants U.S. federal courts oversight over all agency actions. According to Hickman & Pierce, it is one of the most important pieces of United States administrative law, and serves as a sort of "constitution" for U.S. administrative law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paulos Tzadua</span>

Paulos Tzadua was the first Ethiopian Cardinal. He served as Archbishop of Addis Abeba and was the head of the Ethiopian Catholic Church from 1977 to 1998.

The law of Virginia consists of several levels of legal rules, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, case law, and local laws. The Code of Virginia contains the codified legislation that define the general statutory laws for the Commonwealth.

The law of Texas is derived from the Constitution of Texas and consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory law, as well as case law and local laws and regulations.

The law of Illinois consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law, as well as case law and local law. The Illinois Compiled Statutes (ILCS) form the general statutory law.

The law of the U.S. state of Georgia consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law, as well as case law and local law. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated forms the general statutory law.

The law of Michigan consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory and case law. The Michigan Compiled Laws form the general statutory law.

The law of New Jersey consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, case law, and local law.

Primary legislation and secondary legislation are two forms of law, created respectively by the legislative and executive branches of governments in representative democracies. Primary legislation generally consists of statutes, also known as 'acts', that set out broad principles and rules, but may delegate specific authority to an executive branch to make more specific laws under the aegis of the principal act. The executive branch can then issue secondary legislation, creating legally enforceable regulations and the procedures for implementing them.

References

  1. The Fetha Nagast = The Law of the kings. Translated by Tzadua, Paulos. American edition: Durham, N.C: Carolina Academic Press. 2009. ISBN 9781594606618.
  2. 84 Columbia Law Review 573 (1984).
  3. 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 696 (2007).