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Varieties of Vagueness

Culver, Keith C
June 4, 2015

Source: (2004) University of Toronto Law Journal. 54(1):109-127.

Reviewing Timothy A. O. Endicott’s Vagueness in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Keith Culver echoes the book’s title in stating that laws are often vague and that they are vague for a variety of reasons. Vagueness in laws yields a paradox, at a minimum, with respect to the determinacy demand intrinsic to the rule of law – namely, the requirement that laws be framed in a way that makes them capable of being obeyed. Culver explores, in interaction with Endicott and other writers, the many attempts to understand and resolve the tension between the existence of vagueness in laws and the requirements of the rule of law.

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