The New Haven Approach
The New Haven Approach to analyzing and resolving societal problems of all kinds has been developed in the 20th century at the Yale Law School by Professors Myres S. McDougal, Harold D. Lasswell, and W. Michael Reisman.1 It defines law as an ongoing process of authoritative and controlling decision in any given community. As one of its principal representatives, Professor Siegfried Wiessner, has stated, this innovative approach views the proper role of a lawyer as a "doctor of the social order." As such, he or she has to delimit and analyze a problem from the perspective of all relevant disciplines, true to their respective methods, ideally in teamwork with the respective experts, and to identify the conflicting claims, claimants, their perspectives, identifications, and bases of power, before explaining the past trends in decision - legal responses to the conflicting claims couched in the form of statutes, court decisions, treaties, etc. – in the light of their conditioning factors, be they environmental or predispositional. Projecting future decisions then precedes the appraisal of those decisions, both past and future, the invention of alternatives, and the development of recommendations guided by the ideal of a world order of human dignity in which the closest possible realization of the aspirations of all is achieved.
This intellectual framework is universal in its applicability and its values.2 It has been applied in the elaboration of the 2005 Miami Declaration of Principles on Human Trafficking,3 and developed in greater scholarly detail by the facilitator of that Declaration, Professor Roza Pati.4 It lies at the foundation of this interdisciplinary Spring School on Human Trafficking, Public Health and the Law.
Literature
[1] For details, see Harold D. Lasswell & Myres S. McDougal, Jurisprudence for a Free Society: Studies in Law, Science and Policy (1992); W. Michael Reisman, Siegfried Wiessner & Andrew R. Willard, The New Haven School: A Brief Introduction, 32 Yale Journal of International Law 575 (2007).
[2] Siegfried Wiessner, The New Haven School of Jurisprudence: A Universal Toolkit for Understanding and Shaping the Law, 18 Asia Pacific Law Review 45 (2010).
[3] 1 Intercultural Human Rights Law Review 11 (2006); cf. Roza Pati, The Miami Declaration of Principles on Human Trafficking: Its Genesis and Purpose, 1 Intercultural Human Rights Law Review 5 (2006).
[4] Roza Pati, Trading in Humans: A New Haven Perspective, 20 Asia Pacific Law Review 135 (2012).