Bill Watson (@billwatson-law.bsky.social)

Varsava & Watson on Originalism and the General Law Nina Varsava (University of Wisconsin Law School) & Bill Watson (University of Illinois College of Law) have posted Originalism's General-Law Turn on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Originalists are increasingly turning to a general-law theory of constitutional rights. Under this theory, constitutional enactment declared but did not create constitutional rights. The content of those rights was, and remains, a question of general law—a species of unwritten law, commonly employed at the Founding, that transcends jurisdictional boundaries. https://legaltheoryblog.com/2025/12/12/varsava-watson-on-originalism-and-the-general-law/