Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Slamming the Door on Trade Policy Discretion? The WTO Appellate Body’s Ruling on Market Distortions and Production Costs in EU–Biodiesel (Argentina)

Abstract: This paper presents a legal–economic analysis of the Appellate Body's decision in EU–Biodiesel (Argentina) that the WTO's Anti-Dumping Agreement (ADA) does not permit countries to take into account government-created price distortions of major inputs when calculating anti-dumping duties. In this case, the EU made adjustments to the price of biodiesel's principal input – soybeans – in determining the cost of production of biodiesel in Argentina. The adjustment was made based on the uncontested finding that the price of soybeans in Argentina was distorted by the existence of an export tax scheme that resulted in artificially low soybean prices. The Appellate Body found that the EU was not permitted to take tax policy-induced price distortions into account in calculating dumping margins. We analyze the economic rationale for Argentina's export tax system, distortions in biodiesel markets in Argentina and the EU, and the remaining trade policy options for addressing distorted international prices. We also assess whether existing subsidies disciplines would be more effective in addressing this problem and conclude that they would not.

Public Health Law in an Age of Terrorism: Re-thinking Individual Rights and Common Goods

Abstract: The balance between individual interests and common goods needs to be recalibrated in an age of terrorism. Public health agencies should have a robust infrastructure to conduct essential public health services at a level of performance that matches evolving threats to the health. This includes a well-trained workforce, electronic information, surveillance, and laboratory capacity. Public health preparedness also requires a sound legal infrastructure. This article presents and defends the provisions of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). The Center for Law and the Public's Health at the request of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and in collaboration with governors, legislators, attorneys general, and public health officials wrote the MSEHPA. First, this article explains the provisions of MSEHPA. The MSEHPA has been adopted in whole or part in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Second, this article shows why extant public health laws provide a weak foundation for public health practice. They are obsolete, inconsistent, and inadequate from a public health and civil liberties perspective. State legislation does not facilitate, and may even impede, all of the critical variables for public health preparedness. Finally, the article offers a systematic defense of MSEHPA. The Model Act has galvanized the public debate around the appropriate balance between public goods and individual rights. This defense shows how the Model Act creates strong public health powers, while safeguarding individual freedoms (adopting clearer standards and more rigorous procedures than existing statutes). In a country to tied to rights rhetoric, any law reform initiative that has the appearance of strengthening governmental authority is bound to travel in tumultuous political waters.

The Islamic State’s Pattern of Sexual Violence: Ideology and Institutions, Policies and Practices

Abstract: The Islamic State, which controlled significant territory in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017, engaged in a wide repertoire of violence against civilians living in these areas. Despite extensive media coverage and scholarly attention, the determinants of this pattern of violence remain poorly understood. We argue that, contrary to a widespread assumption that the Islamic State wielded violence indiscriminately, it systematically targeted different social groups with distinct forms of violence, including sexual violence. Our theory focuses on ideology, suggesting it is a necessary element of explanations of patterns of violence on the part of many armed actors. Ideologies, to varying extent, prescribe organizational policies that order or authorize particular forms of violence against specific social groups and institutions that regulate the conditions under which they occur. We find support for our theory in the case of sexual violence by the Islamic State by triangulating between several types of qualitative data: official documents; social media data generated by individuals in or near Islamic State-controlled areas; interviews with Syrians and Iraqis who have knowledge of the organization’s policies including victims of violence and former Islamic State combatants; and secondary sources including local Arabic-language newspapers. Consistent with our theory, we find that the organization adopted ideologically motivated policies that authorized certain forms of sexual violence, including sexual slavery and child marriage. Forms of violence that violated organizational policies but were nonetheless tolerated by many commanders also occurred and we find evidence of two such practices: gang rape of Yazidi women and forced marriage of Sunni Muslim women.

Hamdan V. Rumsfeld: The Legal Academy Goes to Practice

Abstract: This essay, for the annual Supreme Court issue of the Harvard Law Review, uses Hamdan to illustrate why the disparagement of theory in law schools is partially wrong. By examining a few of the litigation choices made in the case, it demonstrates some of the benefits of theory to practice. At least three different theoretical tools were involved in Hamdan: (1) cognitive psychological research on framing effects and bias toward compromise; (2) theoretical inquiry into the timing of Supreme Court litigation and the passive virtues; and (3) economic analysis of penalty default rules and political science research on the veto. The study of such tools in law schools is widely - and incorrectly - believed irrelevant to practice. At the same time, it is easy to overstate the case for theory, as contemporary legal scholars frequently do. The truth is that very few top law schools today prepare all of their students to be lawyers. Some lessons along this dimension from the Hamdan case are explored as well, including the teaching of lawyering skills. The essay also analyzes the implications of the Hamdan decision, concentrating on two central holdings: (a) the President cannot set aside or creatively interpret laws of Congress under claims of inherent authority, and (b) treaties ratified by the Senate constrain the exercise of executive power, and the President does not have unfettered ability to interpret such treaties as he chooses. As to (A), the most important doctrinal lesson of Hamdan is its repudiation of the claim that the President is entitled to act alone. Indeed, Hamdan stands as a defining moment in constitutional law because it integrates the modern communication and transportation revolution into constitutional analysis. As to (B), the Court's decision might best be explained on the ground that the President lacked support not only from Congress, but also from the executive branch's own experts. Hamdan second-guessed the President's interpretations on this view because those interpretations had not earned the approval of the bureaucracy, including the Judge Advocates General and the State Department. Through bypassing the interagency process, and squelching expertise under the aegis of political accountability, the Administration weakened the rationale for deference all on its own.

Health Insurance: Market Failure or Government Failure?

Abstract: Health insurance is once again on the policy agenda, and it is deja vu all over again. There are the same statistics and anecdotes about the uninsured. There are the same reports by government agencies, think tanks, and do-gooder organizations. There are the same policy entrepreneurs, pushing old wine in new (and not so new) bottles, based on the same appeals to social solidarity, self-interest, or both. The interest groups are back in force as well. Reform proposals are also being pushed by all the usual suspects. The reform proposals vary in their specificity, but all (either implicitly or explicitly) identify the source of the problem as market failure - and promise new regulations and more taxes to fix the problem. This article makes the case that government failure should occupy center-stage in understanding how things came to look the way they do. Rather than market failure, it is our inefficient and perverse regulation of health insurance that should be the focus of our ire, and of regulatory reform.