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.

The 'Normal' Successes and Failures of Feminism and the Criminal Law

Abstract: To write of feminist reform in the criminal law is to write of simultaneous success and failure. We have seen marked changes in the doctrines and the practice of rape law, domestic violence law, and the law of self-defense. There is not a criminal law casebook in America today, nor a state statute book, that does not tell this story. Yet for all of this success, we also live in a world in which reform seems to suffer routine failures. Many believe, for example, that feminist reforms have rid rape law of the resistance requirement; however, recent scholarship makes it clear that the resistance requirement has not disappeared. Similarly, many believe that feminism has rid us of the marital rape exemption; in fact, there is evidence that marital rape immunities remain on the statute books. Finally, many believe that reform has brought widespread judicial acceptance of battered women's self-defense claims; but the battle over this defense in the law reviews and popular media testifies to the continuing lack of settlement of the underlying issues.

DeFi Protocol Risks: The Paradox of DeFi

Abstract: Decentralized Finance (or “DeFi”) is growing in volume and in importance. DeFi promises cheaper and more open access to financial services by reducing the costs and risks of using centralized intermediaries. DeFi also holds the promise of interoperability across blockchains that could help tear down financial sector silos, greatly promoting innovation and building vibrant financial ecosystems. However, DeFi is not without its challenges, which are understudied. This article does not seek to provide a comprehensive list of DeFi risks but to help readers conceptually understand the drivers behind the risks inherent in DeFi. Many of the risks described above stem from the decentralized nature of blockchains. The goal of automating the delivery of financial services and reducing human dependencies also has the congruent effect of reducing oversight and control. Disintermediating traditional intermediaries reduces high fees and entry friction, but also creates new opportunities for new types of intermediaries. This article discusses some of the new types of risks introduced by DeFi that are inherent to blockchain systems along with traditional types of financial risks in DeFi that manifest in new ways: (i) interconnections with the traditional financial system, (ii) operational risks stemming from underlying blockchains, (iii) smart contract-based vulnerabilities, (iv) other governance and regulatory risks, and (v) scalability challenges. In an effort to remove humans and automate as much as possible through smart contracts, DeFi has introduced or amplified these risks. The growth of DeFi will depend on its ability to navigate and build compatibility with traditional finance and on how laws and regulations respond. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is that the DeFi ecosystem continues to grow while its underlying base layer (public infrastructure such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) faces growing pains. As DeFi grows in importance and becomes more mainstream, policymakers and industry representatives need to better understand the economic and policy consequences of these new types of risks in order to build regulatory approaches and risk management practices that can support and facilitate a healthy and robust DeFi ecosystem and, ultimately, the financial stability of the greater financial system and real economy.

Has FDA abandoned its efforts to make fake-cigar cigarettes comply with federal tobacco control laws that apply to cigarettes but not cigars?

Abstract: In the USA, legal definitions of cigarettes and cigars are critical to tobacco control policy because federal, state and local laws typically tax and regulate cigarettes more strictly than cigars. In 2016, near the end of the Obama Administration, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent warning letters to four filtered ‘little cigar’ manufacturers stating that their so-called ‘cigars’ were cigarettes and, therefore, subject to more stringent public health restrictions. Documents produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request show that without explanation or public notice FDA has abandoned its prior determination that the manufacturers’ ‘little cigars’ were actually cigarettes and, consequently, were violating the ban on flavoured cigarettes in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA). The documents also present the manufacturers’ arguments against FDA’s original position. However, those industry arguments are inconsistent with the research, other evidence and legal analysis indicating that filtered ‘little cigars’ meet the legal definition of cigarettes under the TCA and other similar federal, state and local definitions. To protect the public health, FDA must renew its efforts to ensure that these filtered ‘little cigars’ do not continue to evade compliance with the many important restrictions and requirements that apply to cigarettes but not cigars. Other government regulatory and tax-collection agencies with similar definitions need to follow suit.

Offsetting the Effects of Medical Expenses on Older Adults' Household Food Budgets: An Analysis of the Standard Medical Expense Deduction.

Abstract: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides critical nutrition assistance to over 40 million Americans each month. Low-income older adults (60 and older) and disabled participants experience additional budgetary constraints because of high out-of-pocket medical expenses. In recent years, some states have adopted a "Standard Medical Expense Deduction" (SMED) for senior and disabled beneficiaries, making it easier to report medical expenses in the SNAP application process. We conduct a descriptive national analysis that shows increases in benefit levels and reporting of medical expenses for states that have implemented SMED. We then present descriptive findings from Medicare claims data among a sample of low-income older adults in need of food assistance in Georgia. Average medical expenses among this sample approach $200 per month, whereas those for persons diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions exceed $300 per month. Policy implications of this analysis include the need for more states to consider adoption of SMED or alternative estimating approaches, leading to increases in benefit levels for the neediest beneficiaries and decreases in administrative burden among state agencies. We present two possible policy approaches states might take to receive approval for these changes from U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The FDA's Plan B Fiasco: Lessons for Administrative Law

Abstract: For well over a decade, the federal Food and Drug Administration scrambled to avoid answering a simple question: can women and girls safely and efficaciously take emergency contraceptives without a health professional’s permission? Because the answer to this question was clear (and affirmative) during this whole period and yet the agency did not want to admit it, the agency resorted to extreme measures to avoid confronting the truth. With every new stratagem, the agency dug itself deeper into an administrative law hole: inventing policies on the fly, grasping at tangents, shrouding the truth, cowering before illegitimate political demands. This article provides the first detailed and up-to-date analysis of how the FDA’s treatment of emergency contraception violated basic tenets of administrative law.This article also suggests larger lessons for administrative law that might be drawn from this episode. The exposure of the FDA’s misbehavior through interrogatories and depositions in litigation should prompt a softening of the presumption against probing the mental processes of agency decision makers. In addition, the FDA’s political machinations and patent dissembling – and the widespread sense that these were not signs of a healthy administrative agency – should spur reconsideration of judicial and academic support of political interventions in agency decisions and technical covers for those interventions.