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.

Age, Tenure and Productivity of the U.S. Supreme Court: Are Term Limits Necessary?

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between the productivity of the U.S. Supreme Court and the age and tenure of the Supreme Court Justices. The motivation for this paper is the Supreme Court Renewal Act of 2005 (SCRA) and other recent proposals to impose term limits for Supreme Court Justices. The authors of the SCRA and others suggest that term limits are necessary because, inter alia, increased longevity and terms of service of the Justices has resulted in a decline in the productivity of the Court as measured by the number of cases accepted for review and the number of opinions issued per term. On the whole, the empirical findings of this paper do not provide clear support for this assertion.

The Global Reach of HIV/AIDS: Science, Politics, Economics, and Research

Abstract: HIV/AIDS affects people throughout the world - their health, their communities, and their countries' economic structures. It is truly a global epidemic, imposing a burden on all countries and regions, leaving none immune from its devastating impact. Of the forty-two million people infected with HIV/AIDS, almost ninety percent live in developing countries, which can least afford the sickness, death, and loss of productivity associated with the epidemic. Prevention of HIV/AIDS would benefit all regions and countries, irrespective of the prevalence or incidence of HIV/AIDS in the population, as all social and economic life in the early twenty-first century is interconnected. HIV/AIDS in one part of the world is bound to affect the health, economy, and security of countries everywhere. Given the level of need, there ought to be little disagreement that the more prosperous countries of North America and Europe should be devoting significant resources for education, prevention, and treatment in the poorer countries of Africa and Southeast Asia. International organizations such as UNAIDS, the WHO, and the World Bank have issued warnings and calls for action. Yet, political leaders in developed countries have not viewed it in their self-interest to provide the kind of resources needed. This lack of political will to cooperate may be caused, in part, by insular attitudes toward world health, economics, and politics and in part by the fact that resource-rich and resource-poor countries have markedly different priorities tailored to the different dynamics of the epidemic in their regions. Developing countries have been hurt not only by lack of political will, but by the interplay of drug companies, patents, and international law. Pharmaceutical companies have been unwilling to take steps to make drugs and potential vaccines available in resource-poor markets, instead electing to vigorously defend their proprietary interests in their drug patents. This strategy drives up the costs of most modern medications, leaving them out of reach for the poor. International law tends to support protection of these patents, but may provide some opportunity to circumvent property rules to protect the public's health. The research community has struggled with whether the ethical standards held in developed countries apply when engaging in research in less developed countries. Stakeholders are at odds and struggle to find the balance between ensuring strong ethical standards and expediting access to cost-effective treatments in poor countries. Although many of these trials would doubtless be regarded as unethical if conducted in the United States, given the social and economic context, it may have been unethical not to conduct the most rigorous and efficient international studies. The strategies needed to reduce significantly the burden of HIV/AIDS are well known and demonstrated to be effective. What is still needed are the economic resources and political will necessary to implement comprehensive programs for AIDS prevention and treatment in every region.

Teaching Legal Research Online

Abstract: Online instruction has great potential for accommodating the learning styles and preferences of Millennial law students, as well as for the effective teaching of legal research in the digital age. While integrating instructional technology into a face-to-face classroom legal research course is highly desirable and relatively easy, designing and teaching a purely distance or hybrid distance course provides some unique challenges as well as some distinct benefits for both instructors and students. This article will first evaluate individual instructional technologies independently of each other, since any of them could be used to supplement traditional face-to-face research instruction, whether formal or informal. Consideration will then be given to special problems of teaching a graded legal research course entirely or predominantly online. Legal research instruction presents some opportunities for experimentation and innovation with online learning techniques that may serve students better, accommodate th...

Biosafety Concerns Involving Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to Combat Malaria and Dengue in Developing Countries

Abstract: Malaria and dengue are the most prevalent mosquito-borne infections worldwide. Because traditional vector control methods have proven to be insufficient to control mosquito populations in endemic areas, scientists are actively working in the design of new strategies, such as genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes, to reduce disease transmission. The replacement of natural populations with GM mosquitoes is becoming a tangible possibility, however, many fear that the release of these organisms into the environment could constitute a significant risk to biodiversity and may cause the unintended spread of GM organisms across national borders. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, an international agreement originally intended to oversee the trade of GM crops, did not include specific provisions for the safe use of GM insects. Recently, the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on Risk Assessment and Risk Management to the Conference of the Parties, provided guidelines on the use of GM arthropods for the control of human disease. However, these guidelines did not address some significant technical and safety issues associated with the use of genetically or biologically modified vectors. A new global treaty, specifically intended to address issues related to genetic or biological modifications of arthropod vectors seem to be necessary before we endorse the decision of releasing modified arthropod vectors into the natural environment.

Issues and Outcomes, Guidance and Indeterminacy: A reply to Professor John Rogers and Others

Abstract: In this paper, we reply to criticisms raised by Prof. John Rogers, Lewis Kornhauser, Lawrence Sager, and Maxwell Stearns in connection with the proposal we advanced in an earlier publication (see 80 Geo. L.J. 743 (1992)) regarding the proper method of cumulating votes of individual members of multi-judge panels.