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 Public and Private Faces of Derivative Lawsuits

Abstract: Derivative suits, long the principal vehicle for discussions about representative litigation in corporate and securities law, now share the stage with younger cousins - securities fraud class actions and state law fiduciary duty class actions At the same time alternative governance vehicles - independent directors, auditors and other reforms that have followed in the wake of Enron - potentially diminish the relative place of litigation such as derivative suits This article presents data from all derivative suits filed in Delaware over a two-year period We find a relatively small number, certainly as compared to fiduciary class action and securities fraud class actions Unlike these other representative suits, derivative suits are used for both public and close corporations They arise usually in a duty of loyalty context Contrary to earlier studies, we do not find evidence that these cases are strike suits yielding little benefit Instead, roughly 30% of the derivative suits provide relief to the corporation or the shareholders, while the others are usually dismissed quickly with little apparent litigation activity In cases producing a recovery to shareholders, those amounts typically exceed the amount of attorneys' fees awarded by a significant margin They do demonstrate some indicia of litigation agency costs (for example suits being filed quickly, multiple suits per controversy, and repeat plaintiffs' law firms), but each of these is much less pronounced for derivative suits than for other forms of representative litigations Overall, the claim that derivative suits are strike suits is much weaker than in earlier periods The Delaware judiciary, which hears most public company corporate litigation in America, has effectively monitored these cases There is room to open the door for larger shareholders to utilize these suits to police corporate misconduct Institutional shareholders, while not willing to take on as large a role in governance as many have suggested in terms of naming directors and the like, may be willing to take a larger role in derivative litigation Thus we see potential for derivative litigation to play a more important role in the future We therefore suggest that suits brought by a one percent or larger shareholder should be excused from the demand requirement currently applied in derivative suits

Towards a Framework Convention on Global Health: A Transformative Agenda for Global Health Justice

Abstract: International law has responded weakly to the inequities in health care, public health, and the broader determinates of health that collectively cause the greatest loss of lives and human potential every year. Approximately one-third of global deaths can be attributed to enduring and unconscionable inequities. Despite significant progress in improving global health over the past several decades, these inequities persist. Current global governance for health is inadequate to the task of resolving these inequities, from lack of accountability and enforcement to inadequate funding and the absence of leadership required to respond to the threats to health that arise from other sectors. The risk of a persisting global health underclass looms large.Human rights law, with its universally accepted right to health, can underpin new norms and structures to dramatically reduce health inequities and ameliorate the factors that give rise to them. Four fundamental questions can clarify national and international responsibilities under the right to health and offer guidance to new legal instruments to resolve these health inequities:1. What are the health services and goods guaranteed to every human being under the right to health?2. What do states owe for the health of their own populations?3. What responsibility do states have for improving the health of people beyond their borders?4. What kind of global governance mechanisms are required to guarantee that all states live up to their mutual responsibilities to provide health goods and services to all people?To capture the answers to these questions, we offer ideas for the contents and structure of a new global treaty grounded in the right to health and with the principal purpose of ameliorating health disparities among the world’s rich and poor. This Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) would set global health norms and priorities, with a robust vision of making available and accessible to all: universal health care, public health measures, and the social determinants required for good health.The FCGH would embed equity as a key principle in binding international law; establish targets and benchmarks, tailored to individual countries through inclusive and flexible processes, including the critical involvement of civil society and communities; ensure sustainable funding backed by clear national and international responsibilities; strengthen global governance for health including by responding to health threats in other sectors and strengthening the World Health Organization; and establish a robust regime of accountability at local and national levels along with effective enforcement and compliance mechanisms for the FCGH itself.The path towards an FCGH will be arduous, with multiple barriers posed by politics and special interests. However, the treaty offers an innovative path we should forge, propelled by social mobilization. An inclusive process will be central in establishing the treaty, with a campaign driven by social movements committed to the right to health.

Estimating Risk Preferences in the Field

Abstract: We survey the literature on estimating risk preferences using field data. We concentrate our attention on studies in which risk preferences are the focal object and estimating their structure is the core enterprise. We review a number of models of risk preferences — including both expected utility (EU) theory and non-EU models — that have been estimated using field data, and we highlight issues related to identification and estimation of such models using field data. We then survey the literature, giving separate treatment to research that uses individual-level data (e.g., property insurance data) and research that uses aggregate data (e.g., betting market data). We conclude by discussing directions for future research.

Privacy, Visibility, Transparency, and Exposure

Abstract: This essay considers the relationship between privacy and visibility in the networked information age. Visibility is an important determinant of harm to privacy, but a persistent tendency to conceptualize privacy harms and expectations in terms of visibility has created two problems. First, focusing on visibility diminishes the salience and obscures the operation of nonvisual mechanisms designed to render individual identity, behavior, and preferences transparent to third parties. The metaphoric mapping to visibility suggests that surveillance is simply passive observation, rather than the active production of categories, narratives, and, norms. Second, even a broader conception of privacy harms as a function of informational transparency is incomplete. Privacy has a spatial dimension as well as an informational dimension. The spatial dimension of the privacy interest, which I characterize as an interest in avoiding or selectively limiting exposure, concerns the structure of experienced space. It is not negated by the fact that people in public spaces expect to be visible to others present in those spaces, and it encompasses both the arrangement of physical spaces and the design of networked communications technologies. U.S. privacy law and theory currently do not recognize this interest at all. This essay argues that they should.