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 Lessons of TPP and the Future of Labor Chapters in Trade Agreements

Abstract: The agenda to link labor standards to trade agreements, in the hopes of improving working conditions in developing countries and preventing unfair labor competition for workers in rich countries, reached its culmination in TPP. Beginning with NAFTA and over a span of twenty-five years, labor standards became fully included in trade agreements and their violation subject to trade sanctions as means of enforcement. Thus, proponents of TPP offered it as the “gold standard” of globalization. This chapter argues that the debate about TPP, and the US labor movement’s opposition to it, made clear that this was not a story of success but of disenchantment. Unions in the US criticized TPP’s labor chapter for not going far enough, substantially and procedurally. But they also turned the focus to other chapters of TPP that may be just as or more important to workers in the US than the labor chapter: investment, rules of origin, procurement and currency manipulation. These areas have become the new frontier for labor advocates in trade agreements and they highlight the need to rebalance the treatment of capital and labor. The chapter argues that a significant, though overlooked achievement of TPP, was to encourage several TPP parties to enact domestic labor reforms using labor side agreements and US pressure. More than any ideal labor chapter, it was these domestic reforms that held the most promise for improving working conditions in Vietnam and Mexico. The US withdrawal of TPP has set those reforms back. Opposition to TPP has also made clear that the expected losses from trade in the form of job loss and wage decline will not be made palatable in the absence of effective safety nets and compensatory mechanisms at the domestic level. In fact, international trade reputation will continue to suffer and opposition to it harden without them. To the extent that the debate about TPP was a referendum about liberal globalization as we know it, opposition to TPP in the US has given a resounding no. A pressing question is whether there is an alternative to the nationalist retrenchment embraced by the Trump administration. The revival of TPP without the US, unfortunately, does not seem to chart a different path.

Public Health Theory and Practice in the Constitutional Design

Abstract: This article provides a theory and definition of public health law based on the book, Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press 2000). No inquiry is more important to public health law than understanding the role of government in the constitutional design. If public health law principally addresses government's assurance of the conditions for the population's health, then what activities must government undertake? The question is complex, requiring an assessment of duty (what government must do), authority (what government is empowered, but not obligated, to do), and limits (what government is prohibited from doing). In addition, this query raises a corollary question: Which government is to act? The Supreme Court sees the Constitution in negative, or defensive, terms. This provides a sterile, uninspiring vision of government obligation. While the Court sees few affirmative obligations, it does acknowledge a broad governmental authority to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the population. The emergence of "new federalism" in Supreme Court jurisprudence alters the division of power between the federal government and the states. By restricting the scope of national authority, the Rehnquist Court is seriously thwarting public health policy and practice. Often, when the government acts to promote the health of the populace, it limits personal or economic freedoms. As a society, we face a trade-off between the common good and individual interests. The article explains why it is imperative to highly value the collective good of public health.

U.S. Legal Involvement in Violations of Palestinian Rights

Abstract: The Palestinian intifadah that began in December 1987 has focused world attention on the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and a variety of repressive tactics used by Israel to sustain that occupation. Although Palestinian outrage has been directed primarily against Israel, anger also has been vented at the United States, which many Palestinians consider complicit in Israel's misconduct. This article explores the legal question of "complicity" in international law, and its application to the U.S. -Israel relationship and the ongoing Israeli occupation.

Epic Considerations: The Speech that the Supreme Court Would Not Hear in Snyder v. Phelps

Abstract: In declining to consider the "epic" posted by the Westboro Baptist Church on its web site, the Supreme Court took most (but not quite all) of the good constitutional stuff out of Snyder v. Phelps. The Court may have sought to make this an easy case by considering only the contents of the church's picketing placards. For the Court, the placards highlighted such issues of public import as "the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of our nation, homosexuality in the military, and scandals involving the Catholic clergy." On grounds that we might charitably call dubious, the Court chose not to "hear" those parts of the church's speech that most clearly and most viciously attacked the Snyders - speech, that is, on matters of purely private concern. In deciding whether speech is on a matter of public or private concern, the Court is required 'to examine the "content, form, and context" of that speech, 'as revealed by the whole record.'" Having determined the "content, form, and context" of Westboro's speech without reference to half of the record, Justice Roberts was able to describe the church's speech as "fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern" - speech, that is, worthy of special protection under the First Amendment. What the Court apparently did not want to do was to tackle the question left unaddressed in Hustler v. Falwell: whether speech on a matter of public concern directed at a private figure may be actionable. Part public, part private, Westboro's speech placed before the Court the difficult question of what protection to afford speakers who make a private party the unwilling instrument of their public message. The Court limited its holding to the facts of the case - the facts absent the epic; and on these facts the Court was content to characterize the church's speech, fairly or not, as a public concern, thus avoiding the hard work of constitutionally culling wheat from chaff. The Court's "central thrust" language effectively accommodates, for now, the concerns of those who, like Justice Breyer, worry that the Court's conflation of public and private speech "unreasonably limits liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress." Had the epic been before the Court, this accommodation may not have been possible. Snyder v. Phelps was not an easy case. When personal invective is delivered in the milieu of public discourse, it is no simple task to balance competing constitutional and common-law interests. No doubt, there is a point where speech purportedly on a matter of public concern is so personal in content and form that it loses public import, and if the personal attacks in Westboro's epic, which addressed the Snyder family directly, do not reach this point, it is hard to imagine what would. But like many important legal boundary lines, this one is more often than not going to be difficult to draw.