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 & Global 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.

Biodefense and Constitutional Constraints

Abstract: The United States and United Kingdom have different approaches to quarantine law that reflect each country’s unique historical context and constitutional structure. Under the Tudors, England vested quarantine authority in the monarch, with its subsequent exercise conducted by the military. As the constitutional structure changed, the manner in which quarantine was given effect subtly shifted, leading to constitutional reforms. Authorities transferred first to the Privy Council and, subsequently, to Parliament, where commercial interests successfully lobbied them out of existence. By the end of the 19th Century, quarantine authorities had been pushed down to the local port authorities. In the United States, in contrast, the opposite trajectory took place: what began as an local port authority gradually evolved into state measures, which continued to emphasize the intensely local nature of the rules governing cordon sanitaire and maritime quarantine. Direct federal attack via the Commerce Clause, however, was avoided via the Spending Clause. Current arguments place the U.S. response to both pandemic disease and biological weapons within an Article II realm, giving rise to significant concerns about shifting constitutional norms.

De-concentrating Poverty: De-constructing a Theory and the Failure of Hope

Abstract: Since the late 1980s, led by William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged, scholars have been writing about the social problems caused by the concentration in residential communities of high levels of poverty. Even before Wilson’s book, government policy, which previously had resulted in racially and economically segregated communities, had begun to shift towards de-concentration. The consent decree in Hills v Gautreaux, and the HOPE VI and Moving to Opportunity Programs all pointed towards de-concentration of poverty. Commentators have suggested both benign and not-so-benign reasons for the policy shift.There were a variety of quite hopeful goals promoted by advocates of the policy changes. While some of the desired outcomes of these programs have been met, I argue in this paper that the programs, on the whole, have not been successful in achieving their intended purposes. Moreover, I argue that due to the destruction of existing communities the costs of these programs, particularly the HOPE VI program, far outweigh their benefits. I point out some of the benefits derived from existing communities and some of the costs of forced relocations from them.I do not argue here for a return to policies leading to high concentration poor communities and certainly not for policies leading to dysfunctional communities. I argue instead for a policy that promotes voluntary relocation of residents in such communities with all appropriate governmental support; for a policy that results in the production of more decent and affordable units throughout the economy; and mostly for the commitment to improve existing communities so that they are places where lower income residents may live with dignity and pride.

J.P. Morgan: An Anatomy of Corporate Publicness

Abstract: Though corporations are private actors, their choices, statements, and strategies do not occur in a vacuum — they are subject to public scrutiny. In spite of a desire to control a particular conversation, companies often fail to properly consider, and account for, the vetting and reframing process that occurs once the conversation becomes public. This failure can lead to a spiral of publicness, subjecting the private actor and its decisions to increasing public scrutiny. Through the lens of my previously developed theory of publicness, this essay explores the aftermath of the “London Whale” at J.P. Morgan. I argue that the Company’s handling of the Whale losses and ensuing events were not only caused by publicness but also resulted in publicness.

Facing the Firing Squad

Abstract: In “Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze,” Professor Deborah Denno argues that pragmatic supply-side concerns might dismantle the economy for lethal injection. Off-brand substitutes for lethal injection drugs have led to recent high-profile botches. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether these drugs violate the Constitution given their risk of causing severe pain. But a first principle of death penalty jurisprudence is that there must exist a lawful form of execution. Indeed, both Utah and Wyoming have proposed a return to the firing squad. Lethal injection is comparatively sanitary and bureaucratic. But I respond that the firing squad is more coherent with death penalty administration heuristics of retribution and dignity. The visibility of the firing squad also serves an abolitionist, information-forcing function of requiring a candid look at death penalty process from the perspective of the executed.