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 Promise of Neuroscience for Law: "Overclaiming " in Jurisprudence, Morality, and Economics

Abstract: Claims for the relevance and importance of neuroscience for law are stronger than ever. Notwithstanding persuasive arguments that illustrate a wide degree of 'over­claiming' in the literature, new claims alleging the importance of neuroscience for law are common.1 This chapter discusses three examples of overclaiming how devel­opments in neuroscience can contribute to issues in legal theory. The first example fo­cuses on general jurisprudential theories about the nature of law and legal reasoning. We evaluate arguments concerning how neuroscientific evidence will contribute im­portant insights for jurisprudential debates. The second and third examples concern moral and economic decision making, respectively. We evaluate several arguments about how neuroscientific evidence will illuminate decision making in these domains and how these insights ought to be applied to issues in law and public policy.

National Security Pedagogy: The Role of Simulations

Abstract: This article challenges the dominant pedagogical assumptions in the legal academy. It begins by briefly considering the state of the field of national security, noting the rapid expansion in employment and the breadth of related positions that have been created post-9/11. It considers, in the process, how the legal academy has, as an institutional matter, responded to the demand.Part III examines traditional legal pedagogy, grounding the discussion in studies initiated by the American Bar Association, the Carnegie Foundation, and others. It suggests that using the law-writ-large as a starting point for those interested in national security law is a mistake. Instead, it makes more sense to work backwards from the skills most essential in this area of the law.The article then proposes six pedagogical goals that serve to distinguish national security law: (1) understanding the law as applied, (2) dealing with factual chaos and uncertainty, (3) obtaining critical distance — including, inter alia, when not to give legal advice, (4) developing nontraditional written and oral communication skills, (5) exhibiting leadership, integrity, and good judgment in a high-stakes, highly-charged environment, and (6) creating continued opportunities for self-learning. Equally important to the exercise of each of these skills is the ability to integrate them in the course of performance.These goals, and the subsidiary points they cover, are neither conclusive nor exclusive. Many of them incorporate skills that all lawyers should have — such as the ability to handle pressure, knowing how to modulate the mode and content of communications depending upon the circumstances, and managing ego, personality, and subordination. To the extent that they are overlooked by mainstream legal education, however, and present in a unique manner in national security law, they underscore the importance of more careful consideration of the skills required in this particular field.Having proposed a pedagogical approach, the article turns in Part IV to the question of how effective traditional law school teaching is in helping to students reach these goals. Doctrinal and experiential courses both prove important. The problem is that in national security law, the way in which these have become manifest often falls short of accomplishing the six pedagogical aims. Gaps left in doctrinal course are not adequately covered by devices typically adopted in the experiential realm, even as clinics, externships, and moot court competitions are in many ways ill-suited to national security.The article thus proposes in Part V a new model for national security legal education, based on innovations currently underway at Georgetown Law. NSL Sim 2.0 adapts a doctrinal course to the special needs of national security. Course design is preceded by careful regulatory, statutory, and Constitutional analysis, paired with policy considerations. The course takes advantage of new and emerging technologies to immerse students in a multi-day, real-world exercise, which forces students to deal with an information-rich environment, rapidly changing facts, and abbreviated timelines. It points to a new model of legal education that advances students in the pedagogical goals identified above, while complementing, rather than supplanting, the critical intellectual discourse that underlies the value of higher legal education.

Rethinking Crime Legislation: History and Harshness

Abstract: There is a truth about the criminal law that scholars evade as much as they criticize: the criminal law is produced by legislators (rather than the experts). The author states she does not know of any way to make law in a democracy other than through the voters' representatives. And, yet, it is the standard pose of the criminal law scholar to denigrate legislatures and politicians as vindictive, hysterical, or stupid. All of these things may be true but name-calling is a poor substitute for analysis. As in constitutional law, so too in criminal law, it is time to put contempt aside and begin the process of understanding the history and the institutional dynamics of our nation's crime legislation.This is not a claim that the process is wise or rational; in fact, the author’s present hunch is that the legislative process is subject to regular, cycling malfunction. Her point is that we need to consider deeper questions-we need to ask whether legislative malfunctions are built into the political system. In other words, we need to turn to history, and specifically the history of crime legislation in the United States, to get a sense of its patterns over time. Here, the author offers preliminary support for the claim that wars on crime -- at least as political and legislative phenomena -- are not new, nor post-World War II, phenomena as they are conventionally viewed. At a minimum, this evidence should prompt us to ask whether the crime problem in America is at least in part a reflection of the structure of American "crime politics."

Is Cap and Trade Fair to the Poor? Short-Sighted Households and the Timing of Consumption Taxes

Abstract: Many forms of consumption tax, including recent proposals to impose a tax on the use of carbon, impose disproportionate burdens on the poor. Commentators who propose mitigating this impact with tax rebates for low-income families have overlooked the importance of the timing of consumption for these households, as well as the difficulties of “smoothing” income from one time period to another. We survey a wide array of evidence suggesting that poor households lack affordable mechanisms for both borrowing and saving, such that a lump-sum rebate, or even monthly rebates, would not leave the household as well off as they were in the absence of any tax. In addition, we show that the cognitive features of a rebate will be problematic for short-sighted households - those who heavily favor the present over the future. For example, they may impatiently spend rebates too quickly, leaving little money for later necessities, and potentially increasing overall carbon usage. And they likely will procrastinate both learning how to overcome these problems, as well as putting off investing in less carbon-intensive goods. We do not, however, argue against carbon pricing. Instead, we offer new methods of structuring taxes and rebates to overcome these problems. For instance, we suggest that rebates be offered on a “self-directed” debit card, subject to a sticky default cap on weekly withdrawals. This implement “nudges” short-sighted households away from impatience, while offering affordable credit and modern banking to all. These same mechanisms can be used for other forms of transactional consumption taxes, such as state sales taxes or a possible national value-added tax.