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.

Public health law in a new century: part II: public health powers and limits.

Abstract: The Constitution allocates public health powers among the federal government and the states. Federal public health powers include the authority to tax, spend, and regulate interstate commerce. These powers enable the federal government to raise revenues, allocate resources, economically penalize risk behavior, and broadly regulate in the public's interest. States have an inherent authority to protect, preserve, and promote the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the people, termed police powers. Police powers enable states to preserve the public health in areas ranging from injury and disease prevention to sanitation, waste disposal, and environmental protection. The Rehnquist Court has emphasized the limits of federal powers and the primacy of states in public health issues affecting local concerns. Finally, the Constitution safeguards individual interests in autonomy, privacy, liberty, and property. The Supreme Court often defers to public health authorities in matters of public health, but engages in strict scrutiny if government interferes with fundamental freedoms or discriminates against a suspect class. Provided that they act justly and reasonably to avert a serious health threat, the Court should cede to agencies the power to act for the communal good. JAMA. 2000.

Medical marijuana: the conflict between scientific evidence and political ideology. Part two of two.

Abstract: Whether “medical marijuana” (Cannabis sativa used to treat a wide variety of pathologic states) should be accorded the status of a legitimate pharmaceutical agent has long been a contentious issue....

From Choice to Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights

Abstract: The essay argues that the right to abortion constitutionalized in Roe v. Wade is by some measure at odds with a capacious understanding of the demands of reproductive justice. No matter its rationale, the constitutional right to abortion is fundamentally a negative right that rhetorically keeps the state out of the domain of family life. As such, the decision privatizes not only the abortion decision, but also parenting, by rendering the decision to carry a pregnancy to term a choice. It thereby legitimates a minimalist state response to the problems of pregnant women who carry their pregnancies to term and for poor parents who might need greater public support. These marginalized groups need greater community and state assistance with the demands of parenting, and the equation of reproductive justice with a right to terminate a pregnancy is in tension with a political or legal agenda for meeting those needs. The essay then explores the possibility of creating a right to legal abortion through ordinary political means, rather than through constitutional adjudication, in such a way as not to carry these costs.

Carving Out Policy Autonomy for Developing Countries in the World Trade Organization: The Experience of Brazil and Mexico

Abstract: Although liberal trade and development scholars disagree about the merits of the World Trade Organization (WTO), they both assume that WTO legal obligations restrict states’ regulatory autonomy. This article argues for relaxing this shared assumption by showing that, despite the restrictions imposed by international economic law obligations, states retain considerable flexibility to carve out policy autonomy. The article makes three distinct contributions. First, it analyzes how active WTO members can, through litigation and lawyering, influence rule interpretation to advance their interests. Second, the article redefines the concept of “legal capacity” in the WTO context and introduces the term “developmental legal capacity,” which describes how states can use legal tools and institutions not only as a sword to open new markets but also as a shield for heterodox economic policies. Third, the article offers a comparative analysis of two case studies, Brazil and Mexico, and shows that they have pursued different trade and litigation strategies. While subject to the same WTO obligations, these countries have made different use of their policy space according to their own economic objectives. The article concludes that, despite the apparent rigidity of the WTO, countries following a deliberate strategy can expand their regulatory space to advance their own interests.

The New McCarthyism: Repeating History in the War in Terrorism

Abstract: Many scholars, pundits, and government officials have optimistically argued that the war on terrorism has thus far avoided the mistakes of past crises. Pointing to the punishment of speech during World War I, the internment of the Japanese during World War II, and the imposition of guilt by association during the Cold War, these voices maintain that we have learned from those mistakes, and are less quick to restrict rights and liberties this time around. This article maintains that while there is certainly some truth to the observation, we should not be too quick to congratulate ourselves. History shows that while the specific tactics of prior crises are often avoided in subsequent crises, their place is taken by slightly different tactics that in principle repeat many of the same mistakes. Thus, in learning to avoid past mistakes, we have learned to adapt certain basic methods of control, rather than to repudiate them. And in many respects, we have since September 11 repeated the categorical mistakes of past crises. In particular, in times of fear government is asked to engage in preventive law enforcement. We want to prevent the next atrocity from occurring, not just be able to catch the criminals after the fact. Accomplishing this puts significant strain on the criminal law, which is a cumbersome method for preventive law enforcement. Government adapts in two ways: (1) by expanding the substantive bases of criminal liability, and (2) by seeking to avoid safeguards of the criminal process by exploiting administrative measures to effect control. In this essay, I trace these developments in the current crisis and show their basic affinity to strategies adopted during World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. What we have learned from history is how to mask the repetition, not how to avoid the mistakes.