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.

Race and Property After the Civil War: Creating the Right to Exclude

Abstract: This Article uncovers a lost history of property, showing the role that race and white supremacy played in the development of modern trespass law. Property law does not change in response to economic opportunities, evolving to ever-more efficiency. Instead, property law reflects political power. At times, the political process may reorient property law to produce a larger surplus. Oftentimes, politics produce redistribution from the weak to the powerful. States closed the range to coerce blacks into working for white landowners for low wages and under bad conditions. Southern society as a whole suffered from the planter’s greed. Low wages and cruel laws impoverished not only black and white sharecroppers, but the entire region. Changing property law was a core element of the program of legal aggression that began with the black codes and continued with Jim Crow.

Can Federal Agencies Authorize Private Suits Under Section 1983?: A Theoretical Approach

Abstract: Since 1980, private suits brought under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 have been a prime vehicle for enforcing federal statutory norms against state and local government. Federal regulations, however, affect a vast cross-section of state conduct not directly controlled by federal statutes. It is therefore surprising to discover that, notwithstanding some occasional acknowledgments of the considerable importance of the issue, there is almost no scholarly discussion concerning to what extent federal norms embodied in regulations can be enforced through private Section 1983 litigation. The federal Courts of Appeals are badly divided over the question, and no coherent rationale for one approach or the other has emerged. This Article attempts to fill the existing theoretical gap by beginning with first principles of statutory interpretation. I argue that we should read the word laws in Section 1983 in light of two important canons of construction, one favoring executive interpretations of the law, and the other, favoring federalism. Contrary to common assumptions about Section 1983, permitting federal agencies to authorize private suit will actually further state autonomy. Agency-authorized suits create space for collaboration between federal and state regulators, empowering the States, and enhance accountability of otherwise politically remote state bureaucrats in ways that APA or due-process challenges cannot. Finally, by shifting the forum for disputes from federal agency rank-and-file to state or federal court, Section 1983 litigation affords States the benefit of the Court's recent developments in sovereign immunity jurisprudence. Thus, when we read laws, we should presume that Congress intended to capture these benefits, and to allow federal agencies to authorize suits under Section 1983.

The Supreme Court's influence on medicine and health: the Rehnquist Court, 1986-2005.

Abstract: CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST’S DEATH AND Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement concluded one of the most momentous periods in modern Supreme Court history. Justice O’Connor the first woman appointed to the highest court was often the “swing” vote in closely divided cases. Justice Rehnquist was the first chief justice to die in office since Fred M. Vinson died in 1953 and this is the first time in more than 30 years that there has been only 7 justices. The Rehnquist Court with its membership remaining intact from 1994 until 2005 was the most stable Court in history. This period was also one of political polarization largely due to the Court’s perceived influence on the 2000 presidential election in Bush v Gore. The Court decided socially divisive issues ranging from same-sex sodomy affirmative action and detention of enemy combatants to campaign financing and separation of church and state. This article examines the Rehnquist Court’s influence on medicine and health from 1986 to 2005 reflecting on its wider societal impact in 4 areas: reproductive rights medical privacy discrimination and federalism. (excerpt)

Train Wreck: The U.S. Violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention

Abstract: The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is one of the most important multilateral arms control instruments; it requires its 188 parties to refrain from producing, acquiring, retaining or using chemical weapons (CW) and to destroy their existing CW stockpiles by a fixed date. The United States and Russia declared the possession of the world’s largest CW inventories and have been working assiduously to incinerate, chemically neutralize or otherwise dispose of their respective caches. Unfortunately, neither country met the treaty’s April 29, 2012 final, non-extendable deadline. The United States managed to destroy 90% of its CW stocks on time, but under current projections, it will not complete the process until 2023 – more than 11 years late. This article examines the causes of that default and analyzes its legal and policy consequences. It concludes that the United States stands in material breach of the CWC; that none of the putative legal excuses or justifications is adequate to absolve the violation; and that other parties may have recourse to remedies under the CWC, under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, or under general international law. Moreover, it concludes that the striking U.S. diplomatic success in largely finessing this issue through the CWC’s treaty implementation bodies is misguided – although it has allowed the United States to escape censure or punishment in this instance, that accomplishment deserves the true long-run U.S. interest in insisting upon the importance of strict compliance with arms control treaties and in validating the rule of international law more generally.

The Story of Laidlaw, Standing and Citizen Enforcement

Abstract: This chapter reexamines the Supreme Court's recent Laidlaw decision, placing the decision and statutorily authorized "citizen suits" in historical and jurisprudential context. Relying substantially on interviews with lawyers on the case and clients, the chapter reviews the strategic decisions leading to the Supreme Court's unexpectedly strong reaffirmation of citizen suit standing in Laidlaw. The chapter traces the Court's uncertain standing doctrine shifts, showing how, since the fragmented 1993 Lujan decision, members of the Supreme Court adopted substantially different analytical approaches to standing. For Justices Scalia and Thomas, and perhaps a few other justices, constitutional standing analysis required judges to find a sufficiently tangible injury. Other Justices, most notably Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Kennedy, viewed standing through a more statutory lens. The universe of interests, goals and procedures set forth in an underlying statute would, for these justices, influence standing analysis. During the period leading up to the Laidlaw decision, lower courts and the justices themselves struggled to render standing jurisprudence coherent. Several appellate court decisions, including the Fourth Circuit's Laidlaw decision, adopted expansive reads of Lujan that threatened to destroy the viability of statutorily authorized citizen suits. The Supreme Court's Laidlaw ruling, however, strongly embraced a more deferential approach to standing and ensured the viability of citizen suits. Nevertheless, the case's tortuous and long litigation path also reveals just how difficult and often unrewarding citizen suits have become. The chapter closes by assessing the future of citizen suits and standing challenges.