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.

An Enquiry Meet for the Case: Decision Theory, Presumptions, and Evidentiary Burdens in Formulating Antitrust Legal Standards

Abstract: Presumptions have an important role in antitrust jurisprudence. This article suggests that a careful formulation of the relevant presumptions and associated evidentiary rebuttal burdens can provide the “enquiry meet for the case” across a large array of narrow categories of conduct confronted in antitrust to create a type of “meta” rule of reason. The article begins this project by using decision theory to analyze the types and properties of antitrust presumptions and evidentiary rebuttal burdens and the relationship between them. Depending on the category of conduct and market structure conditions, antitrust presumptions lie along a continuum from conclusive (irrebuttable) anticompetitive, to rebuttable anticompetitive, to competitively neutral, and on to rebuttable procompetitive and conclusive (irrebuttable) procompetitive presumptions. A key source of these presumptions is the likely competitive effects inferred from market conditions. Other sources are policy-based - deterrence policy concerns and overarching policies involving the goals and premises of antitrust jurisprudence. Rebuttal evidence can either undermine the facts on which the presumptions are based or can provide other evidence to offset the competitive effects likely implied by the presumption. The evidentiary burden to rebut a presumption depends on the strength of the presumption and the availability and reliability of further case-specific evidence. These twin determinants can be combined and understood through the lens of Bayesian decision theory to explain how “the quality of proof required should vary with the circumstances.” The stronger the presumption and less reliable the case-specific evidence in signaling whether the conduct is anticompetitive versus procompetitive, the more difficult it will be for the disfavored party to satisfy the evidentiary burden to rebut the presumption. The evidentiary rebuttal burden generally is a burden of production, but also can involve the burden of persuasion, as with the original Philadelphia National Bank structural presumption, or typical procompetitive presumptions. If a presumption is rebutted with sufficient offsetting evidence to avoid an initial judgment, the presumption generally continues to carry some weakened weight in the post-rebuttal phase of the decision process. That is, a thumb remains on the scale. However, if the presumption is undermined, it is discredited and it carries no weight in the post-rebuttal decision process. The article uses this methodology to analyze various antitrust presumptions. It also analyzes the, burden-shifting rule of reason and suggests that the elements should not be rigidly sequenced in the decision process. The article also begins the project of reviewing, revising and refining existing antitrust presumptions with proposed revisions and refinements in a number of areas. The article invites other commentators to join the project by criticizing these proposals and suggesting others. These presumptions then could be applied by appellate courts and relied upon by lower court, litigants and business planners.

Fighting Grand Corruption: A Criticism of the 'Crime Against Humanity' Approach & A Feasible Solution

Abstract: It has been suggested that the most serious cases of grand corruption can be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a Crime Against Humanity. Although this suggestion constitutes a laudable effort to fight impunity associated with financial crimes and kleptocracy, it contravenes the principle of legality, as interpreted by international tribunals, and cannot be supported by the current ICC Statute. The ideal solution would be to amend the ICC Statute or create a new treaty that would allow for such prosecutions of grand corruption. Yet due to the inherent difficulties of such international negotiations, a solution should be proposed within the current international anti-corruption framework. Indeed, a three-prong solution is offered: a coordinated use 1) of the anti-money laundering and forfeiture framework, 2) of mechanisms that ascertain independent and impartial domestic prosecutions and 3) of the association of corruption with controls on development aid and foreign private investments, would result into an end to impunity and the recovery of misappropriated funds. Moreover, even if two of these prongs were actually implemented, the outcome would be acceptable in terms of mitigating the incurring damages.

Fixing Implied Constitutional Powers in the Founding Era

Abstract: "The Second Creation" by Jonathan Gienapp is a marvelous study of the earliest debates over constitutional language, meaning, and interpretation. In virtually every aspect, the book is brilliantly conceived, meticulously researched, and masterfully executed. This essay agrees with Gienapp’s key insight that, in many respects, the Constitution was obscure, unfinished, and uncertain in 1789, and we can learn a great deal by paying closer attention to how constitutional debates actually unfolded in the first years after its adoption. A close encounter with that history reveals that constitutional meanings were ambiguous, unstable, and “up for grabs” right from the start. Nonetheless, the essay challenges Gienapp’s thesis to some extent by examining the earliest congressional debates over implied powers and offering a different interpretation of these events than he does, which focuses less on issues of language, meaning, and ontology, and more on the complex interplay of economic interests, regional alignments, and political power. By setting aside the dizzying swirl of semantics and considering how members of Congress actually voted on the removal debate, amendments, the bank bill, and other early controversies, one can identify some remarkably consistent through lines that render the entire sequence of events, and the talking points of politicians, less inchoate and more intelligible. As with so much else that occurred in the founding era, two key factors explaining what transpired are land and slavery.

Eldred and Lochner: Copyright Term Extension and Intellectual Property as Constitutional Property

Abstract: Since the ratification of the constitution, intellectual property law in the United States has always been, in part, constitutional law. Among the enumerated powers that Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress is the power to create certain intellectual property rights. To a remarkable extent, scholars who have examined the Constitution's Copyright Clause have reached a common position. With striking unanimity, these scholars have called for aggressive judicial review of the constitutionality of congressional legislation in this area. The champions of this position - we refer to them as the IP Restrictors - represent a remarkable array of constitutional and intellectual property scholars. In this terms's Eldred v. Aschroft, leading IP Restrictor Lawrence Lessig, representing petitioner Eric Eldred, sought to convince the Supreme Court that the IP Restrictors' view of the Copyright Clause was the correct one. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court rejected Eldred's claim and upheld the statute. But while the Court rejected the IP Restrictors' vision, it did not offer a satisfactory competing conception of the Copyright Clause and how the courts should construe it. Critically, even though the standard of review was of central significance, the Court applied a deferential form of rational basis scrutiny without explaining why this was the appropriate standard. This paper develops the case for deferential review of congressional legislation in the area of intellectual property and, at a deeper level, offers a new paradigm for understanding the Copyright Clause. We propose that from the vantage point of constitutional law, intellectual property should be treated as a form of constitutional property. Deference to congressional judgments is warranted because congressional legislation affecting intellectual property is analytically similar to congressional legislation affecting other forms of property. Courts subject congressional legislation affecting traditional forms of property to deferential review because of concerns about institutional competence and respect for majoritarian decisionmaking. These two concerns in conjunction with proper regard for holistic constitutional interpretation should also lead courts to deferential review of congressional legislation affecting intellectual property. In developing our position, we draw on constitutional history and, in particular, the lessons of Lochner v. New York. In defense of their vision of the Constitution, the IP Restrictors and the dissenters in Eldred make claims about the original understanding that, to an astonishing extent, echo those made by proponents of Lochner-era jurisprudence. We argue, however, that these claims fail for two reasons. First, the IP Restrictors and the dissenters disregard the limited scope of judicial review at the time of the Founding. Additionally, the IP Restrictors and dissenters disregard the range of views among the Founders about monopolies.

Neo-Orthodoxy in Academic Freedom

Abstract: This review essay analyzes two recent books that advance neo-orthodox theories of academic freedom: Matthew Finkin and Robert Post, For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom, and Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time. Both books develop principles articulated in the American Association of University Professors 1915 Declaration, which emphasize the role of faculty in advancing knowledge and the need to insulate professional evaluation of academic work from lay, political interference. This review essay defends the return to protection of the scholarly search for truth as the touchstone of academic freedom, offers critiques of the authors’ specific arguments, and draws implications for the constitutional law of academic freedom.