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.

Individual Preferences in Policy Analysis: A Normative Framework

Abstract: Measures of individual preferences are a key input in cost-benefit analysis. However, behavioral science has raised questions about the rationality of these preferences. The Nudge thesis relies on that scientific research to prescribe interventions to influence individual choices. However, the more modest step of limiting reliance on these preferences in evaluating non-paternalistic government policies has not been taken up. We lack a consistent theory of when public policy should defer to these preferences, with legal and policy advocates adopting ad hoc result-oriented approaches. I argue that policymakers should be prepared to override individual preferences in cases where their only plausible rational justification(s) sever their connection to social welfare, undermining their normative motivation. For time discounting, this means eliminating the pure time preference component of the discount rate for most purposes. For valuing mortality risks, it implies shifting from the value of a statistical life method to a modified value of a statistical life-year method.

Environmental Scholarship and the Harvard Difference

Abstract: This article explores a series of hypotheses regarding environmental law scholarship based on an empirical review. The article examines over a thirty year time horizon such diverse aspects of environmental law scholarship as the sheer amount of scholarship, evolutionary trends in the topics for scholarly inquiry, number of environmental law courses and environmental law professors, proliferation of environmental law journals, relative rates of publication of environmental law scholarship in the nation's most prestigious law reviews, and the identity and relative ranking of those law reviews that published the articles widely viewed as the "best." The article concludes that important lessons about the nature of environmental law scholarship lurk within these numbers. The article offers some of those lessons by making a series of findings and then proffering deliberately provocative, albeit speculative, explanations for them. What commences as a seemingly quantitative undertaking ultimately becomes a more qualitative assessment of legal education and what may be too often missing in current environmental legal scholarship. Perhaps one of the more surprising (or at least unanticipated) finding is that certain prestigious law review, most notably the Harvard Law Review and until quite recently the University of Chicago Law Review, have historically published significantly fewer environmental law articles than have their peer law reviews or law reviews in general. The paucity of published scholarship stands in sharp contrast to environmental law's remarkable and dramatic emergence during that same time period. The final part of the article proposes a series of explanatory theories for the varied findings, including the Harvard Law Review's remarkably low rate of publication of environmental law scholarship. Interestingly, there is reason to believe that the latter phenomenon reflects the Harvard Law School's implicit signaling to its student body of scholarly value (or the lack thereof) through the law school's curricular offerings and the areas of its own faculty expertise in teaching and scholarship.

The Limits of Enron : Counterparty Risk in Bankruptcy Claims Trading

Abstract: Creditors have long understood that any claims they submit for repayment in a bankruptcy might be valid, but subject to subordination in the order of payment of the bankruptcy estate's limited funds if the creditor behaved inequitably as the debtor failed. Enron's on-going bankruptcy raised many instances of inequitable conduct, but a recent opinion by the bankruptcy court expands the practice of equitable subordination far beyond its traditional reach. According to the court, buyers of bankruptcy claims are now subject to subordination, not just for their own conduct, but also for conduct of previous owners of the claims, regardless of whether the conduct was connected to the claims. In a world of active bankruptcy claims trading, Enron raises powerful policy questions that may affect both the doctrinal development of bankruptcy law and the survival of a market that has provided liquidity for creditors with claims against bankrupt debtors. This article argues that Enron was based on questionable legal authority and that it does not present the best policy solution for redressing the problems of inequitable behavior by creditors.

State Finance in Times of Crisis

Abstract: As recent events illustrate, state finances are pro-cyclical: during recessions, state revenues crash, worsening the effects of economic downturns. This problem is well-known, yet persistent. We argue here that, in light of predictable federalism and political economy dynamics, states will be unable to change this situation on their own. Additionally, we note that many possible federal remedies may result in worse problems, such as creating moral hazard that would induce states to take on excessively risky policy, both fiscal and otherwise. Thus, we argue that policy makers should consider so-called “automatic” stabilizers, such as are found in the federal tax system. We present an argument from micro-economic foundations suggesting that the federal Alternative Minimum Tax has potentially salutary - and heretofore unrecognized - effects that counteract pathologies of state budgets over the business cycle. Namely, as incomes grow and the AMT hits more state residents, state spending becomes more expensive in flush times as the federal tax subsidy for state and local taxes is reduced. Conversely, when state fiscal health deteriorates, the federal tax subsidy grows as fewer state residents fall under the AMT, boosting taxpayer support for state spending. This stabilizing mechanism has the potential to overcome problems state politicians face committing to saving during boom times and spending during bust times. We present empirical evidence suggesting that the AMT does indeed provide some degree of fiscal stabilization in accordance with micro-theory. We provide policy suggestions regarding how the AMT could be modified to leverage this stabilization effect. Calls to “reform” the Alternative Minimum Tax pre-date the recent economic downturn. AMT reform has appeared in many congressional stimulus proposals, but significant cut-backs are unlikely as federal deficits are projected to grow for the foreseeable future. Our argument here implies that any AMT reform effort should consider whether the AMT’s stabilizer function could be replaced by any other viable mechanism.

Responding to the Public Health Harms of a Globalizing World Through Human Rights in Global Governance (Introduction)

Abstract: This introductory chapter frames the comparative examination of human rights in global health governance. Part I defines the broader field of global health governance, examining the institutions that address public health challenges in a globalizing world. With these institutions providing a basis to implement human rights for global health, Part II examines the development of health-related human rights under international law and the need to implement these rights through global governance. Framing human rights in global governance, Part III outlines the wide array of institutions of global health governance that bear human rights implementation responsibilities, detailing the evolving standards by which institutions have sought to mainstream human rights in organizational policies, programs, and practices. To compare these rights-based efforts, Part IV outlines the research methods by which the contributing authors have studied individual institutions of global governance for health. Part V outlines the structure of this edited volume, delineating the sections and chapters that identify distinct organizational approaches to (and determinants of) human rights in global health governance. This introduction concludes by recognizing the importance of comparative analysis in understanding institutional approaches to human rights in global health, framing this new field of inquiry and calling on scholars, practitioners, and advocates to work together to advance rights-based governance in a globalizing world.