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.

Considering What is Voluntary in Relation to Resident Referrals. Comment on "A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Review of Resident Care-Seeking at a Physician Health Program".

Abstract: To the Editor: Parry and colleagues’ [1] recent report on residents’ presentations to their physician health program (PHP) raise a number of key issues pertaining to voluntary referrals that are important to clarify in order to resolve points of confusion in academic medicine. While the authors define “voluntary referrals [as] participants who sought services of their own accord,” other definitions consider the presence of controlling external influences and perceptions of threat when determining voluntariness [2]. From a legal perspective, residents referred when there is any expectation that their program will receive or request results, ask residents follow-up questions, or learn whether they participated, would not be considered voluntary [3]. Nor would referrals for evaluations performed by an agent of the program or hospital be considered voluntary [3]. Similar principles also apply to signed waivers of confidentiality. It is not clear how the authors’ considerations of voluntariness accord with these later definitions. But any discrepancies, if they exist, would be concerning from a public policy perspective if they reflect and/or promote very different understandings about the laws that apply to these referrals in the legal and medical communities. We have many questions for Parry and colleagues (e.g., why they think it is important for residents to voluntarily engage in services at their PHP as opposed to other providers; why they are making the case for residents to engage voluntarily to residency programs/employers and not to the residents themselves, etc.) and concerns related to PHP research and outreach. But we agree that increasing the proportion of resident intakes that truly are voluntary should be an important goal. We are therefore hopeful that the authors, and all PHPs, residency programs, and academic medical centers, will consider posting the text of the federal law relating to these referrals [3, 4] on their websites, in institutional handbooks, and other resources, in order to prevent nonvoluntary referrals that do not comply with the law. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, programs and hospitals cannot implicitly or explicitly request psychiatric information from, or require a psychiatric evaluation of, a resident without objective evidence that:

Does Swiss Bank Secrecy Violate International Human Rights

Abstract: Prof. Stephen Cohen, whose academic specialty is taxation, also has an interest in international human rights and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Carter Administration. In this comment, Prof. Cohen asks whether states like Switzerland, which provide bank secrecy for the offshore accounts of wealthy citizens of developing countries, violate internationally recognized human rights. The United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights explicitly recognizes rights to adequate food, clothing, housing, health care, clean water, sanitation, and education. Bank secrecy has a significant human rights impact if it deprives developing countries of tax revenues needed to meet basic rights guaranteed by the Covenant. The annual tax gap for developing countries caused by bank secrecy is estimated to range from over $100 billion to several times that amount. Thus, it seems indisputable that bank secrecy impedes the ability of developing countries to fulfill internationally recognized human rights.

Kill Quill, Keep the Dormant Commerce Clause: History's Lessons on Congressional Control of State Taxation

Abstract: The world of internet commerce was shaken to its foundations in January this year, when the Supreme Court agreed to reconsider its landmark holding in Quill Corp v N Dakota For more than twenty-five years, Quill has barred states from imposing tax-collection obligations on retailers lacking “physical presence” in the taxing state As a practical matter, this has meant that internet retailers with no employees or facilities in a state can sell into the state without collecting the sales taxes that local retailers must In this Essay, I’ll argue that original historical evidence I’ve collected suggests that the political economy premises on which Quill rests are fundamentally mistaken But I believe that same evidence should lead the Court to keep in place the larger body of “Dormant Commerce Clause” jurisprudence from which Quill first sprung

Cross-Waivers of Liability

Abstract: Sheer pragmatism is developing a new principle in space law. That principle is that the parties to an activity in outer space, who stand to benefit from that activity, shall share some of the risk of that activity. These parties may enjoy more benefits from outer space activities if they themselves assume responsibility for damage that they may cause to the others involved in that same activity because litigation and insurance costs are saved. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has for a long time required contractual cross-waivers of liability between its launch operations and the owners of payloads being launched. 1/ The principle of crosswaivers is developing in other areas: launches under the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Act, activities under the space station agreement, space shuttle operations, NASA expendable launch vehicle (ELV) programs, and the principle is being adopted in launch contracts outside of the United States. The cross-waiver principle has been received so favorably that even wider adoption can be predicted in the future.

The 'Midnight Assassination Law' and Minnesota's Anti-Death Penalty Movement, 1849-1911

Abstract: This article traces the history of Minnesota's anti-death penalty movement and the 1889 Minnesota law - dubbed by contemporaries as the "midnight assassination law" - requiring private, nighttime executions. That law, authored by Minnesota legislator John Day Smith, restricted the number of execution spectators, prohibited newspapers from printing any execution details, and provided that only the fact of the execution could be lawfully printed. Also commonly referred to as the "John Day Smith law," this Minnesota statute was challenged as being unconstitutional by Minnesota newspapers after those newspapers printed details of a botched hanging and were charged with violating the law. The article discusses how Minnesota's "midnight assassination law" affected the state's abolitionist movement and influenced America's death penalty debate. In particular, the article recounts how two court decisions upholding the constitutionality of the law - one by the Minnesota Supreme Court and one by the United States Supreme Court - contributed to the rise of private, nighttime executions in America.