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.

Shared Collection Development, Digitization, and Owned Digital Collections

Abstract: While library models already exist for sharing physical materials and joint licensing, this paper envisions an aspect of future collections involving a national digital collection owned, not licensed, by libraries. Collaborative collection development, digitization, and digital object management of owned collections can benefit societies in multiple ways, from expanding access to users otherwise unable to reach these materials, to preserving content even when disaster strikes, to reducing duplication of effort and expense in collection or digitization. This article will explore both the benefits of and the challenges to this type of collaboration.

Funding of Public Sector Pension Plans: What Can be Learned From the Private Sector?

Abstract: ERISA’s framers said that the vesting and funding rules“go hand in hand.” ERISA required plans to amortize past service liability and experience losses, and it placed responsibility for funding assumptions and methods in the hands of an independent actuary. ERISA enforces the funding rules with excise taxes, public and private rights of action, and liens. ERISA also requires annual disclosure of a plan’s funding status. Like private-sector plans, public plans involve default risk and uncertainty over who should bear the risk. If state legislatures were to impose funding rules on public plans, ERISA should provide instructive examples in a number of areas.

Twenty-First Century Equal Protection: Making Law in an Interregnum

Abstract: This essay on Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion in Lawrence v. Texas argues that her framing of an explicit heightened rational basis standard potentially carries great importance for equal protection law. In Lawrence, the opinion of the Court held that the Texas criminal sodomy law violated the individual's liberty interest in engaging in private intimate conduct. Justice O'Connor concurred solely on equal protection grounds, in a brief but pithy opinion which sought to explain why she found the Texas statute unconstitutional under normally deferential rational basis review. She asserted that certain kinds of cases, where there was evidence of animus or bias infecting the legislative process, triggered heightened rationality review. Professor Hunter argues that the O'Connor opinion has the potential not only to clarify inadequately reasoned gay rights decisions such as Romer v. Evans, but also to allow the Court to take responsibility for a shadowy lower mid-level standard of review that it has in fact been deploying, erratically, for three decades. Using documents only recently made available to the public as part of Justice Blackmun's papers, Professor Hunter traces the internal debates within the Court on levels of scrutiny in equal protection cases. She proposes that courts and scholars conceptualize the current equal protection claims by non-suspect groups as proceeding in a constitutional interregnum, suffused with complex political dynamics and tricky questions of judicial legitimacy. This essay considers the formulation of heightened rational basis review in Justice O'Connor's concurrence as a response to the reality that this interregnum, in light of the conservatism of the federal judiciary, could continue for a significant period of time. Moreover, unlike the period when early civil rights cases were being litigated before Congress had ever enacted significant civil rights laws, this interregnum occurs at a time of wide expectation that if equality claims are legitimate, they will succeed in legislatures. Is it appropriate for judges to approach adjudication as if it is an attempt to predict subsequent legislative action? The very nature of an interregnum suggests uncertainty and disruption, yet law promises order and fairness. Professor Hunter's essay considers the O'Connor proposal for heightened rational basis in this context. The final version of the essay will be published in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and Law.

Introduction to Continuation of Symposium on the International Legal Obligation to Criminalize Marital Rape

Abstract: AJIL Unbound is pleased to publish a second set of contributions to our symposium on the obligation of states under international law to criminalize marital rape. The lead essay by Melanie Randall and Vasanthi Venkatesh, Criminalizing Sexual Violence against Women in Intimate Relationships: State Obligations Under Human Rights Law, argues that international law requires the criminalization of sexual violence against women within marriage (and other intimate relationships), and that such criminalization should constitute a central element of the human rights agenda for achieving gender equality. The authors contend that the failure to criminalize sexual violence perpetrated by a husband or other intimate partner violates the rights to life, liberty, autonomy, self-determination, and bodily security and “creates a class of women with lesser legal rights.” According to the authors, international human rights law imposes a due diligence obligation to punish acts of violence against women even when perpetrated by private persons. We earlier published contributions by Robin West of Georgetown Law and Julie Goldsheid of CUNY Law School.We now publish four additional responses - from Fareda Banda, Michele Goodwin, Barbara Stark, and Aya Gruber - along with a reply by the authors of the lead essay.

Improving the Population’s Health: The Affordable Care Act and the Importance of Integration

Abstract: Heath care and public health are typically conceptualized as separate, albeit overlapping, systems. Health care’s goal is the improvement of individual patient outcomes through the provision of medical services. In contrast, public health is devoted to improving health outcomes in the population as a whole through health promotion and disease prevention. Health care services receive the bulk of funding and political support, while public health is chronically starved of resources. In order to reduce morbidity and mortality, policymakers must shift their attention to public health services and to the improved integration of health care and public health. In other words, health care and public health should be treated as two parts of a single integrated health system (which we refer to as the health system throughout this article). Furthermore, in order to maximize improvements in health status, policymakers must consider the impact of all governmental policies on health (a Health in All Policies Approach). The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA or the Act) reflects the dominance of health care over public health. As its name suggests, the statute’s primary goal is to improve access to health care services through insurance system reforms. In contrast, politicians neglected the goal of improving the population’s health in this monumental overhaul of our health system. Although the ACA does little to mandate health system integration, various opportunities exist within the Act’s implementation for decision makers to improve coordination between health care and public health. In the first part of this article, we argue that the key purpose of health reform should be the improvement of health. Evidence indicates that public health efforts - health promotion and disease prevention - contribute more to reductions in morbidity and mortality than improved access to health care services. We then argue that optimal gains in health status will occur through effective and efficient integration of public health and health care services. In the third part of the article, we explore the ACA’s contribution to the goal of improving the population’s health. Specifically, we critically analyze the extent to which the Act facilitates integration between public health and health care. Drawing from the health policy literature, we discuss strategies for advancing integration, with a view to guiding the Act’s implementation and future health care debates. We conclude by advocating for a broad approach to integration - a Health in All Policies Approach - which would integrate health considerations into all areas of government policy.