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.

Domestic and External Debt: The Doomed Quest for Equal Treatment

Abstract: Until recently, governments borrowed from domestic residents and foreign investors using very different instruments. Residents bought "domestic debt" - paper denominated in local currency and governed by domestic law. Foreign investors preferred "external debt", which offered foreign currency and foreign law. Because there was virtually no overlap between resident and nonresident holdings, it mattered little that lawyers and economists defined domestic and external debt differently: lawyers focused on features such as governing law and jurisdiction, economists on the holder's residence and currency of denomination. The legal and economic definitions of domestic and external debt were effectively bundled: "domestic debt" meant local-currency, local-law instruments held by local residents; "external debt" meant foreign-currency, foreign-law instruments held by foreign investors. In the end, lawyers and economists spoke of the same paper. Liberalization of the international capital markets has changed this. Foreigners now routinely invest in local currency, domestic law debt, and residents often dominate international sovereign bond issues. With these changes, the legal and economic definitions of domestic and external debt have unbundled. This change in the pattern of sovereign borrowing demands a new way of framing the core issues that arise in a financial crisis. Most existing approaches focus disproportionately on one set of legal instruments: foreign currency sovereign bonds governed by foreign law. Our essay argues that this focus is misplaced. It is the product of an analytic prism that no longer reflects reality well enough to offer a useful guide to crisis management.

Competition Agency Design: What's on the Menu?

Abstract: In recent years the United Kingdom and various other countries have decided to restructure the institutions responsible for enforcing competition laws. How should a nation choose among myriad alternative arrangements? This paper lays out nine major institutional choices that governments must address in designing the implementation mechanism for a competition law. The paper discusses tradeoffs associated with each choice and examines interdependencies among different design elements. In doing so, the paper offers a structured framework that countries can use in forming new competition systems or altering existing institutional arrangements.

Against Endowment Theory: Experimental Economics and Legal Scholarship

Abstract: Endowment theory holds the mere ownership of a thing causes people to assign greater value to it than they otherwise would. The theory entered legal scholarship in the early 1990s and quickly eclipsed other accounts of how ownership affects valuation. Today, appeals to a generic “endowment effect” can be found throughout the legal literature. More recent experimental results, however, suggest that the empirical evidence for endowment theory is weak at best. When the procedures used in laboratory experiments are altered to rule out alternative explanations, the “endowment effect” disappears. This and other recent evidence suggest that mere ownership does not affect willingness to trade or exchange. Many experimental economists no longer ascribe to endowment theory. Legal scholars, however, continue to rely on endowment theory to predict legal entitlements’ probable effects on expressed valuations. That reliance is no longer warranted. Endowment theory’s influence in legal scholarship provides important lessons about how legal scholars and policymakers should, and should not, use results from experimental economics.

WHO code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel.

Abstract: The numbers of migrating health workers have increased significantly over the past few decades and patterns of global migration have become more complex as increasing demand for health workers in the world’s wealthiest countries has resulted in large numbers of health workers migrating from lower-income countries to work in higher-income countries.1 Health worker migration is contributing to severe shortages of trained health workers in the lower-income countries and areas of greatest need, thereby weakening health systems that are already fragile in many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. International health workforce migration is an extraordinary and multifaceted public health challenge. While health workers have the human right to migrate to countries that wish to employ them and destination countries can appropriately strengthen their health systems by employing foreign health workers, large-scale migration can have a devastating impact on the health systems of source countries. In addition, widespread concerns have been increasingly raised about unethical and unfair recruitment practices. In response to this evolving global health challenge, Member States of WHO adopted resolution WHA 57.19 at the World Health Assembly in May 2004 mandating that the WHO Director-General develop a code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel in consultation with WHO Member States and all relevant partners. This historic resolution authorizing the elaboration of the proposed code, marks the first time that WHO has used its constitutional authority to develop a non-binding code to be adopted by the World Health Assembly since the 1980 International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. On 1 September 2008, the WHO secretariat published the first draft of the code for consideration and comment by Member States and other stakeholders. The initial draft code was built on existing regional and bilateral agreements, memoranda of understanding, and national and regional codes of practice, as well as the web-based multistakeholder global dialogue and the collaborative work of the Health Worker Migration Policy Initiative and the Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, organized by the Global Health Workforce Alliance. Web-based hearings on the draft code were held through to 30 September 2008. This initiative provides an opportunity for Member States, health workers, recruiters, employers, academic and research institutions, health professional organizations, relevant sub-regional, regional and international organizations, whether governmental or nongovernmental, and all persons concerned with the international recruitment of health personnel to consider and comment on the draft code. Input received during the course of these web-based public hearings will contribute to developing a revised draft code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel. The WHO code of practice is expected to be an important new instrument in the global response to the health worker migration issue. Designed to be global in scope, it is directed towards all persons concerned with the international recruitment of health personnel, including WHO Member States as well as health workers, recruiters, employers and civil society. Prior to the initiation of the proposed WHO code, several codes of practice on health worker migration were adopted over the previous decade at the national and regional level. However, there is no existing legal instrument with global coverage applicable to both source and destination countries. The proposed WHO code of practice would, therefore, be unique in scope and contribute new and vital guidance on the international recruitment of health personnel. The draft code sets out guiding principles and voluntary international standards for recruitment of health workers, to increase the consistency of national policies and discourage unethical practices, while promoting an equitable balance of interests among health workers, source countries and destination countries. Consistent with contemporary international legal practice, the initial draft of the code also aims to establish an international procedural structure to foster national dialogue, commitment and action on health worker migration. Importantly, this first draft does not aim to comprehensively address and resolve all of the complex substantive issues raised by the international recruitment of health personnel. Rather, the text was purposefully kept brief. The goal of the first draft is to provide a straightforward framework and platform on which to launch negotiations. WHO Member States may potentially consider and elaborate more detailed national and international commitments in the final version of the code or in future international instruments. Although the final text will technically be a non-binding international instrument, the proposed code may provide a significant first step towards the development of an effective framework for national and international cooperation to maximize the benefits, and mitigate the potential negative impacts, of international health worker migration on countries and to safeguard the rights of migrant health workers. ■

Through the Quarantine Looking Glass: Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis and Public Health Governance, Law, and Ethics

Abstract: The incident in May-June 2007 involving a U.S. citizen traveling internationally while infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis involved the U.S. federal government's application of its quarantine and isolation powers. The incident and the isolation order raised numerous important issues for public health governance, law, and ethics. This article explores many of these issues by examining how the exercise of quarantine powers provides a powerful lens through which to understand how societies respond to and attempt to govern threats posed by dangerous, contagious pathogens. The article considers historical aspects of governmental power to quarantine and isolate individuals and groups; analyzes the current state of quarantine and isolation law in the United States in light of the recent incident with drug-resistant tuberculosis; and explores global aspects of public health governance and law highlighted by this incident.