scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Institution

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 & Global health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.


Papers
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, defense costs for commercially insured personal injury tort claims in Texas over 1988-2004, and insurer reserves for those costs were studied. But they did not show that insurers did not react to the sustained rise in defense costs by adjusting their expense reserves, either in real dollars or relative to reserves for payouts.
Abstract: We study defense costs for commercially insured personal injury tort claims in Texas over 1988-2004, and insurer reserves for those costs. We rely on detailed case-level data on defense legal fees and expenses, and Texas state bar data on lawyers' hourly rates. We study medical malpractice ("med mal") cases in detail, and other types of cases in less detail. Controlling for payouts, real defense costs in med mal cases rise by 4.6% per year, roughly doubling over this period. The rate of increase is similar for legal fees and for other expenses. Real hourly rates for personal injury defense counsel are flat.Defense costs in med mal cases correlate strongly with payouts, both in OLS and in an instrumental variable analysis. They also correlate with the stage at which a case is resolved, and case duration. Mean duration declined over time. Med mal insurers predominantly use outside counsel. Case-level variation in initial expense reserves predicts a small fraction of actual defense costs. In other areas of tort litigation (auto, general commercial, multi-peril, and other professional liability), defense costs rose by 2.2% per year. Defense costs in these cases are predicted by the same factors as in med mal cases, plus the presence of multiple defendants.Insurer reserving practices raise some puzzles. Med mal insurers did not react to the sustained rise in defense costs by adjusting their expense reserves, either in real dollars or relative to reserves for payouts. Thus, expense reserves declined substantially relative to defense costs. In other litigation areas, expense reserves rose along with defense costs.

32 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The JALI is a coherent global health governance framework for the post-MDG period that will clarify national and global responsibilities for health, enable countries to effectively carry out these responsibilities, and create accountability around them.
Abstract: A population’s health and well-being is primarily a national responsibility. Every state owes all of its inhabitants a comprehensive package of essential health goods and services under its obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to health. Yet health is also a global responsibility. Every state has a duty to ensure a safe and healthy world, with particular attention to the needs of the world’s poorest people. Improving health and reducing unconscionable health inequalities is both an international obligation under the human right to health and a matter of global social justice.The mutual obligations of states to safeguard the health of their own inhabitants and the health of people everywhere are poorly defined, with serious adverse consequences for world health. These obligations must be better understood. Central questions of vital importance to the health of the world’s population include: What are the duties of all states to ensure the right to the highest attainable standard of health for all their inhabitants? What are the components of a comprehensive package of essential goods and services under the right to health to which people everywhere are entitled? How specifically can states’ duties to govern well be incorporated into and realized through the health system? One of the most inadequately understood obligations is the responsibility of the international community to augment the capacity of low- and middle-income states to ensure their population’s health, with the specific contours of this obligation ill-defined. Indeed, international financial assistance is framed as “aid,” rather than an expression of mutual responsibility, leaving the flawed impression that international health assistance is a matter of charitable discretion rather than an international human rights obligation. The approach to health assistance as charity rather than as an obligation also means that this assistance is unreliable over the longer-term, leading to the reluctance of low- and middle-income countries to use it for recurrent public health expenditures. Continued and accelerated improvements in global health will require significant and reliable funding at a time of extended economic uncertainty and budget belt-tightening in many countries. Progress on global health therefore risks stagnating unless states have clarity on, accept, and adhere to national and international obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to health. Translating state obligations into improved health will also require building a more robust and effective global health governance structure. Current global health initiatives are too often undermined by a host of now well-recognized weaknesses: Global health actors do not sufficiently coordinate their activities with each other or the host countries, leading to fragmentation, nor do they make and keep longer-term funding commitments, leading to unpredictability. Development partners do not set the priorities required to meet all human health needs, and lack accountability for their own global health commitments. Host countries are not empowered to take “ownership” of health planning and programs. And the international community does not adequately monitor and evaluate programmatic effectiveness. Our aim is to propose a coherent global health governance framework for the post-MDG period that will clarify national and global responsibilities for health, enable countries to effectively carry out these responsibilities, and create accountability around them. In order to achieve this, we are establishing the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI). The primary purpose of the JALI is to catalyze and facilitate research, broad consultations, and campaigns that will lead to a global compact. Towards this end, the JALI will rigorously and systematically address the following issues: Clarify the essential package of health goods and services to which all human beings are entitled as part of their right to health; Clarify the responsibility of all states, even the poorest, to provide this essential package of health goods and services to all of their inhabitants; Assess the gap between the conditions (financial and others) for the provision of an essential package of health goods and services, and the domestic capacity of and use of that capacity by poorer countries - the gap for which the international community should take responsibility; Clarify the international responsibility to build the capacity of low- and middle-income states to provide an essential package of health goods and services to their inhabitants; Clarify the principles of good governance, both nationally and globally, including transparency, honesty, and accountability; Propose a coherent global health governance architecture to ensure robust national and global responsibilities for health. In particular, the JALI will answer the following four key questions: What are the essential services and goods guaranteed to every human being under the human right to health? What is the responsibility that all states have for the health of their own populations? What is the responsibility of all countries to ensure the health of the world's population? What kind of global health governance is needed to ensure that all states live up to their mutual responsibilities?

32 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: Key Bloomberg policies are discussed, including those in the areas of diet and nutrition (e.g., menu labeling, trans fat ban, and the soda portion limit); physical activity; and tobacco control (smoke free laws, cigarette taxes, and advertising restrictions).
Abstract: Michael Bloomberg leaves the mayoralty of New York City, with his health legacy is bitterly contested. The public health community views him as an urban innovator — a rare political and business leader willing to fight for a built environment conducive to healthier, safer lifestyles. To his distractors, however, Bloomberg epitomizes a meddling nanny — an elitist dictating to largely poor and working class people about how they ought to lead their lives. His policies have sparked intense public, corporate, and political ire — critical of sweeping mayoral power to socially engineer the city and its inhabitants.Here, I seek to show how Bloomberg has fundamentally changed public health policy and discourse. He has used the engine of government to make New York City a laboratory for innovation — raising the visibility of public health, testing policy effectiveness, and probing the boundaries of state power. The courts have blocked some of his boldest initiatives, but he offered a paradigm for the "new public health" — reaching beyond infectious diseases to upstream risk factors in everyday life and the human habitat. I also critically probe various arguments designed to derail his policies (e.g., questions of policy consistency, scientific evidence, First Amendment claims, and civil liberties) along with the overarching charge of unjustified paternalism.The article discusses key Bloomberg policies, including those in the areas of diet and nutrition (e.g., menu labeling, trans fat ban, and the soda portion limit); physical activity (e.g., bike and walking paths, safe school routes, parks); and tobacco control (smoke free laws, cigarette taxes, and advertising restrictions). A graphic categorizing his major health policies appears at O'Neill Institute Online.Please see the title page for a link to the graphic categorizing his major health policies.

32 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The controversy over IRBs arises from differing preferences, methodological commitments, and risk tolerances as discussed by the authors, and some modest strategies for improving on the status quo seem unlikely to solve the controversy in a way that makes everyone happy.
Abstract: Institutional Review Boards ("IRBs") are polarizing institutions. IRB supporters view them as the best thing since sliced bread. Detractors believe IRBs impose costs and have no benefits. Supporters point to the good faith and hard work of those who volunteer to serve on an IRB. Detractors suggest that IRBS emphasize bureaucratic busy-work. Supporters ask for more money and more staff so they can do an even more thorough job reviewing research protocols. Detractors point out that the IRB framework of research oversight would never be approved by an IRB. Supporters counter that notorious examples of abuse (e.g., Tuskegee and Nuremberg) show that IRBs are necessary. Detractors respond with anecdotes of IRB stupidity and incompetence. Supporters argue that conducting research is a privilege, not a right. Detractors complain about censorship, restrictions on academic freedom, and the chilling of constitutionally protected free speech. Both sides then return to their respective camps, secure in the knowledge that they are right and those on the other side are self-righteous zealots. The controversy over IRBs arises from differing preferences, methodological commitments, and risk tolerances. Both sides believe fundamental principles (academic freedom/censorship v. the protection of vulnerable human subjects) are at stake, so the dispute is not readily subject to compromise. Even King Solomon would find it difficult to solve the controversy in a way that makes everyone happy - and the original Solomonic strategy (cutting the director of each IRB in half) seems unlikely to do the job. This article offers some perspective on the dispute, and some modest strategies for improving on the status quo.

32 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors explores the possible marriage of recent political theory on deliberative democracy with conflict resolution theory and practice and suggests a variety of different modes of conflict resolution sorted by the need for constitutive, permanent or ad hoc decision-making, plenary vs. committee or task oriented organizational principles.
Abstract: This article explores the possible marriage of recent political theory on deliberative democracy with conflict resolution theory and practice. It reviews the theoretical framework for encouraging more active public participation in both governmental and political decision making (Guttman & Thompson, Bohman, Habermas, Hampshire) and asks how processes can be structured to maximize political participation through several different modes of discourse: reasoned argument/principle; trading of preferences/bargaining and appeals to passion, emotion, and deeply held beliefs. The article suggests a variety of different modes of conflict resolution sorted by the need for constitutive, permanent or ad hoc decision-making, plenary vs. committee or task oriented organizational principles and whether deliberations are to be private and confidential or transparent and public, with predictions about how different outcomes will be produced by different process structures. In addition, the article suggests that lawyers might be particularly well suited (with additional disciplinary training) to performing Tocquevillian facilitative roles between and among deliberators in processes that seek to increase participative democracy and improve the quality of decision making.

32 citations


Authors

Showing all 585 results

NameH-indexPapersCitations
Lawrence O. Gostin7587923066
Michael J. Saks381555398
Chirag Shah343415056
Sara J. Rosenbaum344256907
Mark Dybul33614171
Steven C. Salop3312011330
Joost Pauwelyn321543429
Mark Tushnet312674754
Gorik Ooms291243013
Alicia Ely Yamin291222703
Julie E. Cohen28632666
James G. Hodge272252874
John H. Jackson271022919
Margaret M. Blair26754711
William W. Bratton251122037
Network Information
Related Institutions (5)
American University
13K papers, 367.2K citations

78% related

Brookings Institution
2.7K papers, 135.3K citations

78% related

London School of Economics and Political Science
35K papers, 1.4M citations

78% related

Bocconi University
8.9K papers, 344.1K citations

75% related

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
1.9K papers, 118K citations

75% related

Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Institution in previous years
YearPapers
202174
2020146
2019115
2018113
2017109
2016118