Law Commons^™

Non-State Actors "Under Color Of Law": Closing A Gap In Protection Under The Convention Against Torture, Anna R. Welch, Sangyeob Kim

Faculty Publications

The world is experiencing a global restructuring that poses a serious threat to international efforts to prevent and protect against torture. The rise of powerful transnational non-state actors such as gangs, drug cartels, militias, and terrorist organizations is challenging states’ authority to control and govern torture committed within their territory.

In the United States, those seeking protection against deportation under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) must establish a likelihood of torture at the instigation of or by consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity. However, what is …

Precedent And Dialogue In Investment Treaty Arbitration, Richard C. Chen

Faculty Publications

Since the turn of the century, investment treaty arbitration (ITA) tribunals have begun citing past decisions with increasing frequency. They do so despite the absence of any formal doctrine of stare decisis and the presence of structural obstacles to the use of precedent in this context. Scholarship in this area has focused on explaining the rise of this de facto doctrine of precedent and evaluating the merits of the practice. Few have grappled with more practical questions about how precedent should operate in this unique sphere, but even a cursory examination of ITA decisions would reveal that some order and …

Law As Strategy: Thinking Below The State In Afghanistan, Charles H. Norchi

Faculty Publications

U.S.engagement in Afghanistan is inevitable, but there will be choices about strategy. In 1952, the U.S.Naval War College convened a lecture series devoted to strategy. On March 20, the lecturer was Harold D.Lasswell, an architect of the New Haven School of Jurisprudence. Lasswell observed, “The aim of strategy is to maximize the realization of the goal values of the body politic.” This article proposes that law is among the available strategic instruments to advance goal values common to the United States, Afghanistan,and the world community.

Bilateral Investment Treaties And Domestic Institutional Reform, Richard C. Chen

Faculty Publications

The bilateral investment treaties (BITs) signed between developed and developing countries are supposed to increase the flow of investment from the former to the latter. But the evidence indicates that the existing approach of guaranteeing special protections for foreign investors has only a modest impact on luring their dollars. At the same time they are failing to produce meaningful benefits, these treaty commitments create substantial costs for the host states that make them, exposing them to liability and constraining their regulatory authority. Given this state of imbalance, the time seems ripe for a new approach, but existing proposals for revising …

Much Ado About The Tpp's Effect On Pharmaceuticals, Emily M. Morris

Faculty Publications

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement’s many provisions that were beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry have caused a good deal of controversy. Specifically, critics allege that the TPP’s provisions requiring that member states expand patentable subject matter, adjust pharmaceutical patent terms, and link regulatory marketing approval to a drug's patent status would have raised drug prices and hindered access to medicines, particularly in developing countries. Closer examination of these provisions as well as the various ways in which member states can modify or ameliorate the effects of these provisions suggests that their potential effect on drug prices and access to health care …