Law Commons^™

A Larger War On Terror?, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Global Health Law: A Definition And Grand Challenges, Lawrence O. Gostin, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

It has been only recently that scholars have engaged in a serious discussion of "public health law." This academic discourse examines the role of the state and civil society in health promotion and disease prevention within the country. There is an important emerging literature on the international dimensions of health, but no similar systematic definition and exposition of a field we call "global health law." In this article we aim to fill this gap by defining global health law and characterizing the grand challenges. Given the rapid and expanding globalization that is a defining feature of today's world, the need …

Global Health Law: Health In A Global Community, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The examination of public health law traditionally focuses on constitutions, statutes, regulations, and common law at the national and sub-national level. However, the determinants of health (e.g., pathogens, air, food, water, even lifestyle choices) do not originate solely within national borders. Health threats inexorably spread to neighboring countries, regions, and even continents. Peoples’ lives are profoundly affected by commerce, politics, science, and technology from all over the world. Global integration and interdependence occur “as capital, traded goods, persons, concepts, images, ideas, and values diffuse across state boundaries.” It is for this reason that law and policy need to be transnational, …

Ensuring Effective Pain Treatment: A National And Global Perspective, Allyn L. Taylor, Lawrence O. Gostin, Katrina A. Pagonis

O'Neill Institute Papers

Medical availability of effective pain medication is vitally important domestically and globally. Medical advances have substantially improved the technical capacity to control pain and diminish its consequences. Worldwide, millions of persons with chronic, acute, and terminal conditions have found relief from excruciating pain through medical intervention. However, richer countries have disproportionately benefited from improvements in access to and use of pain medication. The tragedy is that for most of the world's population, particularly persons in poorer countries, effective pain control is entirely unavailable.

The International Migration And Recruitment Of Nurses: Human Rights And Global Justice, Lawrence O. Gostin

O'Neill Institute Papers

The international migration of health workers – physicians, nurses, midwives, and pharmacists – leaves the world’s poorest countries with severe human resource shortages, seriously jeopardizing the achievement of the U.N. health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Advocates for global health call active recruitment in low-income countries a crime. Despite the pronounced international concern, there is little research and few solutions. This commentary focuses on the international recruitment of internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the perspective of human rights and global justice. It explains the complex reasons for nurse shortages in rich and poor countries; the duties of source and host countries; …

The Brits Do It Better, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Future Of International Criminal Justice, Richard Goldstone

Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture

On March 19, 2008, the Honorable Richard Goldstone, former justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s twenty-eithth Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "The Future of International Criminal Justice."

Goldstone graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962. After graduating, he practiced as an advocate at the Johannesburg Bar.

In 1976 he was appointed senior counsel and in 1980 was made a judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court. In 1989 he was appointed to the Appellate Division.

From 1991 to 1994 he served as the chairperson of …

The Duty Of States To Assist Other States In Need: Ethics, Human Rights, And International Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, Robert Archer

O'Neill Institute Papers

This article deals with a foreign policy question of extraordinary importance: What responsibilities do States have to provide economic and technical assistance to other states that have high levels of need affecting the health and life of their citizens? The question is important for a variety of reasons. There exist massive inequalities in health globally, with the result that poorer countries shoulder a disproportionate burden of disease and premature death. While poor countries have by far the greatest ongoing health needs, they also have the least capacity to meet those needs. In addition to the pervasive and debilitating effects of …

Addressing The Global Tragedy Of Needless Pain: Rethinking The United Nations Single Convention On Narcotic Drugs, Allyn L. Taylor

O'Neill Institute Papers

The lack of medical availability of effective pain medication is an enduring and expanding global health calamity. Despite important medical advances, pain remains severely under-treated worldwide, particularly in developing countries. This article contributes to the discussion of this global health crisis by considering international legal and institutional mechanisms to promote wider accessibility to critical narcotic drugs for pain relief.

Climate Change, Intergenerational Equity, And International Law, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Climate change is an inherently intergenerational problem with extremely serious implications for equity between ourselves and future generations and among communities in the present and the future. More than twenty years ago I wrote an article entitled Climate Change, Intergenerational Equity and International Law. The basic issues and the analysis remain the same, though a number of international agreements relevant to climate change have been concluded since then.

Post-Conflict Rule Of Law Building: The Need For A Multi-Layered, Synergistic Approach, Jane E. Stromseth

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years, considerable blood, sweat, and treasure have been devoted to building the rule of law in the wake of armed conflicts and military interventions in many parts of the world. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Kosovo to East Timor, and Sierra Leone to Haiti and elsewhere, international interveners and local leaders have struggled to address both security and humanitarian challenges in societies seeking to overcome a legacy of violent conflict

Codes And Hypertext: The Intertextuality Of International And Comparative Law, Marylin J. Raisch

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The field of information studies reveals gaps in the literature of international and comparative law as part of interdisciplinary and textual studies. To illustrate the kind of theoretical and text-based work that could be done, this essay provides an example of such a study. Religious law texts, civil law codes, treaties and constitutional texts may provide a means to reveal the nature of hypertext as the new format for commentary. Margins used to be used for commentary, and now this can be done with hypertext and links in footnotes. Scholarly communication in general is now intertextual, and texts derive value …

Treaties As Law Of The Land: The Supremacy Clause And The Judicial Enforcement Of Treaties, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Courts in recent years have perceived threshold obstacles to the enforcement of treaties deriving from their nature as contracts between nations that generally depend for their efficacy on the interest and honor of the parties, rather than on domestic adjudication. This approach to treaty enforcement is in tension with the Constitution’s declaration that treaties are part of the law of the land and its instruction to judges to give them effect. The Founders understood that treaties depended on interest and honor on the international plane, but they made treaties enforceable in our courts anyway in order to avoid the international …

Tinkering With Torture In The Aftermath Of Hamdan: Testing The Relationship Between Internationalism And Constitutionalism, Catherine Powell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Bridging international and constitutional law scholarship, the author examines the question of torture in light of democratic values. The focus in this article is on the international prohibition on torture as this norm was addressed through the political process in the aftermath of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Responding to charges that the international torture prohibition--and international law generally--poses irreconcilable challenges for democracy and our constitutional framework, the author contends that by promoting respect for fundamental rights and for minorities and outsiders, international law actually facilitates a broad conception of democracy and constitutionalism. She takes on the question of torture within …