Law Commons^™

Who’S Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework: A Milestone In Global Governance For Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, David P. Fidler

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In May 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits (PIP Framework). The PIP Framework’s adoption ended years of difficult negotiations, which began after Indonesia refused to share samples of avian influenza A (H5N1) with WHO in late 2006. Indonesia justified its actions on the need to create more equitable access for developing countries to benefits, such as vaccines and antivirals, derived from research and development on shared influenza virus samples. The global health community feared that failure to share influenza virus samples …

The Joint Action And Learning Initiative: Towards A Global Agreement On National And Global Responsibilities For Health, Lawrence O. Gostin, Eric A. Friedman, Gorik Ooms, Thomas Gebauer, Narendra Gupta, Devi Sridhar, Wang Chenguang, John-Arne Røttingen, David Sanders

O'Neill Institute Papers

A coalition of civil society organizations and academics is initiating a Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) to research key conceptual questions involving health rights and responsibilities, with the goal of securing a global health agreement andsupporting civil society and community mobilization around the human right to health. The social mobilization is critical to creating the political space that would make such an agreement possible and to ensuring its implementation.

This agreement, such as a Framework Convention on Global Health, would inform post-Millennium Development Goal global health commitments, be grounded in the right …

International Law In A Kaleidoscopic World, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

International law is developed and implemented today in a complicated, diverse, and changing context. Globalization and integration, fragmentation and decentralization, and bottom-up empowerment are arising simultaneously among highly diverse peoples and civilizations. Most importantly, this period is characterized by rapid and often unforeseen changes with widespread effects. Advances in information technology make possible ever shifting ad hoc coalitions and informal groups and a myriad of individual initiatives.

The International Criminal Court And Justice On The Ground, Jane E. Stromseth

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is wonderful to be here today to celebrate Justice O'Connor's 80th birthday and to honor her enormous contribution to our national civic life. Let me acknowledge up front that the title of my essay conveys a certain double meaning. Justice O'Connor has always been a "justice on the ground." Grounded in experience and practical wisdom, she has always been concerned with the practical impact of Supreme Court decisions, and very determined that decisions should be understandable to the public (no footnotes allowed!). Moreover, her current work on "Our Courts" recognizes that maintaining fair, independent courts depends crucially on public …

Law As Asymmetric Information: Theory, Application, And Results In The Context Of Foreign Direct Investment In Real Estate, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In his seminal 1970 article on lemon markets, George Akerlof posited the possibility of market failure in the presence of asymmetric information regarding a good’s value. In the intervening four decades, the importance of accurate valuation information has grown as transnational trade has boomed. The aim of the instant article is to assess the potential impact on transnational trade of asymmetric information regarding the legal attributes of a given good. Inaccurate or asymmetric information regarding relevant legal attributes may give rise to the same problem of market failure that Akerlof initially posited. If buyers are unsure of the ownership of …

Democracy Promotion In The Obama Administration: An Opportunity To Match Action To Rhetoric, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article addresses whether and to what extent the Obama administration should continue the Bush administration policies relating to democracy promotion. The focus of the article is on the ADVANCE Act of 2007, a legislative enactment that institutionalized democracy promotion in the State Department. After explicating the key provisions of this Act, as well as their implementation status, the article addresses key critiques leveled at democracy promotion, as well as areas where the Obama administration can expand on what has been accomplished thus far in this field. In the end, democracy promotion should continue to be an integral component of …

Hannah Arendt As A Theorist Of International Criminal Law, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper examines Hannah Arendt's contributions as a theorist of international criminal law. It draws mostly on Eichmann in Jerusalem, particularly its epilogue, but also on Arendt's correspondence, her writings from the 1940s on Jewish politics, and portions of The Human Condition and her essays. The paper focuses on four issues: (1) Arendt's conception of international crimes as universal offenses against humanity, and the implications she draws for theories of criminal jurisdiction; (2) her "performative" theory of group identity as acts of political affiliation and disaffiliation, from which follows a radically different account of the crime of genocide than …

Risk Taking And Force Protection, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper addresses two questions about the morality of warfare: (1) how much risk must soldiers take to minimize unintended civilian casualties caused by their own actions (“collateral damage”), and (2) whether it is the same for the enemy's civilians as for one's own.

The questions take on special importance in warfare where one side is able to attack the other side from a safe distance, but at the cost of civilian lives, while safeguarding civilians may require soldiers to take precautions that expose them to greater risk. In a well-known article, Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin argue that while …

The Advance Democracy Act And The Future Of United States Democracy Promotion Efforts, Patrick J. Glen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article addresses whether and to what extent the Obama administration should continue the Bush administration policies relating to democracy promotion. The focus of the article is on the ADVANCE Act of 2007, a legislative enactment that institutionalized democracy promotion in the State Department. After explicating the key provisions of this Act, as well as their implementation status, the article addresses key critiques leveled at democracy promotion, as well as areas where the Obama administration can expand on what has been accomplished thus far in this field. In the end, democracy promotion should continue to be an integral component of …

Withdrawing From International Custom: Terrible Food, Small Portions, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Curtis A. Bradley and Mitu Gulati’s Withdrawing from International Custom brings to mind the old joke recounted by Woody Allen in Annie Hall: “Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’” Similarly, while Bradley and Gulati attack international law’s current prohibition of unilateral withdrawal from custom, they propose an alternative that differs only modestly from it (small portions). At the same time, the doctrinal change they propose would take customary international law in the …

The Who Global Code Of Practice On The International Recruitment Of Health Personnel: The Evolution Of Global Health Diplomacy, Allyn L. Taylor, Ibadat S. Dhillon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The May 2010 adoption of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel created a global architecture, including ethical norms and institutional and legal arrangements, to guide international cooperation and serve as a platform for continuing dialogue on the critical problem of health worker migration. Highlighting the contribution of non-binding instruments to global health governance, this article describes the Code negotiation process from its early stages to the formal adoption of the final text of the Code. Detailed are the vigorous negotiations amongst key stakeholders, including the active role of non-governmental organizations. The …

Customary International Law As U.S. Law: A Critique Of The Revisionist And Intermediate Positions And A Defense Of The Modern Position, Carlos Manuel Vázquez

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In a recent referendum, the citizens of Oklahoma overwhelmingly approved a State constitutional amendment providing that the courts of the State "shall not consider international law or Sharia law" in rendering their decisions. The amendment's exclusion of Sharia law has garnered most of the media attention, but more consequential by far is the measure's directive to the State courts to disregard international law. Similar measures have been proposed in other States, some of them merely barring consideration of Sharia law or foreign law, but others barring consideration of international law as well. These measures are clearly unconstitutional insofar as they …

The Wider Context: The Future Of Capital Markets Regulation In Developed Markets, Cally Jordan

Faculty Papers & Publications

At a time of such great turbulence, looking to the future directions of capital markets and their regulation in developed economies is a particularly risky business. We are in the midst of a great sea change. Nevertheless, there are several current, and readily observable, phenomena which are likely to shape capital markets regulation in the near future. First of all, the blurring of the distinctions between developed and developing markets themselves, as well as that between domestic and international markets, has put into question the adequacy of existing regulatory frameworks. Also, the transatlantic dialogue, London – New York, has given …

Mental Torture: A Critique Of Erasures In U.S. Law, David Luban, Henry Shue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Both international and federal law criminalize mental torture as well as physical torture, and both agree that “severe mental pain or suffering” defines mental torture. However, U.S. law provides a confused and convoluted definition of severe mental pain or suffering—one that falsifies the very concept and makes mental torture nearly impossible to prosecute or repress. Our principal aim is to expose the fallacies that underlie the U.S. definition of mental torture: first, a materialist bias that the physical is more real than the mental; second, a substitution trick that defines mental pain or suffering through a narrow set of causes …

Ethical Allocation Of Preexposure Hiv Prophylaxis, Lawrence O. Gostin, Susan C. Kim

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Civil society-led movements transformed global AIDS action from deep skepticism about extending anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in low and middle-income countries to an historic scaling up of treatment towards universal access. The AIDS movement, however, is at an inflection point due to the interplay of key health and economic determinants—the global financial downturn, tight foreign aid budgets, and intense resource competition. Policy makers will now have to consider implementation of a new intervention—pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which could mean a diversion of ARVs from treatment to prevention. The principle underlying PrEP is that ARVs could prevent HIV infection among people who are …