Law Commons^™

Beyond Counting Votes: The Political Economy Of Bush V. Gore, Michael B. Abramowicz, Maxwell L. Stearns

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The Supreme Court Justices' votes in Bush v. Gore revealed a doctrinal inversion. The conservative justices limited the Florida Supreme Court's power to construe state election law and embraced an expansive application of equal protection doctrine to determine the outcome of a presidential election, while the liberal justices advocated judicial restraint in presidential elections and respect for state court construction of state law. This anomaly invited claims in the popular press and in the legal academy that justices were behaving strategically, a timely observation given an increasing focus in recent judicial politics literature on strategic behavior by justices. In this …

A Place At The Table: Bush V. Gore Through The Lens Of Race, Spencer A. Overton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Although African Americans cast a majority of ballots rejected by counting machines following the 2000 presidential election in Florida, legal academic commentators have not grappled with the significance of race in their discussions of Bush v. Gore. This Essay uses race to expose structural shortcomings of merit-based assumptions about democracy embedded in the U.S. Supreme Court's majority per curiam. The Court prohibited a manual count of imperfectly marked ballots, effectively conditioning membership in political community on individual capacity to produce a machine-readable ballot. Despite the Court's individualized focus, however, merit-based assumptions about democracy interfere primarily not with individual rights, but …

Dod Range Rule Withdrawn With A View Towards Reproposal, Lisa M. Schenck

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

During the Department of Defense's Environmental Cleanup Stakeholders Forum in St. Louis, Missouri, in November 2000, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Ms. Sherri Goodman, announced that she had withdrawn the Range Rule from the Office of Management and Budget, with the intent to repropose the Rule. This Note outlines the reasons why Ms. Goodman withdrew the Rule from the Office of Management and Budget and explains the interim directives to be issued by the Department of Defense.

Fear Of Oversight: The Fundamental Failure Of Businesslike Government, Steven L. Schooner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article discusses the National Performance Review's (NPR's) broad-reaching effort to reinvent government by making it more businesslike, focusing on its successful effort to reform the Federal procurement process. The article shows that the reformed system couples greatly increased buyer discretion with dramatically reduced oversight of government spending - both internal and external. This article asserts that this combination erodes the public's confidence in the procurement system, violates established norms, and is antithetical to a host of Congressional mandates and policies. More particularly, the article provides empirical evidence of the dramatic, sustained reduction in government contract related litigation during the …

Constitutional Circularity, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In supporting the invocation of stare decisis in constitutional cases, the Supreme Court has maintained that its decisions affect how the people conceptualize the government and their rights. Such an argument, which prioritizes contemporary understands of the Constitution over both the intentions of Framers and the nuances of doctrine, suggests that constitutional decisions may affect the meaning of the Constitution itself. In this Article, Professor Abramowicz offers a positive account demonstrating that the Court has used this type of argument, which he dubs “constitutional circularity,” and provides a normative critique. The positive account is relevant not only because it identifies …

The Undersea World Of Foreign Relations Federalism, Edward T. Swaine

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Uncertainty surrounds the field of foreign relations federalism. The Supreme Court has left lower courts to decide significant issues with little guidance, the Constitution provides little direct instruction, and the tension between national and state authority creates policy arguments on both sides based on uncertain conceptions on injury to these interests. Scholars should seize the opportunity to explore new functions and values for states in today’s globalized world.

The Intersection Of Two Systems: An American On Trial For An American Murder In The French Cour D'Assises, Renée Lettow Lerner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This study discusses a murder case in France's trial court for the most serious crimes, the Cour d'assises. The case was highly unusual because the person on trial was an American, accused of having murdered other Americans in the United States. For reasons given below, cases in which crimes committed in the United States are tried abroad are likely to become more common. This study describes how such a case proceeds, including some of the difficulties that can arise from combining two investigations controlled by very different systems of procedure. An advice section is given for American prosecutors and defense …

Privacy And Power: Computer Databases And Metaphors For Information Privacy, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Journalists, politicians, jurists, and legal academics often describe the privacy problem created by the collection and use of personal information through computer databases and the Internet with the metaphor of Big Brother - the totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Professor Solove argues that this is the wrong metaphor. The Big Brother metaphor as well as much of the law that protects privacy emerges from a longstanding paradigm for conceptualizing privacy problems. Under this paradigm, privacy is invaded by uncovering one's hidden world, by surveillance, and by the disclosure of concealed information. The harm caused by such invasions …

Chevron, State Farm And The Epa In The Courts Of Appeals During The 1990s, Robert L. Glicksman, Christopher H. Schroeder

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This study updates an article published a decade ago by the same authors. It presents a systematic analysis of decisions in which EPA or its administrator was a named party in the federal courts of appeals during the 1990s. Relying on a data base of over 300 cases, the main topics of the study are judicial review of statutory interpretation and of EPA's use of science in its rulemaking proceedings. In both the statutory interpretation and scientific areas, one of our most significant findings is evidence that the federal courts have embraced what Tom Grey has termed the new formalism. …

Encroachment: Putting The 'Squeeze' On The Department Of Defense (Dod), Lisa M. Schenck

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The Army, like other services, has found itself struggling to reconcile environmental compliance requirements with the need for realistic training. In order for the Army to accomplish its primary mission of fighting and winning in armed conflict, soldiers, leaders, and units must receive proper training. Thus, at times, environmental regulations limit the Army's ability to conduct realistic training and adequate testing activities. This Note reviews the measures taken by the Department of Defense between 2000 and 2001 to analyze and report on the effects of “encroachment” on military testing and training. From the Department of Defense’s perspective, encroachment includes external …

Rethinking Wto Trade Sanctions, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The paper presents an outline of the issues and a preliminary appraisal of the use of trade sanctions by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a means of promoting compliance by parties. The WTO is unique among intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in using trade sanctions to enforce independent adjudications. Many commentators have suggested using trade sanctions analogously in other IGOs, or alternatively broadening trade rules so that the sanctions can be used for other purposes, such as enforcing basic human rights. The paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of the use of such compliance sanctions by the WTO and concludes that …

Dispelling The Misconceptions Raised By The Davis Dissent, Joan E. Schaffner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article argues that the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education did not do enough to explicitly assuage the dissenters’ concerns and aims to do so itself. Davis permitted liability for school districts that purposely ignore instances of student-on-student sexual harassment that deprived a student of the opportunity for education. The three issues raised by the dissent were federalism, whether the conduct at issue is sexual harassment, and First Amendment concerns about the aggressor’s speech being protected. In response, I argue that the majority opinion does not violate federalism principles, the harassment qualifies as …

Transnational Civil Society Dialogues, Francesca Bignami, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Among the most interesting features of the New Transatlantic Agenda are the initiatives that are designed to link private actors and enable them to influence official policy making. Called "building bridges across the Atlantic" or "people-to-people links," these initiatives are intended to generate broad-based support for intergovernmental cooperation in trade liberalization, deregulation, immigration, justice, and a host of other areas (Wayne 1998; Krenzler 1998). This chapter surveys the efforts to institutionalize transatlantic civil society dialogue and offers suggestions on how the undertaking can be improved.

Institutional Foundations For Economic Legal Reform Transition Economies: The Case Of Competition Policy And Antitrust Enforcement, William E. Kovacic

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Since the 1970’s, there has been a progression toward market processes in nations once committed to comprehensive central economic planning. Multinational donors and individual Western countries have expended substantial resources to advise these nations about legal reforms designed to promote this progression. Despite enormous uncertainty and upheaval in the transition from planning to markets, economic liberalization remains the strategy of choice for boosting growth. Competition policy laws prohibiting various restraints of trade and creating public or private rights of action to enforce such prohibitions are common elements in the transition environment. This article examines questions about the proper scope of …

Louis Brandeis And The Race Question, Christopher A. Bracey

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

We live in a culture enamored by our heroes. They are celebrated for their extraordinary accomplishments, and canonized by histories that rarely reflect the true texture of their lives. Legal academics share in these tendencies and, as a result, heroes in the law are often viewed with the same rose-colored glasses accorded to their counterparts in popular culture. The late Louis Brandeis was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Born to Jewish immigrant parents, he graduated from Harvard Law School, and gained a reputation as America’s “People’s Attorney.” He pioneered an …

Crosby As Foreign Relations Law, Edward T. Swaine

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This brief essay addresses the Supreme Court's end-of-term decision in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, which preempted Massachusetts's law limiting public procurement from companies doing business in Burma. The essay addresses the perception that Crosby was limited in its implications for foreign relations law, and explores the Court's minimalist approach to inescapably constitutional questions - concluding, in the end, that the Court made foreign relations law without professing to do so, and without fully appreciating its consequences or capitalizing on its benefits.

Pennhurst, Chevron, And The Spending Power, Peter J. Smith

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Under Pennhurst, a court may conclude that Congress has imposed a condition on the grant of federal funds to a state recipient only if Congress unambiguously expressed its intent to do so; under Chevron, the existence of statutory ambiguity with respect to a particular issue requires the reviewing court to defer to a reasonable agency interpretation of the ambiguous statutory language. What, then, should a court do when the terms of a federal-state grant program's condition are not fully elaborated in the statute and when the agency charged with enforcing the statute has issued regulations that purport to define the …

The Wto And The Rights Of The Individual, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) is silent regarding its relationship to the individual. One might presume that an international organization set up to emancipate trade could have no purpose other than upholding trading rights of private actors. But the WTO was not established to achieve "free trade". That goal is absent from the Marrakesh Agreement. Instead, the goals of the Agreement are "reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade" and the "elimination of discriminatory treatment in international trade relations". The term "reciprocal arrangements" makes clear that …

The Long Lingering Shadow: Law, Liberalism, And Cultures Of Racial Hierarchy And Identity In The Americas, Robert J. Cottrol

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This is an article on race relations and comparative legal history. It contrasts the law of race and slavery in three Latin American nations, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, with the parallel history in the United States. The article examines the Afro-Latin experience as a critical issue in its own right and as a way to better inform our discussion of racial hierarchy, identity, and legal remedy in the United States. This article examines the paradoxical role played by liberal legal and cultural norms in the United States. It shows how liberalism helped create a system of castelike separation between black …

Property Rights And Property Rules For Commercializing Inventions, F. Scott Kieff

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Several recent commentators have criticized trends in the patent system by suggesting that the goals of the system can be better achieved through a variety of approaches that avoid or mitigate the monopoly-type impact of property rights. Suggested alternatives include the use of cash rewards, buy-outs, and liability rules, as distinct from property rules. This paper uses the important contributions made by these commentators to reveal shortcomings in any view of the patent system that focuses only on incentives to engage in inventive activity. The paper offers a new view of the patent system that embraces property rights and property …

Biotechnology And International Law, Sean D. Murphy

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Emerging applications in the field of biotechnology hold great promise for promoting the health and well-being of the global community, especially in developing states. Yet significant concerns have emerged about biotechnology in the transnational sphere, concerns that no doubt will increase in decades to come. The purpose of the article is to assess the strengths and limits of existing international norms and structures designed to address these concerns, and to suggest a means for augmenting current structures to make them more effective. International law develops and regulates transnational behavior in a manner that goes well beyond the development treaty regimes. …

'With Friends Like These...': Toward A More Efficacious Response To Affinity-Based Securities And Investment Fraud, Lisa M. Fairfax

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article highlights the increase in affinity fraud - securities and investment fraud targeting members of a particular racial or ethnic group perpetrated either by a member of that group or someone claiming to advance the groups' interests. Affinity fraud differs from other forms of securities fraud because perpetrators establish their credibility and the credibility of their investment schemes by appealing to the trust that group members share, often promising that some of the invested funds will be used to assist the group's church or ethnic community. This reliance on group trust and sense of community persuades otherwise cautious people …

Telling A Less Suspicious Story: Notes Toward A Non-Skeptical Approach To Legal/Cultural Analysis, Paul Schiff Berman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the generation of law and society research that emerged with the formation of the Law and Society Association, sociolegal scholars, building on the Legal Realist attack on formalism, told a story primarily about the possibility of social progress through law. Over the past two decades, however, sociolegal scholars have become increasingly disenchanted with the reformist project. These writers, influenced by Michel Foucault and other postmodern theorists, have begun to see law not as an instrument for dispensing justice, but as a constitutive societal force shaping social relations, constructing meaning, and defining categories of behavior. As part of the move …

The Coin Of The Realm: Poverty And The Commodification Of Gendered Labor, Naomi R. Cahn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article examines the commodification of household labor performed by poor women. This Article also explores various perspectives on commodification, analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of commodification rhetoric. While I do not advocate payment of actual wages to mothers, I believe that focusing on the valuation of household work can be useful in clarifying some of the contemporary dilemmas faced by poor women.

I conclude that market understandings can enrich family law just as family understandings can enrich market laws. My goal is not to diminish the role of caretaking by suggesting that everything has a market price. Instead, I …

The Long Lingering Shadow: Law, Liberalism, And Cultures Of Racial Hierarchy And Identity In The Americas, Robert J. Cottrol

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This is an Article on race relations and comparative legal history. It contrasts the law of race and slavery in three Latin American nations, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, with the parallel history in the United States. The Article examines the Afro-Latin experience as a critical issue in its own right and as a way to better inform our discussion of racial hierarchy, identity, and legal remedy in the United States. This Article examines the paradoxical role played by liberal legal and cultural norms in the United States. It shows how liberalism helped create a system of castelike separation between black …

Why Doesn’T She Leave? The Collision Of First Amendment Rights And Effective Court Remedies For Victims Of Domestic Violence, Laurie S. Kohn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article examines the potential constitutional barriers to the issuance of protection orders that restrict the speech of batterers in domestic violence cases. Focusing on threats by batterers to divulge information related to the victim’s HIV or immigration status and sexual orientation, this Article considers the court’s authority to protect victims as they try to escape abuse despite their fear of the dissemination of this confidential, truthful information . After examining the possible barriers to such restrictions under relevant First Amendment doctrine, the Article concludes that the orders are not only normatively important, but are likely to be constitutionally sound …

Race And Negotiation Performance, Charles B. Craver

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article explores the correlation between race and negotiation performance with respect to the results achieved on Negotiation course exercises. It initially discusses empirically established differences between whites and blacks that might influence bargaining encounters, and then examines nine years of data in my Negotiation class. It is interesting to note that no statistically significant differences were found between black and white student negotiation results. This article is significant, because it counteracts the apparent belief among African-American athletes that white agents should do better when they negotiate with team owners who are usually white than black agents.

Children's Interests And Information Disclosure: Who Provided The Egg And Sperm? Or Mommy, Where ( And Whom) Do I Come From?, Naomi R. Cahn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay focuses on the relationships between children, unknown donors, and biological parents. It argues that children deserve access to information about their biological pasts both when the donor's identity is known to the biological parent and when it is unknown. Once an adoption has been finalized or once known gamete donors have agreed not to assert parental rights, the donors should be unable to assert parental rights. But the finality of adoption or gamete provision (which includes eggs, sperm, or embryos) should not prevent the disclosure of information about the identity of biological parents and gamete providers to a …

Transnational Civil Society Dialogues, Steve Charnovitz, Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Among the most interesting features of the New Transatlantic Agenda are the initiatives that are designed to link private actors and enable them to influence official policy making. Called "building bridges across the Atlantic" or "people-to-people links," these initiatives are intended to generate broad-based support for intergovernmental cooperation in trade liberalization, deregulation, immigration, justice, and a host of other areas (Wayne 1998; Krenzler 1998). This chapter surveys the efforts to institutionalize transatlantic civil society dialogue and offers suggestions on how the undertaking can be improved.

The Use Of Non-Judicial Procedures To Resolve Employment Discrimination Claims, Charles B. Craver

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article discusses the use of non-judicial procedures to resolve employment discrimination claims under the different federal civil rights laws. The two major areas covered involve the use of private arbitration, based upon Supreme Court decisions permitting private employers to require their employees to agree to resolve all of their employment disputes through arbitral procedures, and the possible use of administrative procedures similar to those used by the National Labor Relations Board to resolve unfair labor practice charges. The article explores ways in which the rights of employees not represented by labor organizations could be protected in arbitral proceedings significantly …