Digital Commons Network^™

Subverting The Marriage-Amendment Crusade With Law And Policy Reform, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Doha Round’S Public Health Legacy: Strategies For The Production And Diffusion Of Patented Medicines Under The Amended Trips Provisions, Jerome H. Reichman, Frederick M. Abbott

Faculty Scholarship

This entry into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement in 1995 transformed the international intellectual property system. The harmonization of basic intellectual property standards has operated to protect investment in innovation, limiting risks from unjustified 'free riding.' Yet these same harmonized IP standards sharply curtailed the traditional capacity of suppliers of public goods, such as health care and nutrition, to address the priority needs of less affluent members of society, particularly in (but not limited to) developing countries. In the Doha Declaration, the Waiver Decision of 30 August 2003 and the Article 31bis Protocol of Amendment, stakeholders …

High Poverty Schools And The Distribution Of Teachers And Principals, Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, Jacob L. Vigdor, Justin Wheeler

Faculty Scholarship

Although many factors combine to make a successful school, most people agree that quality teachers and school principals are among the most important requirements for success, especially when success is defined by the ability of the school to raise the achievement of its students. The central question for this study is how the quality of the teachers and principals in high-poverty schools in North Carolina compares to that in the schools serving more advantaged students. A related question is why these differences emerge. The consistency of the patterns across many measures of qualifications for both teachers and principals leaves no …

Contract Law And Distribution In The Age Of Welfare Reform, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

This Article tracks the ongoing adaptation of U.S. contract law to the 1990s’ contraction of the welfare state. Some courts strive to compensate for the shortage of welfare services and to pursue redistributive goals. This Article provides examples of this trend and then analyzes the non-linear relation between doctrines, judicial redistribution, and welfare politics in both case law and scholarship. Finally, this Article discusses the role of socially sensitive judicial discourse in light of contemporary welfare politics and explains its continuing importance.

Overseer, Or "The Decider"? The President In Administrative Law, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

All will agree that the Constitution creates a unitary chief executive officer, the President, at the head of the government Congress defines to do the work its statutes detail. Disagreement arises over what his function entails. Once Congress has defined some element of government and specified its responsibilities, we know that the constitutional roles of both Congress and the courts are those of oversight of the agency and its assigned work, not the actual performance of that work. But is it the same for the President? When Congress confers authority on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate various forms of …

Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

In 2006, New York City began a mandatory reporting system for laboratories to submit blood sugar (A1c) test results (primarily for diabetes) to the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene without the patient's consent. This article examines whether this new program is an innovative way to improve New Yorkers' health, an invasion of medical privacy, or usurpation of the physician's role. The registry is an example of public health initiatives in chronic diseases, which challenge the limits of laws governing medicine care and public health programs by blurring the historical boundaries between them.

Policy Analysis For Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Union, U.A.W. V. Johnson Controls: The History Of Litigation Alliances And Mobilization To Challenge Fetal Protection Policies, Caroline Bettinger-Lopez, Susan P. Sturm

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court's decision in Johnson Controls is the culmination of a long legal campaign by labor, women's rights, and workplace safety advocates to invalidate restrictions on women's employment based on pregnancy. This campaign powerfully demonstrates the use of amicus briefs as opportunities to link the efforts of groups with overlapping agendas and to shape the Supreme Court's understanding of the surrounding empirical, social and political context. But Johnson Controls also provides important lessons about the narrowing effects and fragility of litigation-centered mobilization. The case affirmed an important anti-discrimination principle but ironically left women (and men) with the right to …

The Arab Charter On Human Rights 2004, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

The Boston University International Law Journal is publishing, for the first time, an English version of the 2004 Arab Charter on Human Rights. A very brief review of how the 2004 Arab Charter came into being introduces this English translation. The drafting history of the Arab Charter on Human Rights begins in 1960. In that year, members of the Union of Arab Lawyers (the oldest NGO in the Arab world) requested the League of Arab States (created in 1945) during their meeting in Damascus to adopt an Arab Convention on Human Rights. Eight years later, participants in the first meeting …

National Institutes Of Health State-Of-The-Science Conference Statement: Cesarean Delivery On Maternal Request, Karen H. Rothenberg

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Undeserved Trust: Reflections On The Ali's Treatment Of De Facto Parents, Robin Fretwell Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

In its PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF FAMILY DISSOLUTION, the American Law Institute (ALI) proposes sweeping changes in the legal conception of parenthood. One such change would confer custody and visitation rights on a live-in partner of a legal parent who shared caretaking responsibility for a child for two or more years. This proposal to give “parental rights” to “de facto parents” necessarily limits the prerogative of legal parents to decide who comes into contact with their child. Under the ALI’s proposed “approximation” standard, moreover, de facto parents are presumptively entitled to a share of custody that “approximates” the de …

Sausage-Making, Pigs' Ears, And Congressional Expansions Of Federal Jurisdiction: Exxon Mobil V. Allapattah And Its Lessons For The Class Action Fairness Act, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2005 witnessed two watershed developments in federal jurisdiction: the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc. and the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). Allapattah and CAFA raise the same fundamental question: how should courts interpret a statute whose text would expand federal jurisdiction far beyond what Congress apparently intended? In Allapattah, the Court confronted this question in resolving an aspect of the supplemental jurisdiction statute that had deeply divided both the judiciary and academia. CAFA's expansion of federal jurisdiction over class actions will require courts to struggle with this question …

False Conflict: Who's In Charge Of National Public Health Catastrophes, Michael Greenberger

Faculty Scholarship

Hurricane Katrina renewed an old debate concerning which level of government should lead the response effort to catastrophic disasters. Traditionally, emergency response is handled at the most local level possible. The National Response Plan (NRP) adheres to this tenet, while providing for extensive coordination between the federal government and states and localities, if necessary. In doing so, the NRP provides procedures to ensure that federal assets may be brought to bear, without stomping on the nation's time honored commitment to the principles of federalism.

Autonomy Suspended: Using Female Patients To Teach Intimate Exams Without Their Consent, Robin Fretwell Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Recent reports of medical students performing pelvic exams for training purposes on anesthetized women without their consent have produced a firestorm of controversy. Peter Ubel and colleagues found that 90% of medical students performed such exams during their obstetrics/gynecology rotations. A series of 2003 reports focused a white-hot spotlight on this teaching practice and resulted in Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice hearings and action by the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In this article, Professor Wilson examines the merits of the defenses and justifications for using female patients for pelvic …

Critical Essay: Musings On The Need To Convince Some People With Disabilities That End-Of-Life-Decision-Making-Advocates Are Not Out To Get Them, Kathy L. Cerminara

Faculty Scholarship

Kathy Cerminara, Critical Essay: Musings on the Need to Convince Some People with Disabilities That End-of-Life-Decision-Making Advocates are Not Out to Get Them, 37 Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal 343 (2006). As others have noted, the importance of the Terri Schiavo case is not legal; the various Schiavo opinions broke no new legal ground other than the constitutional questions raised when legislatures began intervening to attempt to change the outcome of the end-of-life decision-making rulings. Rather, it was activism by certain disability rights and vitalist groups that so caught the attention of the public, the politicians and the …

The People's Agent: Executive Branch Secrecy And Accountability In An Age Of Terrorism, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

The increase in government secrecy is an important and troubling policy trend. Although the trend predates the 2000 presidential election, the movement towards government secrecy has accelerated dramatically in the Bush Administration. The case for open government is usually based on political principles embraced by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. This article seeks to bolster these arguments by applying “agency theory” to the question of how much secrecy is too much. While agency theory is most often used to analyze private sector economic relationships, commentators have also applied it to the analysis of methods for holding legislators and Executive …

Check Clearing For The 21st Century Act - A Wrong Turn In The Road To Improvement Of The U.S. Payments System, The , Carl Felsenfeld, Genci Bilali

Faculty Scholarship

The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act' (Check 21 Act) was introduced to Congress by the Federal Reserve System, enacted by Congress, signed by the President on October 28, 2003, and became effective one year later, on October 28, 2004. It makes a modest change in the check-clearing system designed to speed the movement of checks from the depositary to the paying bank. It is anticipated that it will eventually lead to what is called "electronic presentment," a process that may make the clearing of checks almost as swift as to- day's electronic payment systems. This Article gives the …

Are They Human Children Or Just Border Rats?, Susan M. Akram

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Consolidating Pharmaceutical Regulation Down Under: Policy Options And Practical Realities, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Pharmaceutical regulatory agencies struggle worldwide to maintain public trust these days. Drug safety issues proliferate,' the costs of lharmaceuticals take increasingly larger shares of most countries' health service spending, and conflicts of interest afflicting the drug approval and marketing processes capture more and more public attention. The Australian and New Zealand governments are keenly aware of these problems, and have been attempting to forge a regulatory alliance to combine their respective pharmaceutical regulatory agencies, Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and New Zealand's Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority (Medsafe), into the pending Trans Tasman Therapeutic Products Authority (ANZTPA, or TPA). …

Deepsea Coral Collection Protocols: A Synthesis Of Field Experience From Deep-Sea Coral Researchers, Designed To Build Our National Capacity To Document Deep-Sea Coral Diversity., P. Etnoyer, S. D. Cairns, J. A. Sanchez, John K. Reed, Jose V. Lopez, W. W. Schroeder, S. D. Brooke, L. Watling, A. Baco-Taylor, G. C. Williams, A. Lindner, Scott C. France, A. W. Bruckner

Faculty Scholarship

Around the time that the thirteen original Atlantic colonies were fighting for independence from Britain, there existed little agreement among naturalists as to the nature of corals. Were they inanimate (stones), plants, animals, or intermediate between the latter two (zoophytes)? This diversity of definition and opinions undoubtedly produced considerable confusion and disagreement among naturalists interested in such things. The symbiotic nature of algal cells in the tissues of some corals was also not well understood. It was not until the Darwinian period in the nineteenth century that little doubt remained, and therefore it was generally agreed, that corals were actually …

Storming The Castle To Save The Children: The Ironic Costs Of A Child Welfare Exception To The Fourth Amendment, Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

This article first sets out the child welfare system's assumption that there is a child welfare exception to the Fourth Amendment and then describes the ways it is used to facilitate child maltreatment investigations. It goes on to analyze the validity of this assumption according to current Fourth Amendment doctrine including under the special needs administrative exception. (This analysis may be particularly useful to both family/children's law scholars as well as to Fourth Amendment scholars, as it examines all of the state and federal appellate cases addressing the subject, and provides a most up-to-date evaluation of the Supreme Court's special …

A Drug By Any Other Name ... ? Paradoxes In Dietary Supplement Risk Regulation, Lars Noah, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

Dietary supplements present vexing regulatory challenges for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although several observers have called for reform or repeal of Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), and the FDA often has lamented its lack of meaningful authority over dietary supplements, this Author suggests that the agency actually possesses the regulatory muscle to adopt a more aggressive risk identification and risk management strategy within the confines of DSHEA, and that it need not ask Congress to amend the statute.

The Role Of Religion In The Schiavo Controversy, Barbara A. Noah

Faculty Scholarship

The brief life of Theresa Marie Schiavo and the dispute over her end-of-life care captured public awareness in a way that few such cases have done. The reasons for the nearly unprecedented public attention to her case are two-fold. The decision by various religious groups and governmental entities to intervene in the dispute surrounding her care in order to promote conservative causes (some of them only tenuously related to her particular medical circumstances) prompted unusually intense media coverage. In addition, the ensuing publicity surrounding Theresa's tragic condition--an unexpected cardiac arrest left her in a permanent vegetative state at the age …

Does Falling Smoking Lead To Rising Obesity?, Jonathan Gruber, Michael D. Frakes

Faculty Scholarship

The strong negative correlation over time between smoking rates and obesity have led some to suggest that reduced smoking is increasing weight gain in the U.S.. This conclusion is supported by the findings of Chou et al. (2004), who conclude that higher cigarette prices lead to increased body weight. We investigate this issue and find no evidence that reduced smoking leads to weight gain. Using the cigarette tax rather than the cigarette price and controlling for non-linear time effects, we find a negative effect of cigarette taxes on body weight, implying that reduced smoking leads to lower body weights. Yet …

The Rose Theorem?, Michael Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Law resists theorems. We have hypotheses, typologies, heuristics, and conundrums. But, until now, only one plausible theorem – and that we borrowed from economics. Could there be a second, the Rose Theorem?

Any theorem must generalize, be falsifiable, and have predictive power. Law's theorems, however, seem to require three additional qualities: they emerge from tales of ordinary stuff; are named for, not by, their creators; and have no single authoritative form. For example, Ronald Coase wrote of ranchers and farmers. He has always shied away from the Theorem project. When later scholars formalized his parable, they created multiple and inconsistent …

Structural Allostery And Binding Of The Transferrin·Receptor Complex, Guozhong Xu, Mark R. Chance

Faculty Scholarship

The structural allostery and binding interface for the human serum transferrin (Tf)-transferrin receptor (TfR) complex were identified using radiolytic footprinting and mass spectrometry. We have determined previously that the transferrin C-lobe binds to the receptor helical domain. In this study we examined the binding interactions of full-length transferrin with receptor and compared these data with a model of the complex derived from cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM) reconstructions (Cheng, Y., Zak, O., Aisen, P., Harrison, S. C. & Walz, T. (2004) Structure of the human transferrin receptor-transferrin complex. Cell 116, 565-576). The footprinting results provide the following novel conclusions. First, we report …

Encouraging Moderation In State Policies On Collecting Food Stamp Claims, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Regulations issued by the Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture in July 2000 promote efficient and effective food stamp claims collection by the states. These regulations give states significant flexibility in tailoring their procedures on filing claims. States can incorporate waiver and compromise policies that increase efficiency and can serve low-income households.

Dying In America - An Examination Of Policies That Deter Adequate End-Of-Life Care In Nursing Homes, Diane E. Hoffmann, Anita J. Tarzian

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines current health care policies and government practices that deter appropriate end-of-life care, focusing on the use of hospice services for dying nursing home patients. The authors conclude that hospice and nursing home regulations, reimbursement for hospice and nursing homes, and enforcement of the fraud and abuse rules collude to “chill” utilization of hospice by nursing homes and result in inadequate end-of-life care for many nursing home patients. They argue that these policies and practices have at their roots a number of questionable assumptions and call for a shift in existing paradigms affecting care to this group and …

Thou Shalt Not Kill As Defeasible Heuristic: Law And Economics And The Debate Over Assisted Suicide, Daniel J. Gilman

Faculty Scholarship

Although the literature addressing medical decisions at the end of life is vast, surprisingly little of it has come from the perspective of law and economics. This article begins with a critical account of one of the very few law and economics-based discussions of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), that developed by Judge Richard Posner in his book, Aging and Old Age. Central to Judge Posner's account is a model of PAS as a sort of technological innovation. What this particular innovation is supposed to bring is a radical reduction in certain critical information costs attending end-of-life decision making. It is …

Improving Fairness And Accuracy In Food Stamp Fraud Investigations: Advocating Reform Under Food Stamp Regulations, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Some state food stamp agencies are overly aggressive in pursuing charges that claimants have committed intentional program violations. Just as failure to pursue allegations of fraud can undermine the Food Stamp Program’s goals, so can intimidation of claimants. States should take care to follow appropriate procedures in their investigations, and Food and Nutrition Service regulations offer ample grounds to advocate fair treatment of clients. Four key principles should guide states’ antifraud efforts.