Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2005

Discipline
Institution
Keyword
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 67381 - 67410 of 70128

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

The New York Bar And Reform Of The Elected Judiciary After The Civil War, Renée Lettow Lerner Jan 2005

The New York Bar And Reform Of The Elected Judiciary After The Civil War, Renée Lettow Lerner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper deals with the history of America's other peculiar institution: the elected judiciary. Elected judges are found virtually nowhere else in the world, but in America they are a fact of life in the considerable majority of states. The history of the elected judiciary is surprisingly little explored. This paper examines the post-Civil War trend away from Jacksonian populism and toward a more aristocratic view of the judiciary as a body set apart from the people. After the Civil War, many states, including New York, lengthened terms of office for their elected judges; some states even switched back to …

Go to article

Educating Lawyers For The Future Legal Profession, Thomas D. Morgan Jan 2005

Educating Lawyers For The Future Legal Profession, Thomas D. Morgan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

What today's law students do as lawyers will be profoundly affected by changes their clients experience. Clients are likely to face more global competition than earlier generations could imagine, and they are likely to value lawyers who understand the non-legal aspects of their problems. Tomorrow's lawyers are likely to have to be more specialized than their predecessors, and many will deliver services that are less personal, more commodity-like, and less financially rewarding. Legal education, in turn, faces challenges producing lawyers capable of functioning in that world. Future lawyers will have to be simultaneously more specialized and more capable of responding …

Go to article

Realizing The Promise Of Restructuring The Electricity Market, Richard J. Pierce Jr Jan 2005

Realizing The Promise Of Restructuring The Electricity Market, Richard J. Pierce Jr

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In this contribution to a symposium on restructuring the U.S. electricity market, I summarize the peaks and valleys that have characterized the restructuring process over the past two decades. I begin by describing the reasons why I joined with a group of other academics twenty years ago in an effort to restructure the U.S electricity market. The market was characterized by large, well-documented structural and operational maladies; it had performed poorly for over a decade; its basic characteristics were consistent with increased reliance on market forces as an effective governance mechanism; and, our recent success in restructuring analogous markets provided …

Go to article

Democratizing The Administrative State, Richard J. Pierce Jr Jan 2005

Democratizing The Administrative State, Richard J. Pierce Jr

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Scholars have long questioned the political and constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state. By 1980, a majority of Justices seemed to be poised to hold that large portions of the administrative state are unconstitutional. In 1984, the Court stepped back from that abyss and took a major step toward legitimating and democratizing the administrative state. The Court instructed lower courts to defer to any reasonable agency interpretation of an ambiguous agency-administered statute. The Court based this doctrine of deference on the superior political accountability of agencies. Henceforth, politically-unaccountable judges were prohibited from substituting their policy preferences for those of politically-accountable …

Go to article

The Federal Marriage Amendment: To Protect The Sanctity Of Marriage Or Destroy Constitutional Democracy?, Joan Schaffner Jan 2005

The Federal Marriage Amendment: To Protect The Sanctity Of Marriage Or Destroy Constitutional Democracy?, Joan Schaffner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

For the several years, primarily as a political ploy, the President and Republican Congress, proposed an amendment to the US Constitution to prohibit marriage between people of the same sex - the Federal Marriage Amendment. This article analyzed this proposed amendment in light of the constitutional principles that govern our society, individual rights, federalism, separation of powers, and judicial review. The article concludes that the FMA is itself constitutionally suspect and is more destructive, on balance, of the basic democratic constitutional principles than any amendment previously adopted or proposed. The amendment violates every tenet of constitutional democracy by: (1) expressly …

Go to article

Sex Discrimination In The Nineties, Seventies Style: Case Studies In The Preservation Of Male Workplace Norms, Michael Selmi Jan 2005

Sex Discrimination In The Nineties, Seventies Style: Case Studies In The Preservation Of Male Workplace Norms, Michael Selmi

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The prevailing sentiment today is that overt intentional sex discrimination in the workplace has receded substantially and has been replaced by more complicated practices of subtle or structural discrimination often tied to women's family commitments. This article challenges that consensus by exploring the rise of class action sex discrimination cases that have uncovered what ought to be defined as overt intentional discrimination with a design to preserve existing male norms in the workplace. The article analyzes cases that have arisen in the securities and grocery industries, as well as a spate of class action sexual harassment cases, all of which …

Go to article

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 1.1), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle Jan 2005

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 1.1), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves.

In the aftermath of the ChoicePoint debacle, both of us have been asked by Congressional legislative staffers, state legislative policymakers, journalists, academics, …

Go to article

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 2.0), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle Jan 2005

A Model Regime Of Privacy Protection (Version 2.0), Daniel J. Solove, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This version incorporates and responds to the many comments that we received to Version 1.1, which we released on March 10, 2005.

Privacy protection in the United States has often been criticized, but critics have too infrequently suggested specific proposals for reform. Recently, there has been significant legislative interest at both the federal and state levels in addressing the privacy of personal information. This was sparked when ChoicePoint, one of the largest data brokers in the United States with records on almost every adult American citizen, sold data on about 145,000 people to fraudulent businesses set up by identity thieves. …

Go to article

Melville's Billy Budd And Security In Times Of Crisis, Daniel J. Solove Jan 2005

Melville's Billy Budd And Security In Times Of Crisis, Daniel J. Solove

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

During times of crisis, our leaders have made profound sacrifices in the name of security, ones that we later realized need not have been made. Examples include the Palmer Raids, the McCarthy Era anti-Communist movement, and the Japanese-American Internment. After September 11th, this tragic history repeated itself. The Bush Administration has curtailed civil liberties in many ways, including detaining people indefinitely without hearings or counsel. These events give Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" renewed relevance to our times. "Billy Budd" is a moving depiction of a profound sacrifice made in the name of security. This essay diverges from conventional readings that …

Go to article

Did Universal Banks Play A Significant Role In The U.S. Economy's Boom-And-Bust Cycle Of 1921-33? A Preliminary Assessment, Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr. Jan 2005

Did Universal Banks Play A Significant Role In The U.S. Economy's Boom-And-Bust Cycle Of 1921-33? A Preliminary Assessment, Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Commercial banks were leading participants in the U.S. securities markets during the great bull markets of the 1920's and the 1990's. Those stock market booms and the crashes that followed were extraordinary events. Is it merely a coincidence that the two most dramatic stock market booms and crashes in U.S. history occurred during periods when commercial banks played major roles in our securities markets? Or did the exercise of universal banking powers contribute to the financial and economic conditions that produced both episodes? This essay is the first installment of a larger project that seeks to answer these questions.

This …

Go to article

Understanding The Current Wave Of Procurement Reform - Devolution Of The Contracting Function, Christopher R. Yukins Jan 2005

Understanding The Current Wave Of Procurement Reform - Devolution Of The Contracting Function, Christopher R. Yukins

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This brief paper proffers a conceptual model for procurement reform in the United States today. The paper argues that much of the current reform can be understood as an attempt to bring order to the devolution of the contracting function, from users, to agency contracting officials, to centralized purchasing agencies, and now, finally, to private contractors. The paper argues that this devolution is, in fact, an outsourcing of the contracting function, and that therefore classic models of private-sector outsourcing should be applicable. The government should, in other words, be asking whether the contracting function should be outsourced, and if so, …

Go to article

Uncitral Considers Electronic Reverse Auctions, As Comparative Public Procurement Comes Of Age In The U.S., Christopher R. Yukins, Don Wallace Jr. Jan 2005

Uncitral Considers Electronic Reverse Auctions, As Comparative Public Procurement Comes Of Age In The U.S., Christopher R. Yukins, Don Wallace Jr.

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article reports on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) review of electronic reverse auctions in procurement systems around the world. The article describes the U.S. experience, including the stalled regulatory initiative regarding reverse auctions. Drawing on the literature and on UNCITRAL studies from procurement systems in Asia, Europe and Latin America, the article cites lessons from other nations' use of reverse auctions. In particular, the article discusses the European Union's new rule on reverse auctions, which is probably the best example, worldwide, of a careful attempt to regulate reverse auctions. The article discusses traditional questions in …

Go to article

Uncitral Model Law: Reforming Electronic Procurement, Reverse Auctions, And Framework Contracts, Christopher R. Yukins, Don Wallace Jr., Jason P. Matechak Jan 2005

Uncitral Model Law: Reforming Electronic Procurement, Reverse Auctions, And Framework Contracts, Christopher R. Yukins, Don Wallace Jr., Jason P. Matechak

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

A Working Group of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is working on potential reforms to UNCITRAL's Model Procurement Law and its Guide to Enactment. This article, written by several advisors to the U.S. delegation to the UNCITRAL Working Group, reviews the Working Group's progress on several important fronts. The Working Group has reached initial consensus on a number of difficult procurement issues, including electronic commerce, reverse auctions and framework contracts, and significant progress has been made in a number or other areas, including the procurement of services, the strengthening of procurement remedies (known in the United …

Go to article

Hurricane Katrina's Tangled Impact On U.S. Procurement, Christopher R. Yukins Jan 2005

Hurricane Katrina's Tangled Impact On U.S. Procurement, Christopher R. Yukins

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Congress passed new exceptions to U.S. procurement rules. The most important new exception, passed at the recommendation of the Bush administration, raised the limit for micro-purchases - essentially unregulated purchases - from $2,500 to $250,000. In practice, this will mean that Katrina relief purchases may be made, up to $250,000 per order, without any effective transparency or competition, and without honoring the many socioeconomic requirements that are an important part of the U.S. procurement system. This comment reviews that emergency legislation, and suggests that the new law, by abandoning basic principles of …

Go to article

Katrina's Continuing Impact On Procurement - Emergency Procurement Powers In H.R. 3766, Christopher R. Yukins, Joshua I. Schwartz Jan 2005

Katrina's Continuing Impact On Procurement - Emergency Procurement Powers In H.R. 3766, Christopher R. Yukins, Joshua I. Schwartz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

As Hurricane Katrina relief efforts grow into the billions of dollars, the U.S. Congress is considering additional legislation to liberalize procurement, including H.R. 3766, co-sponsored by Representatives Kenny Marchant and Tom Davis. In these comments on the proposed legislation, Professors Christopher Yukins and Joshua Schwartz asked whether the proposed changes, which would eviscerate competition for most procurement related to disaster relief, are truly necessary. Professor Yukins suggests that, though it might in some circumstances be necessary to dismantle the federal regulatory regime to accommodate a wave of new firms in the federal market, there is too little evidence yet to …

Go to article

Playing With Fire: Feminist Legal Theorists And The Tools Of Economics, Neil H. Buchanan Jan 2005

Playing With Fire: Feminist Legal Theorists And The Tools Of Economics, Neil H. Buchanan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

During the discussions at Professor Fineman’s recent feminist legal theory workshops, several participants argued that feminists should use the “tools” of mainstream economics to build a more rigorous foundation for their analyses. Feminist legal theorists, it was argued, had their hearts in the right place, but their arguments lacked sufficient intellectual (“hard-headed”) rigor to carry the day. Based on this view, the best strategy would be to use economic tools (which, these participants argued, are value neutral) to build a rigorous, logical foundation on which legal feminists could confidently stand. The problem – which applies to all areas of legal …

Go to article

The Uses Of The Concept Of Efficiency In Tax Analysis, Neil H. Buchanan Jan 2005

The Uses Of The Concept Of Efficiency In Tax Analysis, Neil H. Buchanan

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The flexibility and ubiquity of the term efficiency in tax analysis can be a double-edged sword. While tax scholars are naturally drawn to the notion of efficiency, with its implied virtues of eliminating waste and of guiding policy choices through objective, non-normative analysis, the danger exists that we can lose sight of which type of efficiency we are talking about when we invoke the concept. What one scholar calls efficient might be quite inefficient under the definition or perspective used by another scholar.

Go to article

Remedies In International Human Rights Law (Chapter One), Dinah L. Shelton Jan 2005

Remedies In International Human Rights Law (Chapter One), Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This book discusses the various approaches to and types of remedies available for violations of international human rights law. The first point is that remedies have both a procedural and substantive component. Procedural remedies means that there is an opportunity to be heard, while the substantive facet refers to the “relief afforded the successful claimant.” The first chapter of the book notes that preliminary requirements are availability of the justice system and discusses the purposes of remedies, including compensating the victim, deterring future crimes, condemnation, retribution, and restorative justice (which aims to find options other than punishment and focusing more …

Go to article

Accountability Of Nongovernmental Organizations (Ngos) In Global Governance, Steve Charnovitz Jan 2005

Accountability Of Nongovernmental Organizations (Ngos) In Global Governance, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The issue of the accountability on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in global governance has received increased attention in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the issue, to consider whether any public problems exist, and to make recommendations on what should be done. The paper contains three parts. Part I examines the historical context of NGO accountability starting with the Papal Encylical Rerum Novarum of 1891 and considering episodes relating to the League of Nations and the founding of the United Nations. Part II provides an overview of the contemporary debate on NGO accountability and uses a recent …

Go to article

International Standards And The Wto, Steve Charnovitz Jan 2005

International Standards And The Wto, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This study provides an overview of how the World Trade Organization rules relate to international standards, that is, standards propounded by some international entity. The topic of standards is a cross-cutting issue in the WTO because rules regarding international standards appear in several of the covered WTO agreements. The paper contains several parts. Part I of the paper explores the meaning of the term international standard and adopts a broad definition for analytical purposes. Part II introduces a typology for international standards. Part III discusses why international standards are important to economic development. Part IV examines some of the key …

Go to article

The Labor Dimension Of The Emerging Free Trade Area Of The Americas, Steve Charnovitz Jan 2005

The Labor Dimension Of The Emerging Free Trade Area Of The Americas, Steve Charnovitz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This study explores a potential labor dimension for the FTAA. The study is divided into four parts: Part 1 provides context by reviewing the history of Inter-American economic cooperation, especially on labor and trade. Part 2 examines how labor has been addressed in the major free trade agreements of the Americas. Part 3 looks at the normative basis for international labor cooperation. Part 4 makes specific recommendations for addressing labor issues in the FTAA. The ideas in Part 4 seek to stimulate practical, concerted action to address labor and employment problems of regional economic integration. My recommendations for the FTAA …

Go to article

Spectacle Of Self In Medieval Romance: Pagentry, Performance, And Clothing, Crady Yerger Bobo Jan 2005

Spectacle Of Self In Medieval Romance: Pagentry, Performance, And Clothing, Crady Yerger Bobo

Honors Theses

My thesis focuses on young knights finding their identity. I concentrate on six works, The Story of the Grail, Havelok the Dane, Sir Gareth of Orkeney, Guigemar, Sir Launfal, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and how the various romancers define identity thematically. This occurs in three dififerent ways: with Perceval it is through education, Havelok and Gareth start out as kitchen boys, prove their inherent identity, and are thus self-inventing knights, and for Guigemar, Launfal, and Perceval it is about having their sexuality challenged. I also try in each chapter to give some historical background on the reason …

Go to article

Legal Scholarship Symposium: The Scholarship Of Lawrence M. Friedman, Robert J. Cottrol Jan 2005

Legal Scholarship Symposium: The Scholarship Of Lawrence M. Friedman, Robert J. Cottrol

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Lawrence M. Friedman has achieved a singular preeminence as a legal historian for articulating a new vision of legal history as a discipline in his 1973 work entitled A History of American Law. This book treats American law as a mirror of society. At the time, Friedman's vision was still something quite new in American legal historiography. James Willard Hurst's notions of legal history as a sociolegal inquiry would heavily influence Friedman, helping to move the field into new and often surprising precincts. Friedman's approach to legal history is one that introduced us to previously unexamined actors and institutions.

Whether …

Go to article

Civil Society And International Organizations: A Liberal Framework For Global Governance, Francesca Bignami Jan 2005

Civil Society And International Organizations: A Liberal Framework For Global Governance, Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Over the past decade, international economic organizations have come under attack as illegitimate and oppressive. The remedy, according to the critics, is civil society: non-state associations should have a right to participate in the policymaking activities of international organizations. But the moral grounds for giving civil society such a central role in global governance, together with the ramifications of those moral grounds for organizational reform in the international arena, have not yet been systematically analyzed. Why are associations outside the state better placed than trained, career civil servants and elected politicians to decide on international aid, the regulatory pre-requisites for …

Go to article

The Problem Of Patent Underdevelopment, Michael B. Abramowicz Jan 2005

The Problem Of Patent Underdevelopment, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Commentators have long recognized that much of the work of commercializing an invention occurs after a patent is received. They have not recognized, however, that by the time market conditions make commercialization potentially attractive, the remaining patent term might be sufficiently short that a patentee will not develop an invention or will not spend as much on development as if more patent term remained. The concern about patent underdevelopment provides a counterweight to patent prospect theory, which urges that patents be issued relatively early. By insisting on a substantial degree of achievement before patenting, the patent system reduces the risk …

Go to article

Defining Dicta, Michael B. Abramowicz, Maxwell L. Stearns Jan 2005

Defining Dicta, Michael B. Abramowicz, Maxwell L. Stearns

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In recent decades, legal scholars have devoted substantially greater attention to studying the origin and nature of stare decisis than to defining the distinction between holding and dicta. This appears counter-intuitive when one considers, first, that stare decisis applies only to holdings of announced precedents, and second, that beyond problematic and rudimentary intuitions, the legal system has failed to develop meaningful definitions of these terms. While lawyers, legal scholars, and jurists likely assume that they can identify dicta when they see it, a careful analysis that categorizes the range of judicial assertions in need of proper characterization reveals that defining …

Go to article

Encyclopedia Of Genocide And Crimes Against Humanity, Dinah L. Shelton Jan 2005

Encyclopedia Of Genocide And Crimes Against Humanity, Dinah L. Shelton

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This three-volume encyclopedia contains information and photographs about historical and recent instances of genocide and crimes against humanity. The introduction provides a brief history of recognition and definitions of genocide and related war crimes. The volumes focus on the political leaders in charge of the genocides and war crimes in addition to other facts about the crimes themselves.

Go to article

Conflict Of Laws, Globalization, And Cosmopolitan Pluralism, Paul Schiff Berman Jan 2005

Conflict Of Laws, Globalization, And Cosmopolitan Pluralism, Paul Schiff Berman

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This essay is a contribution to a symposium at the January 2005 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Conflict of Laws. More than ten years ago, German theorist Gunther Teubner called for the creation of an "intersystemic conflicts law," derived not just from collisions between the distinct nation-states of private international law, but from what he described as "conflicts between autonomous social subsystems." Since then, the web of intersystemic lawmaking Teubner described has only grown more complex. The collision of these multiple legal and quasi-legal normative systems requires, as Teubner suggested, a broader approach to …

Go to article

From Pluralism To Individualism: Berle And Means And 20th-Century American Legal Thought, Dalia Tsuk Mitchell Jan 2005

From Pluralism To Individualism: Berle And Means And 20th-Century American Legal Thought, Dalia Tsuk Mitchell

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article is an intellectual history of Adolf A. Berle, Jr. and Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932). I argue that Berle and Means's concern was not the separation of ownership from control in large pubic corporations, as many scholars have suggested, but rather the allocation of power between the state and a wide range of institutions. As I demonstrate, Berle and Means shared a legal pluralist vision of the modern state. Legal pluralism treated organizations as centers of power that had to be accommodated within the political and legal structure. Berle and Means viewed collective …

Go to article

Contractor Atrocities At Abu Ghraib: Compromised Accountability In A Streamlined, Outsourced Government, Steven L. Schooner Jan 2005

Contractor Atrocities At Abu Ghraib: Compromised Accountability In A Streamlined, Outsourced Government, Steven L. Schooner

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Staggering numbers of contractor personnel have supported, and continue to support, American combat and peace-keeping troops and the government's Herculean reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Yet recent experiences in Iraq, particularly allegations that contractor personnel were involved in inappropriate and potentially illegal activities at the Abu Ghraib prison, expose numerous areas of concern with regard to the current state of federal public procurement. Sadly, because these incidents coincide with a series of procurement scandals, the likes of which the government has not experienced since the late 1980's, they cannot be dismissed so easily as anomalies.

The Abu Ghraib abuses suggest at …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last