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Articles 1 - 30 of 34
Full-Text Articles in Law
Brief For The Respondants, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, Nos. 08-1498, 09-89 (U.S. Dec. 22, 2009), Neal K. Katyal
Brief For The Respondants, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, Nos. 08-1498, 09-89 (U.S. Dec. 22, 2009), Neal K. Katyal
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
Neo-Orthodoxy In Academic Freedom, J. Peter Byrne
Neo-Orthodoxy In Academic Freedom, J. Peter Byrne
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This review essay analyzes two recent books that advance neo-orthodox theories of academic freedom: Matthew Finkin and Robert Post, For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom, and Stanley Fish, Save the World on Your Own Time. Both books develop principles articulated in the American Association of University Professors 1915 Declaration, which emphasize the role of faculty in advancing knowledge and the need to insulate professional evaluation of academic work from lay, political interference. This review essay defends the return to protection of the scholarly search for truth as the touchstone of academic freedom, offers critiques of the authors’ …
From Choice To Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights, Robin West
From Choice To Reproductive Justice: De-Constitutionalizing Abortion Rights, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Essay argues that the right to abortion constitutionalized in Roe v. Wade is by some measure at odds with a capacious understanding of the demands of reproductive justice. No matter its rationale, the constitutional right to abortion is fundamentally a negative right that rhetorically keeps the state out of the domain of family life. As such, the decision privatizes not only the abortion decision, but also parenting, by rendering the decision to carry a pregnancy to term a choice. It thereby legitimates a minimalist state response to the problems of pregnant women who carry their pregnancies to term and …
On Writs Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, Nos. 08-1298, 09-89 (U.S. Nov. 16, 2009), David Cole
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
Cruelty, Prison Conditions, And The Eighth Amendment, Sharon Dolovich
Cruelty, Prison Conditions, And The Eighth Amendment, Sharon Dolovich
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, but its normative force derives chiefly from its use of the word cruel. For this prohibition to be meaningful in a society where incarceration is the primary mode of criminal punishment, it is necessary to determine when prison conditions are cruel. Yet the Supreme Court has thus far avoided this question, instead holding in Farmer v. Brennan that unless some prison official actually knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to prisoners, prison conditions are not “punishment” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. Farmer’s reasoning, however, does not …
On Cross-Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 09-89 (U.S. Sept. 8, 2009), David Cole
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
Legal Obligations: The Proper Role Of White House Lawyers, William Michael Treanor
Legal Obligations: The Proper Role Of White House Lawyers, William Michael Treanor
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
An opinion issued on Aug. 1, 2002, by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel held that the federal statute that makes it a crime to commit torture outside the United States should not be read to “apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.” The opinion further concluded that if the statute did criminalize interrogations ordered by the president, it was unconstitutional.
The memorandum, which has become known as the “torture memo,” figures prominently in the ongoing public debate about whether there should be …
Opposition To Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 08-1498 (U.S. July 6, 2009), David Cole
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
Conditional Cross-Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Holder V. Humanitarian Law Project, No. 08-1498 (U.S. July 6, 2009), David Cole
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
The Same-Sex Future, David Cole
The Same-Sex Future, David Cole
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
No abstract provided.
Executive Authority To Reform Health: Options And Limitations, Madhu Chugh
Executive Authority To Reform Health: Options And Limitations, Madhu Chugh
O'Neill Institute Papers
Presidential power has provoked increasingly vigorous debate since the turn of this century. In recent years, scholars and lawyers have been grappling with how Congress's dictates may limit the President's Commander-in-Chief power to detain enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, to fight wars abroad, and to conduct intelligence activities at home. But policymakers have not yet explored the many possibilities for invoking the President's "Take Care" power to change health care policy.
This paper explores the scope and limits of President Barack Obama's ability to invoke his executive authority to reform health care. Specifically, it identifies ways the Obama Administration can …
Constitutional Law And International Law: National Exceptionalism And The Democratic Deficit?, Michael Kirby
Constitutional Law And International Law: National Exceptionalism And The Democratic Deficit?, Michael Kirby
Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture
On April 16 2009, Former Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Honorable Michael Kiryby delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s twenty-ninth annual Philip A. Hart Lecture: “ Constitutional Law and International Law: National Exceptionalism and the Democratic Deficit?”
When he retired from the High Court of Australia on February 2, 2009, Michael Kirby was Australia’s longest serving judge.
He was first appointed in 1975 as a Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation & Arbitration Commission. Soon after, he was seconded as inaugural Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission (1975-84). Later, he was appointed a judge of the Federal …
The Perilous Dialogue, Laura K. Donohue
The Perilous Dialogue, Laura K. Donohue
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The master metaphor in the national security dialogue is, indeed, “security or freedom”. It dominates the counterterrorist discourse both in the United States and abroad. Transcripts from debates in Ireland’s Dáil Éireann, Turkey’s Büyük Millet Meclisi, and Australia’s Parliament are filled with reference to the need to weigh the value of liberty against the threat posed by terrorism. Perhaps nowhere is this more pronounced than in the United Kingdom, where, for decades, counterterrorist debates have turned on this framing. Owing in part, though, to different constitutional structures, what “security or freedom” means in America differs from what it means in …
The Nomination Of Sonia Sotomayor To Be An Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 111th Cong., July 16, 2009 (Statement Of Professor Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Geo. U. L. Center), Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz
Testimony Before Congress
I believe that contemporary foreign law generally has no place in the interpretation of the United States Constitution. …I will explain why reliance on foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution is in tension with our constitutional text and structure, and with fundamental notions of democratic self-governance. I should emphasize that I take no position on the ultimate question of whether Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed, and I offer my comments with the greatest respect. But I am concerned that her recent speech on this issue may betray a misconception of the judicial role. For the balance of my testimony, …
Less Than Zero?, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Less Than Zero?, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Medellin v. Texas is the first case in which the Supreme Court has denied a treaty-based claim solely on the ground that the treaty relied upon was non-self-executing. In Foster v. Neilson, the only other case in which the Court had denied relief on this ground, the Court offered its view that the treaty was non-self-executing as an alternative ground for denying relief. The Court soon thereafter disavowed its conclusion that the treaty involved in Foster was non-self-executing, and, in the intervening years, it repeatedly declined invitations to deny relief on this or related grounds. Many observers thought that the …
Self-Realizing Inventions And The Utilitarian Foundation Of Patent Law, Alan J. Devlin, Neel U. Sukhatme
Self-Realizing Inventions And The Utilitarian Foundation Of Patent Law, Alan J. Devlin, Neel U. Sukhatme
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Unlike other forms of intellectual property, patents are universally justified on utilitarian grounds alone. Valuable inventions and discoveries, bearing the characteristics of public goods, are easily appropriated by third parties. Because much technological innovation occurs pursuant to significant expenditures—both in terms of upfront research and subsequent commercialization costs—inventors must be permitted to extract at least part of the social gain associated with their technological contributions. Absent some form of proprietary control or alternative reward system, economics predicts that suboptimal capital will be devoted to the innovative process.
This widely accepted principle comes with an important corollary: namely, that canons of …
Out Of The Shadows: Preventive Detention, Suspected Terrorists, And War, David Cole
Out Of The Shadows: Preventive Detention, Suspected Terrorists, And War, David Cole
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article examines the appropriate and inappropriate role of "preventive detention" in responding to terrorist threats. It offers a constitutional jurisprudence of preventive detention, maintaining that absent a showing that dangerous behaviour cannot be addressed through criminal prosecution, preventive detention is unconstitutional. But criminal prosecution is not always a realistic option, and in those circumstances, preventive detention, carefully circumscribed and meticulously safeguarded by procedural protections, may be permissible. Familiar examples of accepted preventive detention regimes include civil commitment of dangerous persons who because of a mental disability cannot be held criminally responsible, and detention of enemy soldiers in a traditional …
The Separation Of People And State, Randy E. Barnett
The Separation Of People And State, Randy E. Barnett
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The subject of American exceptionalism, about which much has been written, is extremely complex. There is no simple way to describe all the ways in which America differs from the other nations of the world.
The United States Constitution is a central part of the creed that defines, creates, and preserves American exceptionalism. The American vision of constitutionalism includes at least four distinctive elements:
- the belief in adherence to a founding document: a written Constitution;
- the belief in constitutionally limited government;
- the legal enforcement of these limits by an independent judiciary, and the invocation of these limits by the Congress, …
Postracial Discrimination, Girardeau A. Spann
Postracial Discrimination, Girardeau A. Spann
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Claims of racial injustice can be challenged by arguing that the culture makes it possible for minorities to compete with whites on a level playing field. Under this reasoning, racial disparities that continue to inhere in the allocation of societal benefits and burdens must be caused by the attributes of individual minority group members themselves, rather than by any invidious consideration of their race. The election of President Obama now gives this argument more apparent plausibility than it has had in the past. Indeed, if one were inclined to preserve the nation’s tradition of privileging white interests over the interests …
Is The Constitution Libertarian?, Randy E. Barnett
Is The Constitution Libertarian?, Randy E. Barnett
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Ever since Justice Holmes famously asserted that “the Constitution does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics,” academics have denied that the Constitution is libertarian. In this essay, I explain that the Constitution is libertarian to the extent that its original meaning respects and protects the five fundamental rights that are at the core of both classical liberalism and modern libertarianism. These rights can be protected both directly by judicial decisions and indirectly by structural constraints. While the original Constitution and Bill of Rights provided both forms of constraints, primarily on federal power, it left states free to violate the …
Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, Susan Low Bloch
Celebrating Thurgood Marshall: The Prophetic Dissenter, Susan Low Bloch
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Thurgood Marshall was born 100 years ago into a country substantially divided along color lines. Marshall could not attend the University of Maryland School of Law because he was a Negro; he had trouble locating bathrooms that were not for “whites only.” Today, by contrast, we celebrate his life and accomplishments. Broadway has a play called Thurgood devoted to him; Baltimore/Washington International Airport is now BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport; even the University of Maryland renamed its law library in his honor. How did we come this far? How far do we still have to go? This article will consider what …
A Tale Of Two Lochners: The Untold History Of Substantive Due Process And The Idea Of Fundamental Rights, Victoria Nourse
A Tale Of Two Lochners: The Untold History Of Substantive Due Process And The Idea Of Fundamental Rights, Victoria Nourse
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
To say that the Supreme Court's decision in Lochner v. New York is infamous is an understatement. Scholars remember Lochner for its strong right to contract and laissez-faire ideals--at least that is the conventional account of the case. Whether one concludes that Lochner leads to the judicial activism of Roe v. Wade, or foreshadows strong property rights, the standard account depends upon an important assumption: that the Lochner era's conception of fundamental rights parallels that of today. From that assumption, it appears to follow that Lochner symbolizes the grave political dangers of substantive due process, with its "repulsive connotation …
Against Textualism, William Michael Treanor
Against Textualism, William Michael Treanor
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Modern textualists have assumed that careful attention to constitutional text is the key to the recovery of the Constitution's original public meaning. This article challenges that assumption by showing the importance of nontextual factors in early constitutional interpretation. The Founding generation consistently relied on structural concerns, policy, ratifiers' and drafters' intent, and broad principles of government. To exclude such nontextual factors from constitutional interpretation is to depart from original public meaning because the Founders gave these factors great weight in ascertaining meaning. Moreover, for a modern judge seeking to apply original public meaning, the threshold question is not simply; "How …
The Conscience Of A Court, Girardeau A. Spann
The Conscience Of A Court, Girardeau A. Spann
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The author explains his conclusion that the Supreme Court, as a matter of conscience, considers racial discrimination to be good for America. That conclusion, he argues, offers the only plausible account of the Court's repeated insistence on displacing populist efforts to promote racial equality with the Court's own, more-regressive, version of expedient racial politics. Although the Court has had what is at best a checkered history when called upon to adjudicate claims of racial injustice, until now, the contemporary Court might arguably have been accorded the benefit of the doubt. But after its five-to-four ruling in the 2007 Resegregation case, …
Doctrinal Dilemma, Girardeau A. Spann
Doctrinal Dilemma, Girardeau A. Spann
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In response to Kimberly West-Faulcon, The River Runs Dry: When Title VI Trumps State Anti–Affirmative Action Laws, 157 U. PA. L. REV. 1075 (2009).
Professor Kimberly West-Faulcon has identified a tension between state anti-affirmative action laws and the continued enrollment of minority students in public universities, and the author argues the tension is not surprising, because the voter initiatives that led to those state anti-affirmative action laws were transparently motivated by white majoritarian desires to reduce minority student enrollment in public universities. He feels what is surprising, however, is Professor West-Faulcon’s suggestion that state anti-affirmative action laws can themselves …
Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor
Supreme Neglect Of Text And History, William Michael Treanor
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article reviews Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property by Richard A. Epstein (2008).
In Supreme Neglect, Professor Richard Epstein has produced a clear and elegant synthesis for the general reader of his lifetime of thinking about the Takings Clause and, more broadly, about the role of property in our constitutional system. Appealing to both history and constitutional text, Epstein argues that the Takings Clause bars government regulations that diminish the value of private property (with the exception of a highly constrained category of police power regulations). This essay shows that neither the text of the …
Exporting Harshness: How The War On Crime Helped Make The War On Terror Possible, James Forman Jr.
Exporting Harshness: How The War On Crime Helped Make The War On Terror Possible, James Forman Jr.
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This Essay responds to a consensus that has formed among many opponents of the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror. The consensus narrative goes like this: America has a long-standing commitment to human rights and due process, reflected in its domestic criminal justice system’s expansive protections. Since September 11, 2001, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and their allies have dishonored this tradition. It is too simple, I suggest, to assert that the Bush administration remade our justice system and betrayed American values. This Essay explores the ways in which our approach to the war …
The Separation Of Powers As A Safeguard Of Nationalism, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
The Separation Of Powers As A Safeguard Of Nationalism, Carlos Manuel Vázquez
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The separation of powers does not necessarily protect the states from having their law displaced by the federal government. Sometimes it does the opposite – it operates to perpetuate the existence of federal laws displacing state law. In such circumstances, the separation of powers is an obstacle to the devolution of legislative authority to the states. Consider the requirements of bicameralism and presentment. Bradford Clark is correct to note that the procedural requirements specified in the Constitution for federal law-making were designed to give a large voice to the states. At the beginning of our history, when the only laws …
Is Law? Constitutional Crisis And Existential Anxiety, Alice G. Ristroph
Is Law? Constitutional Crisis And Existential Anxiety, Alice G. Ristroph
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In the recurring discussions of constitutional crises, one may find three forms of existential anxiety. The first, and most fleeting, is an anxiety about the continued existence of the nation. A second form of anxiety—to my mind, the most interesting form—is an anxiety about the possibility of the rule of law itself. Third, and most solipsistically, references to crisis in constitutional law scholarship could be the product of a kind of professional anxiety in the legal academy. We may be asking ourselves, “Constitutional theory: what is it good for?” and worrying that the answer is, “Absolutely nothing.” And yet, I …
District Of Columbia V. Heller And Originalism, Lawrence B. Solum
District Of Columbia V. Heller And Originalism, Lawrence B. Solum
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
On June 26, 2008, the United States Supreme Court handed down its 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, striking a District of Columbia statute that prohibits the possession of useable handguns in the home on the ground that it violated the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Justice Scalia's majority opinion drew dissents from Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer. Collectively, the opinions in Heller represent the most important and extensive debate on the role of original meaning in constitutional interpretation among the members of the contemporary Supreme Court.
This article investigates the relationship between originalist constitutional …