Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Post-Chicago Law And Economics, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is not another "law-and-econ" bashing symposium. Nor is the symposium's title intended to denigrate Chicago School law and economics any more than the term "Post-Keynesian economics" was intended to denigrate the work of John Maynard Keynes. Instead, this symposium marks the fact that many practitioners of law and economics have moved well beyond the stereotypes familiar to most legal academics. Rather than designating an entirely new school of thought, the term "Post-Chicago law and economics" refers to a new era in which a variety of new questions about law and lawmaking is being asked and a variety of promising …

Hospitals, Health Care Professionals, And Aids: The "Right To Know" The Health Status Of Professionals And Patients, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article addresses why patients and health care professionals (HCPs) with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) should have autonomy and privacy rights to choose whether to consent to an HIV test and to disclose their serologic status. It also demonstrates that the risk of HIV transmission in health care settings is exceedingly low, that it is probably lower than other well-accepted risks taken by patients and professionals, and that there are other less intrusive ways to further reduce the risk. The article concludes that knowledge of a patient's serologic status is unlikely to reduce risk, since no effective action could be …

The Politics Of Aids: Compulsory State Powers, Public Health, And Civil Liberties, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article argues that compulsory public powers are justified only if they meet the following criteria: there is a significant risk of transmission of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) virus; the public health response is efficacious in preventing a primary mode of transmission of the virus; the economic, practical, or human rights burdens are not disproportionate to the public health benefits; and the public health power is the least restrictive alternative that would prevent viral transmission.

The author carefully examines the levels of risk posed by behavior which can potentially transmit human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and demonstrates that compulsory …

Of Chickens And Eggs−−The Compatibility Of Moral Rights And Consequentialist Analyses, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Philosophers are accustomed to thinking of moral rights and consequentialist analyses as fundamentally incompatible. They frequently debate cases--both hypothetical and real--in which rights and consequences are in conflict. For example, suppose an innocent child knows the whereabouts of a terrorist who has planted a nuclear bomb in a city. Would it be permissible to violate the child's moral right to be free from torture, if this was the only way to save millions of innocent lives? If this is permissible, then do not moral rights yield to concerns about consequences? Or suppose that a community incorrectly believes that an innocent …

The Serpent Strikes: Simulation In A Large First-Year Course, Philip G. Schrag

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Simulation in legal education has come of age. Once confined to moot court exercises and trial practice offerings, simulation is now accepted, in principle, as a legitimate method of instruction in many types of courses. Every recent volume of the Journal of Legal Education has included at least one article on simulation, and in the past few years published works have offered the community of law teachers advice on using simulation to teach administrative law, contracts, constitutional law, bankruptcy, civil procedure, pretrial litigation, legislation, the "lawyering" process, and, of course, negotiation. These writings have helped to make simulation an accessible …