GEORGETOWN LAW
First Year Electives Spring 2016
Congress and the Administrative State (LAWJ-1017-50, CRN 29551)
Three Semester Hours
Almost every course in law schools teaches students about courts. This course teaches about Congress, the
President, and agencies, as well as courts. Using case studies, the course introduces students to the government as
a whole—Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court—and how each institution fits into the constitutional
scheme. Much of the course’s focus is statutory interpretation, teaching interpretive skills applicable to all
statutes, whether civil rights or tax or securities law. This course also introduces students to the rules governing
Congress (e.g., the filibuster) and how and whether these rules should affect how legislation is passed and how
courts interpret statutes. Because much statutory interpretation occurs under the President’s watch, the course also
introduces students to rules governing administrative agencies, and explains how courts apply special rules of
statutory construction to agency regulations. Almost all the classes will also include participatory exercises, in
which students and the instructor will be public actors resolving difficult issues of public lawmaking. Thus, we
shall imagine how lobbyists, legislators, administrators, and judges approach issues in their distinctive
ways—and how the constitutional structure of public lawmaking influences and constrains these actors. The
exercises are designed to teach practical skills as well as public law reasoning and substantive knowledge.
The text for this course will be draft materials by Professors Abbe Gluck, William Eskridge Jr., and myself,
adapting Eskridge and Frickey’s Cases and Materials on Legislation for a first-year course on the modern
regulatory state. The materials for this course will be available on-line (and free).
The final examination in the course will be an eight-hour take-home examination.
Professor Nourse
MW 11:10 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
International Law I: Introduction to International Law (Koplow: LAWJ-235-50, CRN 10407/Stewart:
LAWJ-235-51, CRN 10405)
Three Semester Hours
This introductory course deals with the nature, sources and operation of "public international law," with some of
the most important contemporary challenges to the international legal system, and with the international
community’s evolving responses to those challenges. It includes such topics as the law governing treaties and
other international agreements; the recognition of states and governments; methods for international dispute
resolution including litigation in the International Court of Justice; the United Nations and other international and
regional entities; international human rights and international criminal law; law of the sea and international
environmental law; and the rules governing the use of force. Some attention is also given to the role of
international law in the U.S. legal system; questions of jurisdiction, foreign sovereign immunity and the act of
state doctrine; and the allocation of foreign affairs powers between the President, the Congress, and the Judiciary.
We will discuss a few of the most pressing illustrations of the operation – or shortcomings – of the international
legal system in the context of current problems or crises. As a first-year elective, this course is intended to offer
a contrast or a complement to the bulk of the first year curriculum, by exposing students to dispute resolution
mechanisms other than litigation in U.S. courts, including through international courts and tribunals as well as
international arbitration. [Students may not receive credit for this course and the upperclass course by the same
title.]
Professors Koplow, Stewart
MW 11:10 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
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International Law, National Security, and Human Rights (LAWJ-1323-50, CRN 29406)
Three Semester Hours
This course will focus on the body of international law that applies to activities relating to national security, armed
conflict, and efforts to prevent and respond to terrorism. Our focus will be on two sources of international law
relevant to these topics: International Humanitarian Law (IHL), also known as the Law of Armed Conflict
(LOAC), and International Human Rights Law (IHRL). We will explore the interaction between these bodies of
law on a range of subjects that relate to national security, as well as their interaction with domestic law, with
particular attention to the United States. The course therefore will provide students with a practical
understanding of international law through an in-depth examination of how it operates in a particular field.
Topics will include general sources of international law such as treaties, the United Nations Charter, and
customary international law; the provisions of IHL and IHRL, their underlying rationales, and the points of
complementarity and tension between them; the interaction between international law and United States national
security law; the debate over what constitutes terrorism and what responses are appropriate to it; humanitarian
intervention; targeted killing; the treatment of cyber operations under international law; detention and
interrogation of enemy combatants and terrorist suspects; intelligence gathering and analysis; and judicial review
of national security issues.
We also will discuss the extent to which international law conforms to conventional understandings of what
constitutes “law” in light of the frequent absence of an enforcement authority on the international level, and
whether international law nonetheless has an impact apart from whether any formal sanctions are available for its
violation. The course will include the use of case studies to illustrate the complex legal, political, and moral issues
that arise in this field.
Professor Regan
MW 11:10 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
Legislation and Regulation (LAWJ-1326-50, CRN 29410)
Three Semester Hours
Description forthcoming.
Professor Buzbee
MW 11:10 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
The Regulatory State (LAWJ-1035-50, CRN 21989)
Three Semester Hours
This course introduces students to the modern regulatory state. We will consider the place of agencies in the
structure of modern federal government; justifications for regulation against the backdrop of the common law;
aspects of congressional decision-making, including the legislative process, statutory design, and delegation to
agencies; statutory interpretation, including both the tools of statutory interpretation and some debates
surrounding them; agency implementation of statutes, focusing especially on regulations; and some of the ways
that agencies are controlled by the president, Congress, and the courts. As a case study that will thread its way
through the class, we will focus on one particular statute and one particular regulation, both concerning auto
safety, chosen because of the familiarity of the topic and the way the issue affects daily life. The point of the
course, however, is not to teach you about auto safety, but to teach you to understand and work with any federal
statute or regulation, regardless of its content. The course is designed to give both a theoretical and a practical
introduction to the laws and institutions that lawyers confront in their practices every day, whether they are
government lawyers or not.
Professor Pasachoff
MW 11:10 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.
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