The international trade community increasingly focuses upon the purchasing practices of nation states. Developing nations and states seeking to improve their procurement systems expect to glean lessons from the evolution of procurement law regimes in developed nations, including the United...

This brief piece applauds the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for adding the management of interagency contracting to its High Risk List. It suggests that interagency acquisition, the poster child for the flexible, streamlined, businesslike approach of the 1990's acquisition reform...

The controversial 'Buy American requirements in Section 1605 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 threaten to stir protectionism leading to an outright trade war. This could be catastrophic in the current economic crisis, particularly since the Obama administration does not...

This paper has adopted the exploratory case study method of analyzing a few recent cases of public procurement irregularities on Indian Railways documented by the vigilance departments and the CAG available in public domain to inquire into the following issues: (a) how do irregularities and...

This Article discusses the Federal Circuit's 2010 government contracts cases. It begins with some perspective on, and empirical quantification of, the Federal Circuit’s level of specialization and evolving jurisprudence in the field of government contracts. It eventually turns to analysis of a...

This article questions the extent to which U.S. continental shelf seabed mining policy, as reflected in the U.S. administration's recently issued five-year OCS development plan and accompanying agency regulations, is influenced by international environmental law, especially the deep seabed...

This paper summarizes the U.S. program for terrorism insurance, outlines its advantages and disadvantages, and describes the current proposals for extension of the program. The program, generally referred to as a “Federal Backstop,” functions in some ways that are similar to reinsurance, but...

The false alarm of an Hawaiian nuclear attack in January 2018 is an example of the lack of U.S. preparedness for attacks using nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. To address such threats, this Article proposes the establishment of a nation-wide integrated defense of health...

Federal government support for the terrorism insurance industry has a very brief history. Prior to 9/11, insurers did not take terrorist-related losses into account when underwriting risks. The industry did not even conceive of an attack that could generate such significant losses. The dramatic...

Public private partnerships allows public and local authorities to entrust an conomic operator both with regard to the financing structures and equipment that their design, construction, operation or management of public services, failing to be owners and by paying the operator of milestone...