Biofuel,Energy Diversification,and NAFTA: A Proposition for the Future of the North American Biofuels Industry

This article demonstrates how the United States can use the free-trade legal structure to diversify the nation's energy portfolio by importing jatropha plants from southern Mexico for use as biofuel. The North American Free Trade Agreement has created a free trade zone among Canada, Mexico, and the United States, so jatropha imports from Mexico are not subject to tariff. This article contends that the United States and Mexico can change two of their legal devices, PROCAMPO and ethanol subsidies for U.S. farmers, to facilitate jatropha trade. Thus, the United States can diversify its energy market by using an abundant and easily accessible resource.     

Specialised domestic violence courts in Canada and the United States: Key factors in prioritising safety for women and children

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the response of specialised domestic violence courts in Canada and the United States to contact disputes where there are allegations of domestic violence. It begins with a discussion of legal reforms responding to domestic violence in Canada and the United States, including the different types of DV courts and their rationales, key features, merits and drawbacks. Evaluations of Integrated DV courts in the United States and Canada are then reviewed. The research shows that although IDV courts hold more promise to deal with contact disputes given their inclusion of family law matters, there are few studies analysing the impact of IDV courts on these disputes, and some suggest these courts may actually increase contact and hence the potential for safety issues to arise. The final section discusses the strengths and weaknesses of IDV courts in relation to contact disputes, identifying the factors that make these specialised courts more or less successful in prioritising safety and minimising harm for women and children.     

The Canadian Legal Profession

This article seeks to weave together the limited information available on the legal professions of the Canadian provinces. Following the same general format as the other comparative studies in this series, it also offers several critical observations of special interest to readers in the United States, whose experience the Canadian bar so closely tracks. The phenomenon of stratification—familiar to American observers—is clearly visible in the Canadian legal profession. Combined with other centrifugal forces, it threatens the unity of a profession which, until recently, has managed to preserve a high degree of cohesion in training, ideology, and institutional structures. On the other hand, in certain respects, the Canadian experience seems to differ from that of the United States, especially in the strength and peculiar structure of publicly funded legal aid schemes, in the profession's continuing formal autonomy and relative immunity from public regulation, and in its long-lasting attachment to apprenticeship as a necessary stage in professional formation. These and other convergences and divergences between the two countries raise questions of general significance: To what extent do the similarities between Canada and the United States verify the assumption implicit in the theoretical literature (principally Abel, Freidson, and Larson) that there is an empirical referent for something called legal professionalism? And to what extent do the differences suggest that containing societies contribute distinctive characteristics to their legal professions, whose qualities are therefore highly contingent?     

The Legal Context of School Violence: The Effectiveness of Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Efforts to Reduce Gun Violence in Schools

In the wake of recent school shootings, communities and legislatures are searching for law enforcement solutions to the perceived epidemic of school violence. A variety of legal measures have been debated and proposed. These include: the enactment of tougher gun control laws and more vigorous federal and local enforcement of existing gun control laws; the enactment of laws imposing civil or criminal liability on parents for their children's violent behavior; the establishment of specialized courts and prosecution strategies for handling juveniles who are charged with weapons offenses; stricter enforcement of school disciplinary codes; reform of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to make it easier to expel students for weapons violations; and greater use of alternative schools as placements for students who are charged with weapons violations.
  This article provides a legal and empirical analysis of proposed legislation in these areas as informed by social science research on the patterns of school violence, gun acquisition by juveniles, and the effectiveness of various laws and law enforcement measures. It proposes and discusses recommendations for legal reform. While efforts to reduce school violence will be most effective at the state and local levels, the United States federal government has an important role to play, particularly in federal‐state partnerships aimed at disrupting illegal gun markets, and through the formulation of national standards and guidelines. These standards and guidelines are for the enforcement of existing laws; inter‐agency law enforcement cooperation and information‐sharing (particularly using computer‐based analysis); effective school discipline and alternative educational settings for disruptive youth; and psycho‐educational interventions designed to detect and prevent school violence in the first place.     

Rethinking retirement-age policy in the United States and Canada

More than legislation, the recent amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act also symbolize a growing interest in the older working population, both in the United States and Canada, particularly the question of their "failing" job skills and the effects of retirement age on the economy. Sociologist Rix examines this issue in terms of demographic, economic and biomedical factors, discussing their implications for management, employee counselors, insurance and pension planners, the tax payers and employees of all ages.     

Informed Consent: Physician Inexperience is a Material Risk for Patients

This paper examines the case for an expanded interpretation of the concept of "material risk" such that it necessitates voluntary disclosure of physician inexperience with a specific medical procedure. Informed consent law in the United States, Canada, and most commonwealth jurisdictions has become a driver of standards of risk disclosure by physicians during the informed consent process. The legal standard of risk disclosure expected of a physician hinges on the interpretation of the entity called "material risk." Any impairment of the physician related to drug usage, disease, or alcohol which compounds the risk of a procedure is very likely to be considered material by a patient. This paper argues that physician inexperience is a factor that a reasonable patient would attach significance to and that it should therefore be viewed as a "material risk" requiring disclosure.     

美国知识产权法典化考察与镜鉴

美国知识产权基本制度经历了由州法向联邦法、由判例法向成文法演进的历史进程,并且最终呈现出有限法典化特征和二元复合结构。美国知识产权基本制度的演进轨迹和制度现状,显示出形式主义和实用工具主义法律观念切换交融的基本脉络。在“后民法典”时代的中国知识产权法典化进程中,可向美国吸收两方面经验。第一,法典化运动是建立和完善知识产权公私法律保护机制的重要路径。第二,形式主义法律观念应当同实用工具主义法律观念彼此对观和相互借鉴。作为形式主义法律观念的产物,知识产权法典化的进程应当坚持价值统一和形式多元的综合模式。     

Women and the dynamics of marriage,household status,and aging in victorian canada and the united states

This article compares the life course transitions and household statuses of Canadian and American women and men in late nineteenth-century Canada and the United States. Using a set of integrated census data from 1871 Canada and the United States in 1880, the article suggests that household status differences between the two nations centered on gender. Canadian and American men timed or experienced their own transitions into and out of marriage and household headship at similar ages and to a similar extent. Demographic and economic differences between Victorian Canada and the United States, however, produced distinctions in Canadian and American women's life course transitions and household status: for Canadian women, older ages at first marriage, and the prolongation of the duration of the status, spouse of the household head. For their part, American elderly women more frequently lived as single and widowed heads of households than did their Canadian counterparts.     

自由裁量权视野下的紧急监听

法律自身的局限性与犯罪侦查内在规律的客观要求决定了紧急监听的立法确认有其必然性。对美国、加拿大、德国、意大利等国家和地区紧急监听制度的考察为我国紧急监听制度的构建提供了重要的参照系。我国将来在进行刑事诉讼法再修改时应当建立紧急监听制度,同时,为了防止这一措施的滥用,必须加强对紧急监听的法律控制,为此,在将“紧急情形”法定化时,还要注意事后追认、紧急监听未获法官认可的法律后果等配套制度的创建。     

Emergent patterns in the regulation of pharmaceuticals: institutions and interests in the United States,Canada, Britain,and France

Although industrialized nations regulate pharmaceuticals to ensure their safety and efficacy, they balance these concerns with those related to the timeliness of the approval process and the burdens involved in meeting regulatory criteria. The United States, Canada, Britain, and France have adopted different approaches to the regulation of pharmaceuticals that place varying emphases on these competing goals and involve the participation of private interests to different extents. The regulatory approval processes and the government-industry relationships inherent within them are compared in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France by analyzing five features that distinguish the U.S. pluralist from the European corporatist approaches to policy development: representation (internal versus external), process (closed versus open), stance (informal, accommodative versus formal, adversarial), institutional power (fragmented versus centralized), and resources. An institutional framework further characterizes these approaches as based on models of managerial discretion and adjudication (United States), consultation (Canada), and bargaining (Britain, France) to clarify the patterns that emerge. While the approach that most effectively supports product safety involves managerial discretion as occurs in the United States, formal mechanisms for negotiation might be incorporated rather than a reliance on the judicial process. In an era of globalization and regulatory harmonization such divergence has significant implications. First, where harmonization in Europe involves the mutual recognition of one country's product licensing decision by the others, differences in evaluative processes remain important. Second, as harmonization leads to a common set of regulatory criteria, the criteria adopted tend to be those of nations with the least stringent regulatory standards, making evident the need for more responsive systems of post-market surveillance to protect the public interest.     

“If you’ve come a’seeking justice, no Irish need apply:”1 Irish Republicans, political asylum, and United States foreign policy

For over a century, Irish Republicans have sought and found legal refuge in the United States. Such individuals were rarely targeted by immigration policies for previous politically-motivated offences nor were U.S. extradition warrants granted. More recently, however, several Irish Republicans have faced prosecution, extradition, or deportation from the United States. This essay highlights the complex, relationship between the legal formalism of those proceedings and broader political considerations related to the requirements of the ‘special relationship’ between the U.S. and British governments. Despite an 18-month IRA cease-fire and the U.S. interest in promoting the peace process, the executive branch of the United States failed to provide any concessions in these legal proceedings that might have been beneficial to the peace process.     

Now You See Them, Now You Don't: The Legal Field and Newspaper Desegregation of Sex-Segregated Help Wanted Ads 1965–75

We analyze the timing and extent to which major newspapers in the United States ceased publishing sex-segregated help wanted columns. We situate our study within a specific scholarly literature in organizational sociology and the sociology of law interested in patterns of organizational compliance with U.S. employment law. More specifically, this article is conceptually and theoretically organized around the concept of the "legal field," defined as the dynamic and emergent interactions among formal law and legal rules, legal officials, self-interested organizations, and the broader political and cultural environment. Content analysis of major U.S. newspapers between 1966 and 1975 indicates that, for nearly five years (1966–70), newspapers collectively refused to desegregate their help wanted columns, despite clear legal rules prohibiting their use. Then, in a comparatively condensed period between 1971 and 1973, virtually all newspapers abruptly abandoned the traditional practice of sorting job ads explicitly by sex.     

Changing Patterns of Legal Representation in Divorce: From Lawyers to Pro Se

Governmental assistance for legal representation in civil cases is far greater in the United Kingdom than in the United States of America. This article explores the extent of legal support for low–income Americans, particularly in the area of family law. Examination of the data on self–representation across the United States and over time shows decreased reliance on lawyers. Drawing on institutional and individual perspectives, the article then explores why individuals choose to represent themselves in divorce. What do lawyers add to a divorce besides cost? The article suggests patterns of lawyering depending upon the lawyer and the resources of the client. While some pro se individuals may thrive in the divorce process without the need of a lawyer, others are disadvantaged by the lack of services available to them. The matching process between case needs and legal representation does not work.     

Women and the dynamics of marriage, household status, and aging in victorian canada and the united states

This article compares the life course transitions and household statuses of Canadian and American women and men in late nineteenth-century Canada and the United States. Using a set of integrated census data from 1871 Canada and the United States in 1880, the article suggests that household status differences between the two nations centered on gender. Canadian and American men timed or experienced their own transitions into and out of marriage and household headship at similar ages and to a similar extent. Demographic and economic differences between Victorian Canada and the United States, however, produced distinctions in Canadian and American women's life course transitions and household status: for Canadian women, older ages at first marriage, and the prolongation of the duration of the status, spouse of the household head. For their part, American elderly women more frequently lived as single and widowed heads of households than did their Canadian counterparts.     

Disability and the legal profession in the United States

There are more people with disabilities than any other minority group in the United States. However, little attention is paid to lawyers and potential lawyers with disabilities. This article examines difficulties faced by people with a disability as law students through to participation in the legal profession. Aspects of discrimination and issues relating to discipline of lawyers and disabilities are canvassed. The legal profession in the United States is taking steps to increase representation of people with a disability in its ranks but it is a slow process.     

Clinical ethics committees, due process and the right to a fair hearing

The development of clinical ethics committees in the United Kingdom raises a number of important questions about the extent to which they are compatible with the normative values of due process. If committees are to be active in delivering ethics services, it is argued that attention to due process is important. Based on research outcomes, it seems that the chairs of the United Kingdom clinical ethics committees who responded are reasonably satisfied about the ability of their committees to make ethical decisions and slightly less confident about their ability to make legal decisions. If these committees are to make potentially far-reaching decisions (whether or not involving live consultations), it is argued here that they must pay attention to the rules associated with the legal concept of due process. Equally, evaluation of the clinical ethics committee's counterpart in the United States suggests that they may become increasingly authoritative, especially as their role becomes entrenched. This makes attention to due process even more important. However, it is also proposed that, when committees become concerned about due process, their ability to "do ethics" is constrained.     

Research ethics across the 49th parallel: the potential value of pilot testing "equivalent protections" in Canadian research institutions

Canada and the United States share the world's largest trade partnership and an increasing concern about divergent regulatory approaches to common industries. Canadian research institutes receive more research funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health than any other country, much of it to fund multi-centre and collaborative research between the two countries. Because of these close economic and research ties, and the extensive similarities between the two countries in the review and oversight of ethics in human subjects research, we propose that Canada would be an ideal country for a pilot-test of the feasibility of "equivalent protections," a U.S. regulation that permits comparison of protections for human subjects between institutions in the two countries. The "equivalent protections" has been advocated by various bodies in the United States as a potentially beneficial mechanism for improving oversight of foreign trials. As well, we argue that "equivalent protections" could prove to be valuable for Canada in five specific ways: (1) by potentially reducing administrative burden on Canadian research institutions administering U.S. federal research funding; (2) by creating symbolic value of an explicit recognition by the United States that procedures normally followed for the protection of human subjects in Canadian research institutions are at least equivalent to those provided by the U.S. regulations; (3) by lowering the opportunity cost of investing in research in Canada; (4) by affording Canada an opportunity to enhance its leadership role in international research by offering an alternative to the U.S. regulatory model for the protection of human subjects; and (5) by providing a model for how the idea of equivalent protections might be addressed for research funded by Canadian agencies but conducted in other countries.     

Expressing Conflict, Neutralizing Blame, and Making Concessions in Small‐Claims Mediation

This research examines the link between the way small‐claims mediation participants express their conflicts and their willingness to engage in concession‐making. Observations of seventy‐seven mediation participants suggest that a significant factor in this relationship is the way participants manage the issue of blame. The research identifies three categories of mediants: individuals named in a civil suit who represent themselves; agents, usually lawyers, who represent the interests of other parties in a civil suit; and business owners or managers who represent the interests of their establishments. The study depicts some of the differences in the way these participants describe their conflicts. In particular, the research suggests that the manner in which mediation participants handle the issue of blame – by either justifying, excusing, or denying it – constrains their willingness to engage in concession‐making, a fundamental aspect of the mediation process. I discuss implications for future research and for developing strategies that might improve the effectiveness of mediation for some participants.     

TRANSFERRING JUVENILES TO ADULT COURTS. Recent trends and issues in Canada and the United States

This paper examines the practice of transferring youngsters from juvenile to adult courts in Canada and the United States from 1986 to 1994. The research indicates that Canada and the United States have similar provisions for trying youths as adults. The United States transfers large numbers of juveniles (nearly 13,000 per year recently) to adult courts each year, and most of these youngsters are non-violent offenders. By contrast, in Canada transfers are still relatively rare (521 over a nine year period), and most of these youngsters are charged with violent offenses.     

Human-nonhuman chimeras: a regulatory proposal on the blurring of species lines

The chimera of modern biotechnology is defined broadly as a single organism composed of a mixture of materials from two or more organisms possessing distinct genetic backgrounds. Unlike the United States, which does not regulate chimeras directly, Canada has responded to the unregulated pursuit of chimera technology by banning certain chimeras as part of comprehensive legislation designed to regulate human reproductive technologies. In 2004, the Canadian Parliament passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act despite criticism urging greater legislative justification for the Act's provisions and modification to it statutory definitions. Because current regulatory mechanisms in the United States, including patent law and administrative oversight, fail to regulate chimera technology, the United States should enact new legislation, using Canada's legislation as a model, to prohibit embryonic chimeras and to regulate other human-nonhuman combinations. Unregulated biotechnology threatens to disrupt legal and social institutions; therefore, the United States must make a balanced effort now to protect the public interest.