Removing fuel subsidies: How can international organizations support national policy reforms?

This article investigates how international organizations can support fuel subsidy reform. Departing from earlier studies, we focus on the ability of international organizations to assist national governments directly in the enactment and implementation of national reforms. While international organizations lack the capacity to directly enforce policy or force countries to abolish subsidies, they can increase the cost of reform reversal by governments that have a preference for reform but worry about the credibility and durability of their reforms. Moreover, international organizations can support learning from peers. In practice, governments interested in subsidy reform can announce a public commitment and submit progress reports to peer review by other countries under the auspices of an international organization. We characterize the institutional design of international organizations for success, discuss the role of the civil society in the process, and offer short illustrations from recent efforts by international organizations to promote fuel subsidy reform.     

A review of Anglo-American forensic professional codes of ethics with considerations for code design

Continuing instances of ethical misconduct and recent advances in the practice of forensic science, the latter reflected by increased growth and professionalism, along with heightening public scrutiny, require that the profession be clear, current, and forthright about its core values. A way of expressing these values is through the codes of ethics of its professional membership organizations. Codes of ethics/conduct from 14 Anglo-American professional forensic membership organizations are reviewed for their clarity, construction, cogency, and the normative form of their provisions. Ethical precepts from the forensic codes reviewed are organized, in summary fashion, by obligation form and application context. Functions that professional codes have served in other professions are described. The codes are found to vary considerably. Some provisions are unclear, and most of the codes are less than comprehensive. There is very little guidance for application of ethical obligations in any of the codes reviewed. Suggestions for redesign, with a partial example, are provided.     

论我国医疗损害技术鉴定制度构建

《侵权责任法》仍未解决我国医疗鉴定体制的二元化问题。医学会医疗事故技术鉴定和法医医疗损害司法鉴定两种模式各有利弊,法医鉴定模式并不比医学会鉴定模式优越。在专业技术问题的判断上,日本、德国、荷兰、美国的医疗损害鉴定模式都采同行评价的原则。构建我国医疗损害技术鉴定制度应坚持充分利用现有鉴定资源、尽可能融合当前两种鉴定的优点、法律问题与技术问题分离的宏观理念,并坚持公开、救济、辩论、鉴定专家半职业化、鉴定方法科学和法律指导的基本原则。在制度的具体构建上,鉴定名称应选择医疗损害鉴定或医疗损害技术鉴定;新的鉴定机构应在现有医学会医疗事故技术鉴定机构的基础上组建,并要求法医专家参与,调整鉴定专家来源、专家鉴定组和鉴定专家库组成,完善鉴定程序,确定鉴定理论、鉴定方法,明确鉴定原则,扩充医疗损害技术鉴定的内容;也可以借鉴日本的鉴定模式,由医学会建立专家库,由法院启动、组织鉴定。     

法医毒物鉴定的发展及其问题分析

文章阐述了法医毒物鉴定在对象种类、适用检材、技术方法、应用领域和结果运用方面的发展趋势,分析了现阶段我国毒物鉴定实验室在规范建设、鉴定能力、技术系统和质量控制中存在的问题和缺陷,提出要通过加强鉴定机构及鉴定人的准入控制,建设一支高资质、高水平的队伍;通过执业监管、认证认可、水平测试和质量评估,保障毒物鉴定结果的可靠、准确.     

Health care programs: fraud and abuse; revised PRO sanctions for failing to meet statutory obligations--HHS. Final rule

This final rule addresses revised procedures governing the imposition and adjudication of program sanctions, based on recommendations from State utilization and quality control peer review organizations (PROs), resulting from enactment of sections 214 and 231(f) of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.     

Mental health and substance abuse emergency response criteria. Final rule

Section 3102 of the Children's Health Act of 2000, Pub. L. 106-310, amends section 501 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act (42 U.S.C. 290aa) to add a new subsection (m) entitled "Emergency Response." This newly enacted subsection 501(m) authorizes the Secretary to use up to, but no more than, 2.5% of all amounts appropriated under Title V of the PHS Act, other than those appropriated under Part C, in each fiscal year to make "noncompetitive grants, contracts or cooperative agreements to public entities to enable such entities to address emergency substance abuse or mental health needs in local communities." Because Congress believed the Secretary needed the ability to respond to emergencies, it exempted any grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements authorized under this section from the peer review process. See section 501(m)(1) of the PHS Act. Instead, the Secretary is to use an objective review process by establishing objective criteria to review applications for funds under this authority.     

Recent developments in medicine and law

This article addresses important developments in the field of medicine and the law during the last year and highlights some of the significant areas of law affecting health care providers that should be considered. Actions against health care providers may include challenges to peer review immunity, allegations concerning the practice of medicine across state lines without a license, and even accusations of wrongfully assisting a patient to commit suicide. These areas are addressed in turn by this article. Finally, antitrust developments over the last year are briefly addressed as an emerging area of concern for providers forming complex practice networks in today's health care arena.     

Arnett v. Dal Cielo: peer review confidentiality threatened by medical board investigational subpoenas

If not modified or overturned on appeal, the Dal Cielo decision will very likely have a significant negative impact on the ability of California's organized peer review bodies to conduct frank, candid, and confidential peer review. Dal Cielo appears to permit the Board to subpoena committee minutes, physician credentials files, and live testimony whenever it determines that a physician should be investigated. Further, the impetus for the Board's investigation might be little more than a complaint from a single patient or even a disgruntled former employee of the physician or hospital. Regardless of current and future decisions, however, peer review bodies in California and other states operating under similar court decisions still retain at least some limited means to protect the confidentiality of their evaluative work. If, for example, a peer review body can establish that an investigatory subpoena seeks irrelevant information, is based upon little more than unsubstantiated rumor, or that the medical board has made no efforts to obtain information from other available, non-privileged sources, it may be able to convince a court that the subpoena is not supported by good cause. Peer review organizations should thus consider challenging medical board subpoenas in court to narrow their scope or establish that there is sufficient need for them. If any peer review body is served with an investigatory subpoena by a medical board requesting production of peer review information, it should carefully assess applicable state confidentiality protections.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

域外医疗纠纷第三方调处机制研究

如何有效化解日益增长的医疗纠纷,维系医患关系的良性运转,是域外许多国家和地区普遍面临的重要问题.美国、德国、法国和日本等国家都建立了颇具特色的医疗纠纷第三方调处机制,并在实践中发挥了重要作用.高度重视行业性、专业性组织的作用,以完善的法律与制度保障医疗纠纷第三方调处机制的顺利运行,通过健全的医疗责任保险制度确保第三方调处效果的最终实现是上述国家的一致做法.     

Topographies of forensic practice in Imperial Germany

This article examines the topography and “cultural machinery” of forensic jurisdictions in Imperial Germany. It locates the sites at which boundary disputes between psychiatric and legal professionals arose and explores the strategies and practices that governed the division of expert labor between them. It argues that the over-determined paradigms of ‘medicalization’ and ‘biologization’ have lost much of their explanatory force and that historians need to refocus their attention on the institutional and administrative configuration of forensic practices in Germany. After first sketching the statutory context of those practices, the article explores how contentious jurisdictional negotiations pitted various administrative, financial, public security, and scientific interests against one another. The article also assesses the contested status of psychiatric expertise in the courtroom, as well as post-graduate forensic psychiatric training courses and joint professional organizations, which drew the two professional communities closer together and mediated their jurisdictional disputes.     

Major Characteristics of Public Organizations in the USSR in the Contemporary Period

The Draft Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gives much attention to public organizations, to elevating their role in the life of Soviet society. The fact that the rising role of public organizations is treated, first, in indissoluble connection with the long-run development of government and statehood on the road to communism and, second, as part of the more general problem of the further development of socialist democracy is of exceptional significance to the theory and practice of the building of communism. This permits us to probe more deeply into certain propositions related to the place of public organizations in the political structure of Soviet society and to analyze those characteristics of public organizations that have made it possible for them to have such rich opportunities in the period of the building of communism.     

论德国行政诉讼中司法权的边界

德国行政诉讼中法院的受案范围几乎不受限制。行政法院对行政案件有完全的管辖权,可以主动、全面、深入地审查事实问题与法律问题,一般无须尊重行政机关在事实判断方面的专业知识与经验。不过,自上个世纪70年代以来,由于行政判断余地等理论的发展,行政法院对行政主体进行强势监督与制约的格局有所松动。另外,行政法院在判决与执行中恪守权力分立原则。德国行政诉讼中这一权力边界格局的形成,是与其宪政体制、法院分工、法定法官原则、二战后对公民权利的重视以及发达的公法理论等紧密相关的。     

Forensic pathology then and now. Retrospect and reflections

The past half-century has witnessed significant progress and multiple, meaningful changes in the day-to-day practice of forensic pathology as it has in all other branches of laboratory and clinical medicine. Associated with the welcome advancing "scientific" aspects of our work have been gratifying changes in the professional status of our much misunderstood area of medical activity, the latter most vividly and convincingly represented by American Board of Pathology certification in Forensic Pathology and the appearance of such growing, vital, national professional organizations as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and our National Association of Medical Examiners and the creation of such highly respected periodicals as the Journal of Forensic Sciences and our American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. Objective assessment of the foregoing accomplishments leads to the inescapable conclusion that forensic pathology has emerged from its previous role as the "invisible profession" and become a respected and productive branch of laboratory medicine.     

公共行政组织的法律规制

公共行政组织在当今中国的兴起与发展已成为必然趋势,但同时也涌现出众多不可忽视的问题。对公共行政组织加以有效的法律规制,不仅是确保行政分权、实现行政民主化的必要途径,也是控制国家行政权力、保护相对人合法权益和实现法治的必然要求。具体思路是:借鉴域外经验,增强“准行政组织”性事业单位的独立性和社会自治组织的“自治”程度,以建立独立自治的公共行政组织;在规制的路径选择上,实行加强规制与放松规制并举,并从加强立法、拓宽行政法的适用范围、扩展司法审查范围以及扩大公众参与等方面实现对公共行政组织规制的相关制度构建。     

Rate increase disclosure and review. Final rule with comment period

This final rule with comment period implements requirements for health insurance issuers regarding disclosure and review of unreasonable premium increases under section 2794 of the Public Health Service Act. The final rule establishes a rate review program to ensure that all rate increases that meet or exceed a specified threshold are reviewed by a State or CMS to determine whether they are unreasonable and that certain rate information be made public.     

Special report on health care delivery systems. Trends in the integrated delivery of health care and the corporate practice of medicine

The prospects for federal legislation preempting state corporate practice restrictions are unclear. The health care reform bill originally introduced by President Clinton contained a provision that would have preempted "any state law related to the corporate practice of medicine" insofar as it applied to the arrangements between non-fee-for-service health plans and their participating providers. H.R. 3600/S. 1757, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. 1407(b) (1993). Whether and in what form a preemption provision may survive the legislative process and see a Presidential signature remains to be seen. The particular fate of the federal legislation notwithstanding, however, health care executives can nevertheless remain confident that the legal treatment of the "corporate practice" of medicine will continue to be of vital concern as the various forms of health care organizations evolve in the ongoing struggle to deliver quality medicine at affordable prices.     

The Quality of Forensic Psychological Assessments,Reports, and Testimony: Acknowledging the Gap Between Promise and Practice

During the past decade, the field of forensic psychological assessment entered a period of standard setting, reflected in the publication of specialty guidelines for practice and in the proliferation of educational opportunities, training programs, and credentialing and certification procedures for forensic examiners. Representing significant efforts to advance the quality of psychological assessments in legal contexts, these developments foreshadow the promise of forensic assessment. During this same time period, new evidence emerged regarding the quality of forensic practice. This article reviews this evidence and evaluates current practice against the promise of forensic assessment. Forensic reports appear to be of higher quality than those described by commentators in the 1970s and early 1980s; nevertheless, the level of practice falls far short of professional aspirations for the field. The review identifies significant areas of weakness that demand the attention of professional organizations, accrediting agencies, educators, lawmakers, practitioners, and consumers.The truth is what is, not what should be.--Lenny Bruce     

Creating Peer Sexual Harassment: Mobilizing Schools to Throw the Book at Themselves

This paper describes how peer-to-peer sexual harassment rapidly was transformed from an unremarkable reality of secondary school life into a serious social and legal problem. First, it shows how organizations and professionals served as an entry point for social change and legal mobilization. I argue that schools were quick to address peer sexual harassment because activists framed it as a moral and pedagogical issue that resonated with educators' deeply held professional values. Second, the paper shows how law and organizations developed endogenously. Without any legal mandate, schools created and institutionalized harassment policies. Courts then looked to these organizational practices to determine the content and scope of Title IX. In this way, schools literally "enacted" the law through their practices. This finding goes beyond previous work on endogeneity in that school policies influenced law at the level of doctrine, not simply at the level of meaning, enforcement, or application.     

Anthropological measurement of lower limb and foot bones using multi-detector computed tomography

Anthropological examination of defleshed bones is the gold standard for osteological measurement in forensic practice. However, multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) offers the opportunity of three-dimensional imaging of skeletal elements, allowing measurement of bones in any plane without defleshing. We present our experiences of the examination of 15 human lower limbs in different states of decomposition using MDCT. We present our method of imaging and radiological measurement of the bones including sex assessment. The radiological measurements were undertaken by three professional groups--anthropology, radiology, and forensic pathology--both at the site of scanning and at a remote site. The results were compared to anthropological oestological assessment of the defleshed bones. We discuss the limitations of this technique and the potential applications of our observations. We introduce the concept of remote radiological anthropological measurement of bones, so-called tele-anthro-radiology and the role that this could play in providing the facility for standardization of protocols, international peer review and quality assurance schemes.     

Medicaid program; review and approval process for Section 1115 demonstrations. Final rule

This final rule will implement provisions of section 10201(i) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 that set forth transparency and public notice procedures for experimental, pilot, and demonstration projects approved under section 1115 of the Social Security Act relating to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This final rule will increase the degree to which information about Medicaid and CHIP demonstration applications and approved demonstration projects is publicly available and promote greater transparency in the review and approval of demonstrations. It will also codify existing statutory requirements pertaining to seeking advice from Indian health care providers and urban Indian organizations for section 1115 demonstration projects, and for the first time impose as regulatory requirements tribal consultation standards that were previously only published as guidance documents.