Amendments to the quick disability determination process. Final rule

We are amending our regulations to extend the quick disability determination process (QDD), which is operating now in the Boston region, to all of the State disability determination services (DDSs). We also are removing from the QDD process the existing requirements that each State DDS maintain a separate QDD unit and that each case referred under QDD be adjudicated within 20 days. These actions stem from our continuing effort to improve our disability adjudication process.     

Supplemental security income for the aged, blind, and disabled; federal administration of State supplementary payments to individuals in Medicaid facilities--SSA. Final rule

These final regulations reflect section 12201(b) of Public Law 99-272 (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, enacted April 7, 1986). Section 12201(b) permits Federal administration of optional State supplementary payments to individuals in medical facilities that receive little XIX (Medicaid) funds at a level exceeding 50 percent of the cost of their care (Medicaid facilities). Currently, the regulations prohibit Federal administration of optional State supplementary payments to a person who, throughout any month, is in a Medicaid facility. Under these regulations States will have the option of having the Social Security Administration (SSA) administer optional State supplementary payments to these individuals. States will be limited to one State supplementary payment level variation for residents of Medicaid facilities (Federal living arrangement "D").     

Control of communicable diseases; apprehension and detention of persons with specific diseases; transfer of regulations. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS. Final rule

The Secretary of Health and Human Service (the Secretary) is transferring a portion of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "Control of Communicable Diseases" regulations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In general, these regulations provide the Secretary with the authority to apprehend, detain, or conditionally release individuals to prevent the spread of specified communicable diseases. The regulations implement the provisions of the Public Health Service Act (PHS Act) to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from one State or possession into any other State or possession. CDC will have authority for interstate quarantine over persons, while FDA will retain regulatory authority over animals and other products that may transmit or spread communicable diseases. The Secretary is taking this action to consolidate regulations designed to control the spread of communicable diseases, thereby increasing the agencies' efficiency and effectiveness.     

吐鲁番文书所见唐西州"城主"考

通过对吐鲁番文书中西州"城主"一词进行考察,认为城主一职设置于唐代,在对高昌原有郡县省并之后,为便于对城中居民的管理,唐保留了城的建制,设立城主对原有郡县城进行管理.城主之下,另置有副城主、城局、横催、里正、坊正等吏员.限于城镇规模,城主的官位不高,很可能位居流外,但由于其任命为"准式铨拟",故城主应非色役或差科而属于官吏之列.     

Approval and promulgation of Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators: State Plan for designated facilities and pollutants: Idaho. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Direct final rule

EPA is approving the State of Idaho's section 111(d) State Plan for controlling emissions from existing Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators (HMIWI). The plan was submitted on December 16, 1999, to fulfill the requirements of sections 111(d) and 129 of the Clean Air Act. The State Plan adopts and implements the Emissions Guidelines applicable to existing HMIWIs, and establishes emission limits and controls for sources constructed on or before June 20, 1996. EPA has determined that Idaho's State Plan meets CAA requirements and hereby approves this State Plan, thus making it federally enforceable.     

Abuse and neglect: a ten-year review of mortality and morbidity in our elders in a large metropolitan area

Elder abuse and neglect refers to an act or omission resulting in harm, including death, or threatened harm to the health or welfare of an elderly person. Between one and two million elderly Americans experience some form of mistreatment annually. A ten-year (1992-2001) retrospective case review of morbidity and mortality among elders (age > 60 years) was conducted at a State Medical Examiner's Office serving a major metropolitan region in Kentucky and Indiana. This study addresses cases of two categories: 1) medicolegal autopsies and 2) examinations of living subjects pursuant to a Clinical Forensic Medicine Program. The authors present 74 postmortem cases, in which 52 deaths were attributed to a homicidal act and 22 deaths were suspicious for neglect. Of the 22 living victims of elder abuse and neglect, 19 cases constituted physical and/or sexual assault and three individuals suffered from neglect. This study summarizes the characteristic features of elder abuse in both postmortem and living cases and underscores the necessity for multi-agency collaboration in order to reach an accurate conclusion in case work. Policies established by a well-established elder abuse task force promote the collaborative interaction necessary to formulate criteria for prevention of abuse and death within this vulnerable population.     

Free Movement of Goods and Property Law

Although usually considered a national competence, there is an effect of internal market law on property law. When a property right is validly created in one Member State and the object on which it rests is moved to another Member State, an internal market dimension arises. Such has been the case in the ECJ's Krantz decision 25 years ago, dealing with the question on whether the rules allowing a seizure of goods owned by someone else in another Member State and leading to a potential loss of right is in conformity with EU law. More than 25 years have passed and our thinking about the internal market as well as the free movement case‐law has changed significantly. A re‐examination of this decision leads to a different conclusion: the refusal to recognise property rights validly created in another Member State violates the free movement of goods under Article 34 TFEU.     

Clarification of registration requirements for individual practitioners. Final rule

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is amending its registration regulations to make it clear that when an individual practitioner practices in more than one State, he or she must obtain a separate DEA registration for each State. This amendment will make it easier for practitioners to understand the requirements of the Controlled Substances Act and its implementing regulations.     

Getting Tough on International Child Abduction

International child abduction, typically undertaken by one of the child's parents, has become an increasing problem in recent years, particularly in the United States. Parents have encountered serious difficulties in repatriating an abducted child. The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, signed by the U.S. and many other countries, establishes an international procedure for pursuing claims of child abduction. The Office of Children's Issues of the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the U.S. Department of State is the Central Authority that administers the Convention and its implementing legislation for the United States. In the author's view (and his alone), the Office of Children's Issues has not been sufficiently vigorous in seeking sanctions against countries that do not comply with the Convention. Even after Congress passed legislation in 2014 specifically directing the State Department to apply increasingly severe sanctions against noncompliant countries (the Sean and David Goldman Act), the State Department has still essentially failed to do so. Brazil is one signatory to the Hague Convention that the State Department itself has determined to be consistently noncompliant with the Convention since 2013. Yet the State Department has failed to impose significant sanctions on Brazil, among other countries.     

Community midwifery and state measures: the new midwifery in British Columbia

The New Midwifery, a form of community midwifery rooted in home birth and intensive prenatal and postnatal care, has attracted great controversy since its appearance in British Columbia in the early 1970s. On the one hand, this form of community midwifery has endured despite legal prohibition. Midwives derive an income from their practices, obtain necessary supplies and equipment, and are active in lobbying for recognition through the State. On the other hand, community midwifery is marginalized and illegal. Out-of-hospital births comprise less than one percent of births in British Columbia (and nationwide). Community midwives are excluded from the provincal Medical Services Plan and they lack hospital privileges if their clients are transferred to hospital. Community midwives are more likely than medical personnel to be tried for criminal negligence causing death and subject to prosecution under theMedical Practitioners Act of practicing medicine without a license.Community midwifery illustrates the structural limits placed on female birth attendants working outside the norm of professionally accredited, hospital situated childbirth. It is concluded that State measures in Canada structure power relations in a dialectical fashion. This includes measures to consolidate the monopoly status of the medical profession and the nursing profession, while temporizing about demands for independent midwifery practice. State powers are however relatively autonomous of dominant economic groups such as the Medical profession. Not all prosecutions of community midwives are successful, and contradictions in State policies surrounding monopolistic powers and civil liberties, and gender relations are evident.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Meetings, University of Manitoba, June 1986. The author is grateful for resources provided through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology (University of British Columbia), and the School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University. Comments from Carol Bullock, Nanette Davis, Bob Ratner, Livy Visano and the Journal referees have been helpful in revising this paper.     

Religion and Bullets in North-Eastern Nigeria

As an entity, Nigeria is cracking and melting away. The barometer that measures the pressures its people have exerted on one another is fast reaching its elastic limit. The problem with Nigeria lies in the fact that although we honestly could live together simply, it seems it is difficult to simply live together. My submission here does not portray the usual flamboyant intellectualism associated with academic lectures. It is devoid of the normal bibliographic dressing found in journal literature. It may not pass the test of professorial or doctoral research. It is something else. It is an honest reflection from someone caught up in the web of bitter experiences. It is an experience of one who has seen a brother kill his own brother in the Name of God. It is a story of brethren turned enemies. It is a story of a people who fight for God in a battle that is not His. I am from Michika Local Government of Adamawa State in Northern Nigeria; I am the Catholic Bishop of Yola Diocese, the Chairman Christian Association of Nigeria Adamawa State Chapter and this is my story.     

国家权力与人的尊严

国家权力也有尊严,但不能高于人的尊严,更不能建立在侵犯人的尊严基础之上。侵犯人的尊严有私人间的个体侵犯、当权者的侵犯、"上位者"的侵犯、多数人的侵犯等等。国家权力直接侵犯或参与侵犯人格尊严往往危害更大,而最严重的侵犯人格尊严多发生在国家权力与民间联手之时。宪法保障人格尊严意味着国家权力不仅不能侵犯人的尊严,还有保障人的尊严之义务。     

Holes in the Safety Net? State Liability and the Need for Private Law Enforcement

Following Francovich and Bonifaci v Italy[1991] it was widely considered that State Liability would be an enforcement mechanism that would end the problems the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had contended with through its battle over the adoption or denial of Horizontal Direct Effect of Directives (HDE). In the subsequent years it has been demonstrated that the debate for and against HDE's adoption has continued. This has been due in part to the limitations of State Liability as an effective enforcement mechanism which provides individuals not with their rights, but rather a damages action against the State. This article critiques State Liability and demonstrates the severe limitations which this enforcement mechanism has for those who wish to avail themselves of EC rights denied to them. Such limitations include the piecemeal nature of this method of enforcement; whether cases, particularly from employment law issues, should be heard against the State or the employer causing the problem complained of; and the nature of an enforcement mechanism based on the award of damages. It concludes by analysing this evidence as to whether State Liability is an adequate alternative to HDE, and hence should the enforcement of EC law be brought back from a public law action to the private sphere.     

Physician-assisted suicide and public virtue: a reply to the liberty thesis of "the Philosophers' Brief"

The "Philosophers' Brief," penned by six of today's most influential philosophers, was submitted as an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court as it prepared to consider the cases of Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill. It set precedent as the first such brief submitted by a group representing itself solely as moral philosophers. The brief became an overnight gold standard statement of the liberal philosophical understanding of the relationship of the State to so-called 'private morality.' The main thesis of the brief is that physician-assisted suicide regards the deeply personal event of death, and that individuals have a constitutionally guaranteed right to make decisions for themselves about the intimate details of their lives. In this article, James DuBois calls this the 'liberty thesis,' and he argues that the brief's application of this principle is both contradictory and impracticable. The contradiction arises as the brief proposes restrictions on the right to physician-assisted suicide--restrictions that require the State to abandon neutrality on intimate value judgments about life's worth. The impracticability arises insofar as the brief fails to leave room for a compelling State interest in promoting a minimal level of public virtue. Ironically, one of the strongest arguments that can be proffered on behalf of a State interest in preserving a minimal level of public virtue stems from its role in safeguarding human liberty.     

浅析国家豁免的几个问题

国家豁免泛指一国的行为和财产不受另一国的立法、司法和行政等方面的管辖。国家豁免是一项国际法原则,主权平等理论是其主要法律依据。国家豁免的主体包括国家及其政府机关、联邦国家的组成单位、国家政治区分单位、国家机构或部门和其他实体、国家代表。关于国家豁免范围,许多国家先后抛弃了绝对豁免的主张,转向限制国家豁免的立场。     

WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST AWARD FOR JUDICIAL EXCELLENCE ADDRESS

The William H. Rehnquist Award is one of the most celebrated judicial honors in the country. It is given each year to a state court judge who demonstrates the “highest level of judicial excellence, integrity, fairness, and professional ethics.” The 2008 recipient, Jonathan Lippman, was recently appointed and confirmed as Chief Judge of the State of New York. Chief Judge Lippman was previously the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the First Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court. He was appointed New York's Chief Administrative Judge by Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and served from January 1996 to May 2007 and was responsible for the operation of a court system with a $2.4 billion budget, 1300 state‐paid judges, 2300 town and village judges, and 16,000 nonjudicial personnel. Among his numerous professional activities, Chief Judge Lippman served as president of the Conference of State Court Administrators from 2005 to 2006 and was the vice‐chair of the National Center for State Courts from 2005 to 2006, where he was a member of the Board of Directors from 2003 to 2007. During his tenure, Chief Judge Lippman has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including the 2006 Fund For Modern Courts Cyrus R. Vance Tribute for Vision, Integrity and Dedication to the Fair Administration of Justice Personified by Cyrus R. Vance (November 27, 2006); the New York County Lawyers’ Association Conspicuous Service Award in Recognition of Many Years of Outstanding Public Service (September 28, 2006); and the Award for Excellence in Public Service of the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Attorneys in Public Service (January 24, 2006). Chief Judge Lippman received a Bachelor of Arts in Government and International Relations from New York University, Washington Square College, where he graduated cum laude in 1965. He also received his J.D. from New York University in 1968. Below is the speech he delivered after accepting the William H. Rehnquist Award from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts.     

Some problems in identification of an unidentified corpse

Presents data on the number of unidentified corpses sent to the morgue of Bureau of Forensic Medical Expert Evaluations of the Rostov region and discusses the shortcomings in organization of medical criminalistic personality identification. Discusses some scientific problems investigated at Department of Forensic Medicine of Rostov State Medical University.     

沉没的军舰和其他国家船舶的法律地位--以水下文化遗产保护为视角

依照国际法规则,军舰和其他国家船舶享有主权豁免,只受船旗国管辖.问题是,如果它们在水下沉睡多年、成为宝贵的水下文化遗产并极有可能遭受商业性打捞的破坏时,是否应当重新审视它们的法律地位.2001年联合国教科文组织通过的<保护水下文化遗产公约>是国际社会为保护水下文化遗产所作的重要努力,其有关沉没军舰和其他国家船舶的规定也值得赞赏.     

Most in Need But Least Served: Legal and Practical Barriers to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status for Federally Detained Minors

Abused, neglected, and abandoned immigrant youth face numerous obstacles to physical safety, including potential repatriation (deportation) to abusive caretakers from whom they fled. In recognition of the special needs of abused children, Congress enacted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) to provide a previously unavailable child welfare defense to deportation. The remedy is contingent upon a State court declaration that the youth is, in fact, in need of protection. However, unlike their counterparts in foster care or guardianships, youth detained by the federal government face numerous practical and legal roadblocks to accessing the necessary State court declarations. This article identifies several gaps in State laws which impede detained youths' access to State court declarations, and proposes several remedies which would enable the States to carry out Congress' intent that detained youth have access to SIJS, regardless of detention status.