Emerging Liabilities from Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products

There is growing awareness and concern regarding the presence of chemical constituents of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (“PPCPs”) in the environment. A recent USGS study indicated that PPCPs are present at low levels in surface water throughout the U.S. Concern is based in part on the fact that certain PPCPs: (1) are designed to have biological effects (particularly pharmaceuticals), (2) are persistent in or continually added to the environment, (3) have negative environmental effects (specifically on aquatic life) even at low levels, and (4) potentially have cumulative and synergistic effects when combined with other PPCPs. The primary route of PPCPs into the environment is sewage discharges, septic systems, and large stock yards and feedlots where the unmetabolized PPCPs are excreted by humans and animals and end up in surface water and ground-water. Given these circumstances, manufacturers of PPCPs may face a risk of increased regulation and possibly litigation similar to that faced by oxygenate manufacturers and petroleum refiners over the use of Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (“MTBE”). Companies can take steps now and in the future that may minimize the impact of these risks.     

CRIME IN EMERGING ADULTHOOD*

The extent to which local life circumstances influence criminal activity has been the focus of much theoretical debate. Although empirical research has been initiated, it remains limited. Herein, we use data on 524 serious offenders from the California Youth Authority for a seven‐year post‐parole period to examine the relationship between changes in local life circumstances and criminal activity. We extend previous research by employing a statistical model that accounts for the joint distribution of violent and nonviolent crime during the late teens and twenties in order to present information on patterns of criminal activity during a newly recognized developmental period of the life course, “emerging adulthood.”     

The Plurality of Sources of Law*

Abstract. In this paper, the Author contends with the problem of an infra-state differentiation of sources of law. He examines two accounts of a juridical pluralism, that of Walzer (1983) and that of Boltanski and ThCvenot (1991). Both these works reveal a similar inability to account for the political dimension. The Author identifies this inability as the result of the paradox of the political. He goes on to discuss this paradox in terms of a need to reconcile indivisible popular sovereignty with the proliferation of a multitude of sources of legality.