Lethal mixed intoxication with propofol in a medical layman

The authors report on a drug fatality of a 21-year-old man with a propofol (2,6-di-isopropylphenol) dependency. Propofol was detected in tissues and body fluids using SPME-GC/MS methods. The postmortem concentrations of propofol were 364 ng/ml in urine, 71 ng/ml in heart blood and 79 ng/ml in femoral blood. The drug addict had only an autodidactic medical knowledge, but had inserted himself a permanent cannula for intravenous injection of propofol several times a day. The injection material was bought via online auctions from eBay. The case illustrates how job-related drug dependencies become indistinct due to the free access to information and goods via the Internet.     

Injunctive relief in US patent practice

Legal context. Injunctive relief is available in civil actionsin the United States. Patent litigation is no exception andthe US patent statute explicitly permits it. Because it is aneffective remedy, injunctive relief is commonly sought togetherwith the monetary (legal) remedies which are available to patentowners when enforcing patent rights. Key points. On 15 May 2006 the US Supreme Court in eBay, Incet al v MercExchange, LLC altered the prevailing practice sayingthat ‘the decision whether to grant or deny injunctiverelief rests within the equitable discretion of the districtcourts, and that such discretion must be exercised consistentwith traditional principles of equity, in patent disputes noless than in other cases governed by such standards’. Practical significance. This article will focus on the availabilityof permanent injunctions in patent infringement actions in lightof the Supreme Court's recent ruling in eBay, Inc et al v MercExchange,LLC.     

Human remains sold to the highest bidder! A snapshot of the buying and selling of human skeletal remains on eBay, an Internet auction site

Internet auction sites have become increasingly popular, with diverse items up for sale to the public worldwide. The purposes of this paper are to inform the forensic community that human skeletal remains, old and new, are for sale on the eBay internet auction site, and to advise forensic scientists that eBay does not use a forensic anthropologist to assess photographs of these materials. Over the last few years, this website was "surfed," with numerous auctions during this period. After contacting eBay by email, representatives responded that they adhere to Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and that their website indicates that auctions must state that sale of human remains is for instructional purposes only. Based on the photographs, the remains appear to be of prehistoric and modern origin. An unfortunate consequence of such sale may generate interest in stealing remains from graves, mortuaries, hospitals, or county morgues worldwide.     

Internet auction fraud: The evolving nature of online auctions criminality and the mitigating framework to address the threat

Online auctions have emerged as one of the popular segments of e-commerce. The popularity of this technology-aided business model is evidenced by the continuous growth of eBay and other e-auction markets. However, this growth of online auctions has also led to a corresponding rise in deception and online criminal activity. This paper presents the findings of an original experiment undertaken to examine the evolving criminality associated with eBay auctions. The article examines eBay’s existing fraud prevention framework and evaluate its effectiveness in mitigating the risk. The research has identified foundation of eBay’s fraud problem - the inability of eBay’s fraud prevention architecture to identify and eliminate rogue traders with obscure identity and questionable reputation. The authors have proposed a proactive and holistic e-fraud prevention typology to enhance trader’s authentication to fight online auction fraud.     

Luck, Genes, and Equality

This essay considers principles of distributive justice for access to reproductive biotechnologies which make it possible to enhance the traits of human offspring. The author provides prima facie reason to think that redistributive principles apply to genetic goods and proceed to evaluate the way in which four distributive patterns--egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and suffcientarianism--would implement a just distribution of genetic goods. He argues that the currency of genetic redistribution consists in natural primary goods like health, vision, and rationality as these goods contribute to the biological component of basic capabilities, like being healthy, seeing properly, and being able to reason. The author develops a mixed sufficiency/priority approach to genetic enhancement, and defends this approach against objections.     

The accountability of non-governmental actors in the digital sphere: A theoretical framework

The last decade has seen increasing demands for greater accountability in digital governance. What, however, does accountability require and what normative goods does it serve? This article develops a general framework for assessing digital accountability focused on four normative goods: openness, non-arbitrariness, effectiveness and publicness. As the article will evidence, claims for digital accountability often refer to deficits relating to one or more of these goods. While scholarly attention has deservedly focused on tying powerful digital actors to rule of law guarantees, the article argues that accountability offers an important normative yardstick to allow citizens to contest digital decisions beyond strict legality. The framework therefore provides a basis for both conceptually disaggregating and normatively forwarding accountability claims in the digital sphere.     

The Chinese Social Credit System: A Model for Other Countries?

Many countries know financial consumer credit ratings, and recent years have also seen a proliferation of rating systems in relation to online platforms and in the ‘sharing economy’, such as eBay, Uber and Airbnb. In the view of many Western observers, however, the emerging Chinese Social Credit System indicates a paradigm shift compared to these former rating systems as it aims for a comprehensive and uniform social rating based on penalty and award mechanisms. By contrast, this article suggests that the evolving forms of the Chinese system should be seen as a specific instance of a wider phenomenon. Thus, it develops a framework that compares different rating systems by reference to their drafters, users, aims, scoring systems, application, use of algorithms, enforcement and accountability; it identifies shortcomings of both low and high interventionist rating systems; and it discusses a range of regulatory approaches and emerging issues that law makers should consider.     

Counterfeiting as corporate externality: intellectual property crime and global insecurity

Corporate negative externalities occur when corporations place some of the costs of their profit-seeking activity onto society. This paper suggests that the current global problem of intellectual property crime is such an externality, and that it has not been recognised as such because corporations present product counterfeiting and piracy as crimes which reduce their revenue, rather than as predictable side effects of corporate production and merchandising, including branding activity, which have considerable socially deleterious consequences. It is argued that corporate actors are responsible for the socially harmful effects of the global counterfeiting problem in the following respects. Branding, advertising, and other corporate activities drive the market for goods which have a fashion value over and above their use value. While corporations ‘create’ this desire, they cannot prevent it being applied to the desire for fake or replica goods. Outsourcing of corporate production activities to developing countries to take advantage of cheap manufacturing and labour costs presents considerable opportunities to producers in those countries to copy and distribute the goods in an unauthorised way. Serious measures are not taken against product counterfeiters by rights-holding corporations, since market expediency dictates that the costs of counterfeiting are not so adverse to corporations to incentivise them to change their business methods. Counterfeit and pirated goods cause a range of social harms above and beyond the spuriously-costed financial damage corporate rights-holders suggest they suffer - these include the health and safety issues created by some fake goods, and the creation and maintenance of highly profitable organised crime activity in international markets for fake goods.     

Bill of Sale Lending: Reforming a ‘Toxic’ Form of Credit

The Bills of Sale Acts were enacted in Victorian times as a form of secured credit whereby ‘goods’ owned by a borrower could be assigned under the bill of sale to a lender who would have title to the goods transferred to him. The lender would then allow the borrower to retain possession of the goods in exchange for instalment payments with interest. In the twenty‐first century these bills are most commonly used as ‘logbook loans’ for vehicles with extortionate interest rates and very little protection for individual consumers. This article examines the operational background to the Bill of Sale Acts. It focuses upon particular concerns for consumers and businesses and provides critique of the registration process before examining the proposals and consultations for reform currently before the Law Commission.     

They Sell Skulls Online?! A Review of Internet Sales of Human Skulls on eBay and the Laws in Place to Restrict Sales

Internet sales of human remains occur despite the existence of laws prohibiting such action in most jurisdictions. The most popular public platform for online sales, eBay, allows users to postskeletal material for sale, largely anonymously and without much fear of legal repercussions. This survey of skeletal sales was conducted 10 years after the first article published about online human remains sales. A review of current laws reveals that, while many states have laws that restrict any sale of human remains, those laws have questionable deterrent effect. Assessing the skeletal material posted for sale provides law enforcement agencies with a necessary starting point to curtail the sale of human remains through enforcement of existing laws. Ultimately, the goal is to stem the commodification of such items and to recover skeletal material, especially that which may be of archaeological or forensic significance, and provide the proper final disposition for such material.     

Private Property Concerning Digitized Cultural Goods: Artificial Scarcity and Appropriation through Reproduction

ABSTRACT

Intellectual property is a legal concept used to regulate cultural goods and artistic forms of expression. It constitutes a peculiar regulation, as it applies the categories of private property to intangible goods. With the spread of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which has allowed for the reproduction and global diffusion of these cultural goods, conflicts concerning intellectual property have increased. This article attempts to analyze some difficulties in using a concept such as private property to approach the marketing of cultural goods, especially when technology eliminates the quality of scarcity of these goods, which can be infinitely reproduced at almost zero cost.     

eBay Law: The legal implications of the C2C electronic commerce model

This article addresses some of the legal implications of the popular consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce model, in particular the implications of the successful and popular auctions site eBay.     

Motivating offenders to change in therapy: An organizing framework

Objectives. Motivating offenders to change in therapy is an important aspect of effective offender treatment, yet despite this, offenders' motivation to change has received little close attention in the academic and professional literature. This situation is a result of an over‐emphasis on the risk management model of rehabilitation, and a consequent failure to construe motivation within an overarching theory of offender rehabilitation. Method. We present a social cognitive model of offender motivation — the Good Lives Model (GLM) — that provides a framework for incorporating factors that have been shown to be of importance in enhancing offender motivation. This is based upon the notion that all humans strive to achieve primary goods that are intrinsically rewarding and essential to well‐being. Where offenders are concerned, criminogenic problems relate, not to the goods offenders seek, but to the way they seek them. Any treatment approach should take this into account and focus positively on equipping people with the skills required to achieve goals rather than simply look to manage risk. The motivational construct that we use here is that of goals. In the GLM, goals are the less abstract depictions of primary human goods and it is with these that people are typically engaged in their day‐to‐day activities and lives. Looking at therapeutic goal‐setting, methods and styles of therapy, and therapist approaches, we derive theoretically‐based key issues in motivating offenders to change in therapy. Conclusion. In conclusion, we present a summary of 12 strategies and techniques that will not only help practitioners enhance their therapeutic effectiveness, but hopefully also act as a catalyst in the development of research on offenders' motivation to change.     

Anticompetitive Employment

Scholars, antitrust agencies, and policy makers have historically paid little attention to anticompetitive practices in labor markets. This was largely due a misconception that antitrust law is meant to govern conventional markets in which goods and services trade, rather than govern labor markets. Antitrust law may also offer a poor remedy to redress employers who enter no-poaching agreements or otherwise impair competition. The primary tension involves antitrust's purpose, which is to promote “consumer welfare.” To identify whether conduct eroded consumer welfare, courts tend to scrutinize whether prices increased. But here, lessening wages can enable firms to sell goods at cheaper prices, benefiting consumers. Another issue is that the typical restraint affects only a smattering of workers instead of lessening wages throughout the greater market. This article uses empirical analyses to show that antitrust should promote labor's welfare as it does consumer welfare, and it argues that enforcement must condemn labor cartels as per se illegal. The research demonstrates that labor cartels are more pernicious than restraints in product markets, as employers can lessen wages with less effort than in product markets. Antitrust should even proscribe no-poaching agreements formed for a legitimate purpose (e.g., to protect trade secrets) because employers could have achieved the same goals using less coercive means; the noncompete agreement, at least, provides labor with a semblance of notice and bargaining power without drawing antitrust scrutiny. The prohibition of labor cartels would thus promote competition and consumer welfare, especially in minimum wage labor markets.     

浅议记名提单下承运人的交货义务及相关法律问题

记名提单是一种不可流转的海运单证,也就不具备可流转海运提单的物权凭证效力。同时,作为海上运输合同的证明,记名提单对于承运人在目的港的交货对象于运输合同缔结之初就已经确定,因此承运人在记名提单下的交货义务并不以收货人持有正本提单为必要,承运人只要是向记名收货人交付货物就已经构成了运输合同下的适当交付,承运人也不应对此承担无单放货的民事责任。     

Organized Crime and Trust:: On the conceptualization and empirical relevance of trust in the context of criminal networks

Organised crime networks are often characterised as being held together by bonds of trust, but the conventional wisdom regarding the relation between trust and organised crime lacks a comprehensive theoretical and empirical underpinning. The purpose of this paper is to explore where deeper research on this issue may lead and how it can potentially contribute to a better understanding of organised crime in general. Drawing on the general sociological literature, it provides a preliminary conceptualisation of trust in the context of organised crime centred around a fourfold typology along the micro-macro dimension. The authors use anecdotal evidence from their research on illegal markets for highly taxed goods in Norway and Germany to illustrate that there are different types of trust, that there are different consequences of the violation of trust, and, finally, that there are criminal relations not based on trust at all.     

消费安全法律体系建构论纲

消费安全问题事关消费者的生存与发展,是构建我国消费安全法律体系的前提与基础。消费安全权是消费者在购买、使用商品和接受服务时享有人身、财产安全不受侵害的权利。其以经营者不得从事消费侵权行为为前提,核心为＂安全＂。消费安全法律体系以实现消费者的安全权为宗旨,通过国家立法、行政、司法等行为约束消费侵权行为,保障消费安全法律体系内部运转之和谐和外部环境之优良,最终达到消费者享其权,经营者尽其务的目的。这一体系的建立与完善有利于从制度上约束消费侵权行为,符合世界民事立法的发展潮流。     

税的本质探析

税的本质应为无对价的公法之债。作为纳税人全体的人民是债务人,其纳税后有权请求作为债权人的国家提供公共产品;而作为整体和抽象意义上的国家是实质债权人,它在向人民提供公共产品后,有权请求作为债务人的人民以纳税的方式偿付享用公共产品应当支付的费用和价格。税之债说为迄今的法律学上所一向忽视的“公法上的债务”这一领域带来了光明,它赋予税法以崭新的地位和体系变为可能。     

Simple monetary rules: many strengths and few weaknesses

This paper endeavors to examine the basic idea in Richard Epstein’s book Simple Rules for a Complex World. It does so by considering a specific simple rule which was explicitly designed for complex world. A basic idea in Epstein’s book is that the more complex is the world the better is the case for simple rules. To show this, he develops six simple rules pertaining to the rights of individuals, first possession, contracts, torts, government eminent domain and the power of taxation to provide public goods. This paper considers one rule rather than six rules, and it looks at monetary policy rather than policy in general. While the context is different, the case for simple rules made here provides a useful comparison with the case made by Epstein.

     

Procedural goods in a democracy: How one is treated versus what one gets

There are four classes of procedural goods, each of which is an appropriate ground for answering the question: “Is this a fair procedure?” (i) It is unfair not to treat a person with dignity; the dignity goods are self-respect, personal control, and an understanding of the procedures that determine relevant outcomes. (ii) It is unfair to impose upon a person heavy (net) costs, such as overburdened cognitive capacities and high information costs, excessively painful interpersonal conflict, threats beyond those inherent in the situation, and humiliation. (iii) It is unfair to disregard (but not necessarily to violate) the person's own sense of justice, the codes of honor and practice of his own group and culture. And, of course, (iv) it is unfair to use a procedure that does not have the highest probability of achieving distributive or retributive justice. Few of the standard articles of democratic theory (e.g., liberty, equal treatment before the law, rights, and sharing of power) offer sufficient protections for the first three of these procedural goods.