Crabs in a bucket: the politics of health care reform in California

In 1982 the state of California adopted a package of legislation collectively known as "the Medi-Cal reform." This article examines the background of this reform, the process through which it was adopted by the state legislature, and its effects on the various interests involved. In particular, the article focuses on the alteration of power relationships occasioned by the emergence of business interests as an active force in the formulation of health policy.     

INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MEDIATION

Mediation has evolved, grown, and been accepted within our society from preschools to doctoral programs and in courts, legislatures, and private industry. The passage of the Uniform Mediation Act, the birth of the Association of Conflict of Resolution, and the involvement of government bodies in the regulation of mediators indicate the importance of the institutionalization of mediation within every aspect of our society. This article focuses on a few of the hot issues currently swirling in the field raising questions for practitioners, researchers, and others involved in shaping access to conflict resolution policy and the future of the mediation profession.     

Institutional and Political Sources of Legislative Change: Explaining How Private Organizations Influence the Form and Content of Consumer Protection Legislation

This article explores how private organizations influence the content and meaning of consumer protection legislation. I examine why California forced consumers to use a private dispute resolution system that affords consumers fewer rights, while Vermont adopted a state‐run disputing structure that affords consumers greater rights. Drawing from historical and new institutional theories, I analyze twenty‐five years of legislative history, as well as interviews with drafters of the California and Vermont laws, to show how automobile manufacturers weakened the impact of a powerful California consumer warranty law by creating dispute resolution venues. As these structures became institutionalized in the lemon law field, manufacturers reshaped the meaning of legislation. Unlike California, the political alliances in Vermont and a different developmental path led to a state‐run dispute resolution structure. I conclude that how social reform laws are designed and how businesses influence social reform legislation can increase or decrease the achievement of a statute's social reform goals.     

Enforcement of nondiscrimination on the basis of handicap in federally assisted programs. Final rule

This common rule amends the regulations issued by the agencies listed above for enforcement of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, in federally assisted programs or activities to include a cross-reference to the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS). Because some facilities subject to new construction or alteration requirements under section 504 are also subject to the Architectural Barriers Act, government wide reference to UFAS will diminish the possibility that recipients of Federal financial assistance would face conflicting enforcement standards. In addition, reference to UFAS by all Federal funding agencies will reduce potential conflicts when a building is subject to the section 504 regulations of more than one Federal agency.     

Pushing the Dead into the Next Reproductive Frontier: Post Mortem Gamete Retrieval under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act

In re Matter of Daniel Thomas Christy authorized post mortem gamete retrieval under the most recent revision of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. This article recommends that the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws explicitly address the issue of post mortem gamete retrieval for reproductive purposes; that legislators specify whether their states will follow the Christy ruling; and that ethics committees and consultants prepare for the questions about human identity and self determination that post mortem gamete retrieval raises.     

我国劳动基准实施中存在的问题及对策探析

我国劳动基准实施中存在着劳动者的生命健康权、生存权以及休息休假权等肆意遭受侵害的现象,探询其中存在的深层次原因,并积极寻求扭转我国劳动基准实施困境的对策.     

WOMEN'S AND MEN'S VIEWS OF MEDIATION IN VOLUNTARY AND MANDATORY MEDIATION SETTINGS

This article reports findings regarding women in mediation from a combined group of 184 persons who received mediation services from the Alameda County Superior Court Family Court Services or the Northern California Mediation Center. This empirical study refutes many of the criticisms of mediation by some feminist critics of the process.     

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY RAILWAY BETWEEN CIM AND SMGS

China and some of its trade partners in Western Europe apply different legal regimes for international carriage of goods by railway — respectively Agreement on International Railway Freight Transportation (SMGS) and Uniform Rules Concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail (CIM). For transportation of goods by railway between China and Western Europe both the CIM and the SMGS are often applicable. China’s initiative “the Belt and Road” promotes development of railway transport in Eurasia and creates new incentives for comparative study between those two international legal systems. This article provides a brief historical outline of comparative studies between the CIM and SMGS. This article also purports to show that some similarities and differences between the two regimes might be better understood from the perspective of comparative legal history. Taking into account inter alia the common origin of the current versions of the CIM and SMGS in the 4th revision of the CIM of 1933, differences and similarities between two legal regimes have been analysed with regard to the following topics: the scope of application of the CIM and SMGS; the nature of the carrier’s liability under the CIM and SMGS; exclusivity of the CIM, exclusivity of the contract of carriage under the SMGS; period of responsibility; persons for whom the carrier is liable.     

BOT投资方式的若干法律问题探析

BOT方式是国际上为利用私人资本进行基础设施建设而衍生的一种新型投资方式 ,它是一个复杂的系统工程 ,涉及多方当事人和多种法律关系。本文首先从实证角度剖析了BOT投资方式的法律框架及BOT当事各方间的法律关系 ,在此基础上分析了我国推行BOT投资方式的若干法律障碍 ,而后辨症施治 ,提出了消除法律障碍和解决法律冲突的立法对策———进行统一的BOT专项立法 ,并阐述了BOT专项立法应涵盖的主要内容。     

IF A THREAT OF VIOLENCE IS PRESENTED,WHEN DOES THE LAW REQUIRE FAMILY MEDIATORS TO BREACH CONFIDENTIALITY?

For a family mediator to protect his client, a third party, and/or himself from unlawfully disclosing a client's admission, the family mediator should use the principles set forth in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California when a threat of violence is presented by one of his clients, since many states have adopted these principles through case law and statute to protect third parties from acts of violence. The two most significant factors in determining whether to breach confidentiality are the identifiability of the victim and the likelihood of the potential physical harm. If a jurisdiction has not explicitly done so via statute, the family mediator should nonetheless follow these principles since they are likely to be adopted by that jurisdiction through case law, because the probability of a court's finding a special relationship between a family mediator and a client is relatively high.     

IMPLEMENTING A LEGISLATIVE MANDATE FOR SERVICES AND COORDINATION TO CALIFORNIA'S COURT-CONNECTED FAMILY MEDIATION AND CONCILIATION COURTS

This article describes the implementation of landmark legislation in California that provided for services and statewide coordination of family mediation and conciliation courts in California. The article describes the overall management design and its underlying principles, projects, and the five major statewide areas of services.     

AN EVALUATION OF CHILD PROTECTION MEDIATION IN FIVE CALIFORNIA COURTS

This article presents the results of an evaluation of five California counties utilizing court-based mediation services to process child maltreatment cases filed with the court. The programs employed a variety of different service delivery approaches and targeted cases at a variety of different stages of case processing. The results indicate that mediation is an effective method of resolving cases and may offer a number of benefits over adjudication, including more detailed treatment plans and fewer contested court hearings.     

Global standards and outcomes of a legal education: how rubrics can help to deliver objectivity,transparency, verifiability and consistency

Rubrics may be time-consuming to create but they are superior to the usual method of evaluation: a number scrawled at the bottom of an essay without any context, feed-back or feed-forward. The author has used rubrics at Kuwait International Law School since 2012 and found them useful in at least four ways: they allow students to understand what is expected of them before they attempt a task; they take the “mystery” out of marks; they encourage fairness and promote a culture of trust between student and teacher; and they allow the teacher to engage in post-task meaningful discussions with students – they create “teaching moments”. Grading becomes more transparent and the faculty becomes more accountable to their students. A group of law deans adopted the “Singapore Declaration on Global Standards and Outcomes of a Legal Education” in 2013. This article addresses how the values in that Declaration are directly met by the use of rubrics. Transparency, accountability and authenticity in law teaching are all part of the Declaration: this article argues that rubrics deliver all three. The article addresses the research behind rubrics, the connection between the Singapore Declaration and rubrics and some “lessons learnt” from the author’s teaching experiences.     

The Modernization of Trustee's Fiduciary Duties in the Chinese Trust Law: A Perspective from the Uniform Trust Code in the United States

Trust is the greatest and most distinctive achievement of English law, grown and developed over the passage of time, to meet new demands towards providing new solutions to problems, resulting in its widespread and inventive use worldwide. Although the trust system was introduced by the enactment of a specialist Trust Law of the People’s Republic of China in 2001, there is no significant growth in the use of the trust system in civic life. The personal fiduciary relationship between the settlor and trustee is the foundation of a trust. The trustee has an affirmative equitable duty to act solely in the interest of the beneficiaries. Whether people can rely on the trust system and use it universally is highly dependent on a trustee’s fiduciary duty. In the United States, thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have adopted some substantive provisions of the very valuable Uniform Trust Code (UTC). To promote the development and appropriate application of Chinese Trust Law, this article examines the differences between trustee obligations under the American UTC and Chinese Trust Law, and then proposes the amendment suggestion for Chinese Trust Law. This article consists of five parts. In addition to the Introduction, Part I of this article overviews the provisions of a trustee’s fiduciary duties in Chinese Trust Law. Part II discusses and compares the differences and similarities on trustee’s fiduciary duties in Chinese Trust Law and the UTC. Part III explores the comparative consideration of a trustee’s fiduciary duties, and provides the proposals for legal reform. Finally, this article brings forward a brief conclusion.     

Domain names: Comments on WIPO''s new overview of selected UDRP questions

This article reports on five years of Internet domain name dispute resolution activity within the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. The analysis incorporates findings from WIPO's publication of an informal “Overview” if the panellists themselves prepared the scheme.     

The road to accreditation

The formation and initial efforts of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Accreditation and Standards Committee are described. The rationale for the accreditation guidelines adopted by the Academy is explained. Further efforts of the Committee to achieve the goal of the designation of the Academy as the accreditation agency for postsecondary criminal justice education programs are set forth.     

Plea bargaining: Its pervasiveness on the judicial system

The proposed standards of the American Bar Association and the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals are expressed in an ideal perspective, compared with the reality of plea bargaining use by prosecutors. Fifty-five prosecutors were randomly selected from four countries in two states, and a standardized questionnaire was administered to the subjects. The majority of the sample indicated an essential need for plea bargaining to administratively ensure justice in the criminal courts. The American Bar Association maintains that administrative efficaciousness is a minute consideration in justifying plea bargaining as a legal institution. Standards proposed by the federal Task Force on Courts contend that plea bargaining is an unnecessary adjunct to the formal legal process. Either of the proposed standards would, if adopted, definitely activate participant roles in a formally operated legal environment.     

MEDIATION PARENT EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN THE CALIFORNIA FAMILY COURTS

This article presents information about parent educational programs connected to court-based child custody mediation services in California. The educational content and methodologies most commonly practiced in California family court mediation services are discussed. In addition, new directions in parent education for mediation clients are described.