Family Values: How Children's Lawyers Can Help Their Clients by Advocating for Parents

Children's lawyers too often view themselves as standing in opposition to parents in dependency proceedings. In this article, the authors argue that child advocates do a disservice to their clients by not using their considerable skills, role advantages, and moral authority to actively help parents. Noting that areas of common ground far exceed those places where the children's bar and the parents' bar might part company, the authors contend that children's lawyers have an obligation to actively fight for parents' rights. In particular, spending time early in a case to ensure that appropriate reunification services are being offered is well worth the investment, as it redounds to the benefit of all parties. Several concrete practice tips are offered regarding how children's lawyers can better serve their clients by regularly advocating for parents.     

Children's exposure to violence: exploring developmental pathways to diverse outcomes

Identifying mechanisms that explain the children's differential vulnerability to violence exposure is an important research focus. Developmentally sensitive theories and methods are recommended to better understand children's risk and resilience to violence exposure. Examples are provided of promising research that links violence exposure to subtle deviations in children's emotional, cognitive, and physiological functioning, and to disruptions in the family environment.     

Children's Lie-Telling to Conceal a Parent's Transgression: Legal Implications

Children's lie-telling behavior to conceal the transgression of a parent was examined in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1 (N = 137), parents broke a puppet and told their children (3-11-year-olds) not to tell anyone. Children answered questions about the event. Children's moral understanding of truth- and lie-telling was assessed by a second interviewer and the children then promised to tell the truth (simulating court competence examination procedures). Children were again questioned about what happened to the puppet. Regardless of whether the interview was conducted with their parent absent or present, most children told the truth about their parents' transgression. When the likelihood of the child being blamed for the transgression was reduced, significantly more children lied. There was a significant, yet limited, relation between children's lie-telling behavior and their moral understanding of lie- or truth-telling. Further, after children were questioned about issues concerning truth- and lie-telling and asked to promise to tell the truth, significantly more children told the truth about their parents' transgression. Experiment 2 (N = 64) replicated these findings, with children who were questioned about lies and who then promised to tell the 'truth more likely to tell the truth in a second interview than children who did not participate in this procedure before questioning. Implications for the justice system are discussed.     

The Culture of the WTO: Why it Needs to Change

The WTO is an international organization with its own distinctiveculture, which is derived from the practice and experience ofthe GATT. The WTO, however, is not the old GATT. The multilateraltrading system was transformed into an international organizationin 1995, and today, the WTO also administers a host of agreementsthat contain detailed rules regulating international economicactivity. The membership of the WTO has grown to 150, the vastmajority of which are developing countries. Most importantly,the trading system, which was once bi-polar, driven by the UnitedStates and the European Union, has changed dramatically to becomemulti-polar, with the large emerging economies, such as China,India and Brazil, becoming major economic powers in their ownright. The WTO needs major surgery in order to respond effectivelyto the new political realities in the international economicsystem. The current impasse in the Doha Round is in large partdue to the great transformation in geopolitical power relationshipstaking place in the world today. If the Round fails, it willnot be the end of the WTO. On the contrary, it might providea useful ‘time out’ for the multilateral systemto find its new stride. A related problem is that the mandateof the WTO is no longer clear. This article suggests that WTOMembers work together to define the new purpose and mandateof the WTO to make it relevant to governments, companies andpeople in the 21st century. Institutional reform of the WTOis needed to provide it with the architecture and decision makingmachinery that will allow it to become a vibrant, responsiveand accountable organization.     

Children's Rights to Representation: A Comparison Between Sweden and England

In both England and in Sweden, the approach to a child's rightto representation differs between public law cases and privatelaw cases regarding legal custody/parental responsibility, residenceor contact. This article discusses the basis for this distinction,and how far it accords with the best interests of the child.     

Insurance Issues for Green Start-ups: What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

This article is a case study based upon a business entrepreneur's efforts to obtain specialized insurance coverage for a clean-energy start-up business. The article identifies and discusses some of the potential liabilities of insurance brokers in the event that the insurance coverages they obtain do not adequately protect the interests of the client's business. The article concludes that, at least in New York State, the rule is “Let the buyer beware!” and that a business person cannot safely rely upon advice given by an insurance broker in obtaining complex or specialized insurance coverage.     

What the Trial Judge Needs to Know about the Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance

Since the 1950s, there have been several international multi‐lateral treaties for recognition and enforcement of child and spousal support orders. They operated, primarily, in civil law countries where “creditor‐based jurisdiction” allowed establishment of an order in the country of habitual residence of the child or the custodial parent. The United States, requiring “minimum contacts” with the debtor to establish personal jurisdiction, could not be a party to such agreements. For nearly fifty years the U.S., and a few states, sought to fill the need for international reciprocity by negotiating individual country‐to‐country or state‐to‐country arrangements. With ratification of the 2007 Family Maintenance Convention, the United States was finally able to join in a multi‐lateral treaty. The treaty took effect in the United States on January 1, 2017, establishing procedures for international recognition, enforcement and modification of family support orders with 35 other countries already party to the Convention (including the entire European Union). The grand bargain struck during the negotiations between 2003 and 2007 was that the U.S. would honor a foreign order if, under the facts presented, there were sufficient minimum contacts with the debtor that would have supported personal jurisdiction if the order had been entered in any state in the U.S. If unable to recognize a foreign order, the U.S. agreed to take steps to issue a new one. The treaty establishes administrative procedures that, in many respects, are nearly identical to interstate enforcement of domestic support orders in this country. But there are also aspects of the treaty that are entirely new and warrant explanation for family and juvenile court judges. This article focuses on several unique provisions of the treaty that judges and attorneys need to understand.     

Children's right to be educated for tolerance: minority rights and inclusion

States do not make a genuine commitment to peace where children's right to be educated for tolerance is denied. Education for tolerance is considered a central aim of education, as set out in Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Hence, states are obliged under the convention to create conditions conducive to such an education. Such conditions undoubtedly include providing an opportunity in an educational setting for some level of interaction between children of different backgrounds (while still maintaining whatever educational programmes are deemed necessary for the preservation of the culture of various minority groups). To eliminate the opportunity for any level of educational integration between children from the dominant group and from various national minority groups or other identifiable groups (such as disabled and non-disabled children, citizen and immigrant or child refugee groups) is to infringe upon children's fundamental human right to free association. Such an association is necessary for children's positive mental and spiritual development. The courts have unfortunately been inconsistent in protecting the right to a tolerant educational setting since they often regard children's education rights as subsumed under parental liberty rights.     

Family Court Enhancement Project: Improving Access to Justice

In 2013, Minnesota's Fourth Judicial District was one of four courts in the country selected by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women to receive a Family Court Enhancement Project (FCEP) grant, a multiyear demonstration initiative designed to build the capacity of court systems and partner stakeholders to improve child custody decision making in cases involving domestic violence. The FCEP enabled the project sites to explore, implement, and assess new and innovative court and noncourt procedures and practices. This article is an exploration of the outcomes of this project.     

Community Capacity Building as a Strategy of Family Violence Prevention in a Problem-Stricken Community: a Theoretical Formulation

This article examines problems confronting the families in a multi-problem community in Hong Kong, from an ecological perspective, and the features and limitations of the existing approach taken by the Government to combat the family violence problem in that community. It suggests the use of the community capacity building model as a strategy of family violence prevention, discusses the rationale, and explores the parameters of the community capacity building model that can be used to fight the family violence problem.     

民法典:从政治意志到社会需要--两个世纪以来的评估

1804年,在大革命爆发15年以后,民法典所表述的价值立足于所有权和家长制等制度之上.国家由此成为了市民社会的庇护人:"个人无足轻重,社会才是一切",波塔利斯这样声称.本着一种节制的精神,法典的编纂者们将成文法与习惯法予以联姻,民法典由此成为了个人之间普通私法关系无可争议的参照体系,虽然此后部分地方性习俗仍然在一定时期内继续存在.     

死刑替代措施:一个需要警惕的刑法概念

死刑替代措施是指在废除最严重犯罪的死刑后所采取的替代死刑的处罚方法。目前,我国学者大多以完善我国的刑罚结构、削弱民意对于死刑废除的反对情绪、借鉴其他国家废除死刑的立法经验为依据,构建相应的死刑替代措施理论。但实际上,我国现行刑罚结构在立法上并不存在生刑过轻的问题,因此,死刑替代措施在我国刑事立法中并无存在的根基;死刑替代措施也非削减公众反对死刑废除情绪的最佳方法;国外的立法经验并不能成为我国刑法必须设立死刑替代措施的根据。