Data protection legislation: What is at stake for our society and democracy?

The author starts by questioning the main privacy challenges raised by our present and future information society viewed as a “global village”. Apart from a comparison with the traditional village of our parents, he identifies the two complementary and not dissociable facets of our privacy: the right to seclusion and the right to participate fully in our society. According to the first German Constitutional Court recognizing the right to informational self-determination as a new constitutional right, he underlines the need to analyse the data protection as a tool for ensuring both the citizens' dignity and our democracy.     

Reactions to participating in dating violence research: are our questions distressing participants?

In recent years, there has been increased research focus on dating violence, producing important information for reducing these violent relationships. Yet Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are often hesitant to approve research on dating violence, citing emotional distress of participants as a possible risk of participation. However, no known research has examined the reactions of research participants to questions about dating violence. The current study examined the reactions among college students to completing a self-report measure on dating violence. Results showed that participants reported numerous positive experiences as a result of their research participation, with only mildly increased negative emotional reactions evident for some. Findings are discussed in relation to IRB proposals and appropriate informed consent for research participants.     

The software Proteus – UsedSoft changing our understanding of software as ‘saleable goods’

One of the ongoing conundrums in the field of IT law is the nature of software. Pragmatic solutions have been adopted, and lawyers and developers alike have become comfortable that contracts and licences can be drafted and concluded in relative certainty despite the fundamental conceptual problem. As Atiyah's Sale of Goods puts it:

?…?the key to the conundrum is not to get lost in metaphysical questions as to whether or not software is goods, but to focus on who is being sued in respect of what sort of defect, and to be clear as to the basis on which liability is being imposed. (Atiyah 2010, 78–79)     

Selective justice,genetic discrimination,and insurance: should we single out genes in our laws?

This article discusses the desirability of legislation focusing on genetic discrimination, in particular in the context of insurance. Many American states and some European countries as well as the Council of Europe have introduced protective measures against discrimination on the basis of genetic susceptibility. The author questions their effectiveness and queries whether they may be inequitable, because they fail to address more fundamental underlying issues related to the nature of insurance, access to health care, and unequal distribution of wealth. There is also a problem of definition in these statutes. They fail to capture what constitutes genetic information. Nonetheless, the author argues it is important to consider the social consequences of genetic testing. Michael Walzer's theory of justice is used to examine the role of insurance and health care. Using this approach, the author finds the American system of distribution for health care to be problematic. This is then used to inform the author's discussion of the future of health care in Canada. Anti-discrimination provisions could be used in a way that is consistent with Walzer's theory of justice. They would encompass both genetic and non-genetic health factors. These can be modelled on current anti-discrimination statutes in Canada. The author then proposes administrative committee structures to regulate the use of genetic data in Canada.     

Mixed marriage, ‘a grave injury to our church’: An account of the 1957 Fethard-on-Sea Boycott

The family was central to the religious formation and indeed the survival of southern Irish Protestantism in the mid-twentieth century. The largest Protestant denomination in the Republic of Ireland, the Church of Ireland (comprising approximately 5% of the national population in 1950) was challenged by demographic trends of late and low rates of marriage, emigration and the ever-prevalent threat of mixed marriage. Against this backdrop the church emphasised the essentiality of the socialisation of children into the church community. It cautioned against the dangers of inter-church marriage where the enforcement by the Catholic church of the 1908 Ne Temere decree obliged the Protestant partner in a mixed marriage to consent in writing to the upbringing of any children of the union as Catholics. The actions of one woman in the small village of Fethard-on-Sea in county Wexford in 1957 in challenging this dictate led to a sectarian and divisive boycott of Protestant business in the locality. Eileen Cloney, a member of the Church of Ireland, chose to leave her home with her two daughters, against the wishes of her husband Seán, rather than allow her eldest daughter attend the local Catholic school in the village. Her ‘abduction’ of her children was condemned by local and national Catholic clergy culminating in the call for a boycott of Protestant businesses and farms by the local Catholic Curate, Fr. Stafford on 12 May 1957. In this article, original oral history research as well as previously unseen documentary sources will be used in an examination of this divisive boycott and its local and national repercussions. The article will explore contemporary discourse on marriage as well as highlighting the significance of the family in church and state discourse.     

Repeating the errors of our parents? Parental violence in men's family of origin and conflict management in dating couples

Within a social learning model, family-of-origin violence places men at risk for developing negative communication in their adult relationships. Thirty young men exposed to family-of-origin violence (exposed group) and 30 unexposed young men were videotaped discussing a conflict topic with their female dating partners. Relative to the unexposed group, the exposed men and women reported higher relationship aggression and during discussion showed more negative communication, were more domineering, and the men reported more negative affect. There were no differences between the groups on cognition or heart rate. The conflict management deficits and aggression evident in the exposed group suggest that these partners are at high risk for future relationship aggression and distress.     

Where are our Daughters, Mothers, Sisters, and Wives?: A Typological Analysis of Missing Women and Girls in Greater China, 1900–2000s

Advancing a typology for missing women and young girls in Greater China (China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) has been a task seldom engaged in by feminist criminologists, specialists in East Asian history, or sociologists specializing in women’s studies in the last decades. Partially because of this situation, people tend to believe that missing women and young girls in Greater China are abandoned or abducted persons, and that it is not difficult to categorize this group. The author of this paper argues that missing women and young girls in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are not merely abandoned or abducted persons. On the contrary, the socioeconomic, political, and/or cultural factors that separate some Chinese/Hong Kongese/Taiwanese females from their families are highly heterogeneous. With this in mind, the theme of this paper is to develop a classification system for missing females in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Three variables are used to construct this classification system: personal choice, slavery, and sociological locus. Each of these factors is divided into two levels: forced/voluntary (F/V) migration for personal choice; involvement/non-involvement (I/N) of economically exploited labor for slavery; and unlikelihood/likelihood (U/L) of family reunification for sociological locus. Based on combinations of these stated variables, missing women/young girls in Greater China are conceptually categorized as FIU, FNU, FIL, FNL, VIU, VNU, VIL, and VNL types.     

A Census of Medicolegal Death Investigation in the United States: A Need to Determine the State of our Nation’s Toxicology Laboratories and Their Preparedness for the Current Drug Overdose Epidemic

In 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported on 2004 data collected from the Census of Medical Examiner and Coroner Offices (CMEC). The CMEC was one of the first comprehensive reports on the state of the medicolegal death investigation system in the United States and included information on administration, expenditure, workload, specialized death investigations, records and evidence retention, and resources. However, the report did not include responses on questions that were related to toxicology such as specimen retention and type of testing. The purpose of this publication is to provide the community with toxicology laboratory-specific responses from nearly 2000 medical examiner and coroner (MEC) offices. Data obtained from a BJS CMEC public use dataset for any remaining information that was not reported in the 2007 BJS report were evaluated specific to the operation of toxicology laboratories within a MEC office or specific to toxicology testing. The CMEC includes information on average operating budget for MEC offices with internal or external toxicology services, budget for toxicology/microbiology services, respondents’ routine uses of toxicology analysis, toxicology specimen retention time, average turnaround times, use of computerized information management systems, and participation in federal data collections. These historical data begin to address the present state of our nation’s toxicology laboratories within the medicolegal death investigation system and their preparedness for the current drug overdose epidemic.