The United Nations,the United States,and the War on Terrorism

Since the moment the United Nations was created, the Americans have had certain expectations of it, which logically follow from their past.     

Inching toward incrementalism: federalism, devolution, and health policy in the United States and the United Kingdom

In the United States, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 envisions a significant increase in federal oversight over the nation's health care system. At the same time, however, the legislation requires the states to play key roles in every aspect of the reform agenda (such as expanding Medicaid programs, creating insurance exchanges, and working with providers on delivery system reforms). The complicated intergovernmental partnerships that govern the nation's fragmented and decentralized system are likely to continue, albeit with greater federal oversight and control. But what about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom? What impact did the formal devolution of power in 1999 to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have on health policy in those nations, and in the United Kingdom more generally? Has devolution begun a political process in which health policy in the United Kingdom will, over time, become increasingly decentralized and fragmented, or will this "state of unions" retain its long-standing reputation as perhaps the most centralized of the European nations? In this article, we explore the federalist and intergovernmental implications of recent reforms in the United States and the United Kingdom, and we put forward the argument that political fragmentation (long-standing in the United States and just emerging in the United Kingdom) produces new intergovernmental partnerships that, in turn, produce incremental growth in overall government involvement in the health care arena. This is the impact of what can be called catalytic federalism.     

Unconscionability of E-contracts: A Comparative Study of India,the United Kingdom,and the United States

Liverpool Law Review - Adhesion contracts have a strong likelihood of being unconscionable. The laws and principles are further complicated by the introduction of electronic contracts, specifically...     

China,the United States,bargaining, and climate change

Knowing what is at stake in terms of likely damages from accumulating greenhouse gases, how can major emitters fail to reach agreement on limits? Bargaining analysis suggests that an uneven distribution of abatement costs over time may play a significant part. Using a stylized, complete-information model of the strategic space facing the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, a simple numerical example reaches a strong and surprising conclusion: To be feasible under current technological and economic conditions, any international agreement on climate change will have to allocate a level of future emissions for carbon dioxide in China that is at least twice as large as the level for the United States, in order to account for the effects on Chinese interests from continued economic growth.     

Stepwise Progression: The Past,Present, and Possible Future of Empirical Research on Law in the United States and the United Kingdom

The article distinguishes empirical research on law from other modes of legal enquiry. It charts the changing fortunes of empirical research on law in the United States and the United Kingdom and accounts for the differences between them. In both countries, the development has been uneven and intermittent rather than gradual and linear, with a number of important differences in trajectories, in particular: the number of growth spurts; their timing; the present position; and whether the rise and fall of activity refers to research on civil and criminal justice or on civil justice alone. The different trajectories are explained in terms of path dependency (the fact that developments in the present are shaped by developments in the past); sequential development (emphasizing the importance of timing and that developments in one institution may be contingent on developments in another); and institutional responsiveness (an institution's capacity to respond to opportunities in its external environment).     

Child Brides, Inegalitarianism, and the Fundamentalist Polygamous Family in the United States

Despite the ongoing shift in contemporary notions of what orwho constitutes a family, the idea of the polygamous familyremains on the margins of what is deemed a legitimate maritaland familial structure in liberal democratic societies suchas the US. Nevertheless, despite the illegality of polygamyand the social stigma attacted to it, thousands of Mormon Fundamentalistpolygamists live and practice in the US. This article assessesthe arguments in favor of and against the legalization and,consequently, the legitimatization of polygamous marriage. Itexplores three grounds polygamists have employed or could employto advocate legalization of the practice of plural marriage:freedom of religion, sexual privacy (as defined by the recentcase of Lawrence v. Texas), and contractualism. However, theauthor concludes that the impact of the Fundamentalist polygamouslifestyle on the autonomy, integrity, and equality of adultwomen and children is sufficiently troubling that lifting thesanction on plural marriage may run counter to basic considerationsof justice.     

Preparing individuals for leadership in Australasia,the United States,and the UK

ABSTRACT

Much is said about the importance of leadership in policing. In policing leadership is a key variable in organisational effectiveness, public confidence and employee well-being. We demand that our police leaders are ethical, decisive, skilled, and have the internal and external legitimacy needed to exert influence inside and outside the workplace. There are many advantages to such a pipeline approach to organisational leadership, and it presents organisations with an unparalleled opportunity to develop leaders and leadership talent over an extended period. There are questions, of course, about how much advantage our police organisations really take of this opportunity; how coherently leader development is planned and organised; and how effective our development models are. In this paper, we explore leader development in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on data collected through semi-structured interviews with established senior police leaders in each country we explore development journeys, opportunities for learning inside and outside of policing, the impact of leader development on leadership-style and decision-making, and how well-prepared leaders feel for their roles having transited their organisational pipelines. Drawing on these data we present a model for leadership development that calls for individual and organisational work. By seeing leadership in terms of organisation capacity, rather than individual capacity, the model encourages a comprehensive and more cohesive approach through police education and other initiatives to developing our organisational leaders, and recognises too that preparing individuals is only part of the story.     

Extent, trends, and perpetrators of prostitution-related homicide in the United States

Prostitute women have the highest homicide victimization rate of any set of women ever studied. We analyzed nine diverse homicide data sets to examine the extent, trends, and perpetrators of prostitution-related homicide in the United States. Most data sources substantially under-ascertained prostitute homicides. As estimated from a conservative capture-recapture analysis, 2.7% of female homicide victims in the United States between 1982 and 2000 were prostitutes. Frequencies of recorded prostitute and client homicides increased substantially in the late 1980s and early 1990s; nearly all of the few observed pimp homicides occurred before the late 1980s. These trends may be linked to the rise of crack cocaine use. Prostitutes were killed primarily by clients, clients were killed mainly by prostitutes, and pimps were killed predominantly by pimps. Another conservative estimate suggests that serial killers accounted for 35% of prostitute homicides. Proactive surveillance of, and evidence collection from, clients and prostitutes might enhance the investigation of prostitution-related homicide.     

Journal Publishing, Journal Reputation, and the United Kingdom's Research Assessment Exercise

Many academic lawyers believe that the Research Assessment Exercise has encouraged writing for academic journals, often at the expense of other forms of scholarly discourse. Moreover, it is widely perceived that the reputation of the journal in which research is published affects how that research is assessed in connection with the RAE. In this article, the authors report data gathered from a large-scale study measuring the perceptions of academic lawyers concerning the journal publishing process, how the RAE has affected journal quality generally, and how specific journals rank in terms of academic quality and their perceived importance to the RAE process.     

ERISA, agency costs, and the future of health care in the United States

Because so many Americans receive health insurance through their employers, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 plays a dominant role in the delivery of health care in the United States. The ERISA system enables employers and insurers to save money by providing inadequate health care to employees, thereby creating incentives for these agents to act contrary to the interests of their principals. Such agency costs play a significant role in the current health care crisis and require attention when considering reform. We evaluate the two major health care reform movements by exploring the extent to which each reduces agency costs. We find that agency cost analysis clarifies the benefits, limits, and uncertainties of each approach.