Regulating farmworkers: The state and the agricultural labor supply in California

Conclusion The state in a society dominated by the capitalist mode of production is compelled to seek resolution of contradictions within the forms of social relationships compatible with the continuity of a dominant capitalist form and to insure capital accumulation. The resolution should also be able to submerge at least temporarily the inherent conflicts within that situation. Thus, the state may attempt to restrict the possible activities of a militant organization while at the same time helping maintain its existence. The ability of the state decisively to limit and restrict organizations like the United Farm Workers is not, however, guaranteed. The struggle for transitional reforms is thus crucial not only in consolidating gains but also in providing a basis for future actions. From all indications the United Farm Workers seem to recognize the situation. The future of the United Farm Workers as a militant, democratically organized, grassroots organization of agricultural workers capable of mobilizing widespread public support may be influenced more by their ability to stay free of constraining state regulation than by a struggle with a particular segment of agricultural growers. This suggests that if the UFW becomes established on a more permanent basis, its most significant struggles in the future may be with elements of the state which ironically are trying to guarantee its existence. It is this aspect of agricultural labor relations within California as well as the United States in general which may be the most significant during the next decade.     

行政自由裁量权控制的四个模型——兼论中国行政自由裁量权控制模式的选择

自由裁量权是行政权的核心要素。根据控制主体、控制理念、控制制度和控制技术的不同,行政自由裁量权的控制可被归纳为四种模式:通过规则的命令控制模式,通过原则的指导控制模式,通过程序的竞争控制模式,通过监督的审查控制模式。控制自由裁量的核心目标,应当是将自由裁量的行使引向理性化。行政自由裁量失衡和滥用情形的复杂性,决定了单一控制技术无法现实地控制目标。因此,控制行政自由裁量的模式需要从单一控制模式转向复合控制模式。     

Regulating Risk: Implications of the Challenger Accident*

This analysis describes how the NASA organization contributed to the loss of the Challenger on January 28, 1986. The competitive environment, NASA organization characteristics (its structure, processes, and transactions), and the regulatory environment all influenced the decision to proceed with the launch. To be effective, strategies to control, change, or eliminate undesireable behavior should address the cause of that behavior. Understanding how organizations contribute to technical system accidents leads to the conclusion that efforts to reduce accidents in risky technological systems must include the organizations that produce them. Suggestions for policy aimed at curtailing organizational-technical system accidents are discussed.     

The Economics of the Bill of Rights

We elucidate, connect, and synthesize the literature that employseconomics to study the individual rights and freedoms protectedby the constitutional amendments comprising the Bill of Rights,especially as they relate to crime. Economics is uniquely suitedto studying decisions involving tradeoffs, and each of the amendmentsrequires tradeoffs. Emphasizing these tradeoffs allows us todiscuss the constitutional rights in terms of "more or less,"as opposed to taking an absolutist approach. We find that theeconomic literature on the amendments of the Bill of Rightsis vibrant and growing, and that viewing the amendments withinthe framework of economics is highly useful.     

瑕疵票据的效力辨析

经济生活中,由于瑕疵票据引发的纠纷时有发生.一个突出问题是如何界定这些带有瑕疵的票据的效力,基本观点是,不能简单地一概予以否定,科学的态度应是区别对待,以主客脱标准及当事人对票据的控制能力为标准,进行划分,具有控制能力而未能有效控制的,可以按无效票据处理,相反对票据不具有控制能力的,可以认定为有效票据,以避免使其承担较重风险责任.瑕疵票据效力的判定,其结果直接导致相关当事人风险责任的承担,关系该票据的命运,也间接影响着票据在经济生活中的流通和使用.     

Coverage for Climate Change: Footing the Bill for Carbon Footprints

Lawsuits against automakers, oil refineries, and power companies to recover damages allegedly attributable to greenhouse gas emissions are being filed across the country, and can present a real and expensive problem to businesses within these industries. This July, Steadfast Insurance Company sued its policyholder, AES, seeking a declaration that there was no coverage under its commercial general liability policy for a global warming lawsuit in which AES was a named defendant. Using the Steadfast litigation as a rubric, this article reviews the current state of climate change litigation, and evaluates some of the issues that may arise when seeking coverage for this litigation.     

The Criminalization of Aliens: Regulating Foreigners

Intergroup contact and conflict is inevitable in the context of global economic competition and geopolitical interests. Immigrant and migratory groups have particularly been subjected to unequal treatment by members of dominant host groups, generally as a means of promoting and protecting their own economic and political interests. Immigrants often serve as a dependent and secondary labor force, useful within fluctuating cycles of labor shortage, economic crises, and economic prosperity. Likewise, criminalization is one tool that perpetuates notions of “otherness,” which in turn maintains immigrant minorities as a secondary labor force; and justifies penal punishment of them. For instance, in the United States, Chicanos and Mexican immigrants have been exploited as secondary labor, and have also been more likely than many other groups to be swept up in the Criminal Justice System. Drawing on neo-Marxist perspectives and postcolonial notions of “otherness”, this paper examines the relationship between incarceration of foreigners and economic conditions, economic threat, population change, and otherness. As hypothesized, country level data suggests that factors such as a free market economy, population change, economic competition, and a concentration of immigrants in the population are related to the level of imprisonment of foreigners. Implications for further research are also discussed.     

Regulating E-commerce: Formal Transactions in the Digital Age

As digital transactions become more common the need to regulate the commercial frontier of cyberspace becomes increasingly urgent. This has been recognised by national governments, supranational bodies and international organisations. The regulations proposed have though been offered in a piecemeal fashion. National governments attempt to fit cyberspace within the four corners of their (familiar) domestic jurisprudence, and even supranational and international bodies have been guilty of simply extending previous rules to the realm of cyberspace. This paper suggests that a coherent approach to the regulation of electronic commerce may start with an identification and application of principles rather than with the transference of rules. It uses as a reference, proposals for the modernisation of land transfer systems introduced in Canada and Australasia, currently being evaluated by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland and the Law Commission/HM Registry. Underlying these proposals is a central issue: how are traditional formal requirements for property transactions accommodated in cyberspace? More fundamentally, if that most formal of transactions, the transfer of real property, can be modernised to meet the challenge of a new digital age, can not all modes of commerce be similarly modernised for the digital era? This paper evaluates whether a principled approach to answering these questions can, more generally, provide a workable framework for approaching e-commerce regulation.     

The new media landscape: Regulating the idiot boxes

The European Commission has proposed a modernization of the Directive 89/552/EEC, also known as the TV without Frontiers Directive (TVWF). The draft Audiovisual Media Services Directive suggests extending regulation to cover a broad range of new and emerging audiovisual media services. The proposal unleashed fierce opposition from all sectors. The most contentious issue concerns the distinction between the two types of audiovisual media services (linear and non-linear), which are distinguished from each other by the degree of user control. The Commission has failed to provide any convincing argument to prove the necessity of imposing a new regulation and the inadequacy of the current regulatory framework. This paper analyses the proposed Audiovisual Media Services Directive.     

E-Commerce and Privacy Issues: An Analysis of the Personal Data Protection Bill

One of the concerns of e-commerce is the need to maintain users' privacy online. The usage of technical means to track down user's surfing and purchasing tendencies by the use of cookies, and sniffers to capture data while in the course of transmissions, has raised significant privacy issues. These anonymous data minings, although they may not necessarily bring harm to customers, nevertheless are a form of intrusion into one's privacy in cyberspace. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission has submitted a self-regulatory plan to require Web advertising companies to notify consumers of their Internet profiling activities and to give the customers the chance to choose whether information about Web activities and interests can be gathered anonymously. It is for this purpose that the Malaysian legislators devised the Personal Data Protection Bill. The importance of this is made clear in the explanatory statement of the personal data protection bill in Malaysia. The draft bill makes the law in Malaysia closer to the EU regime, which chooses legislation over self-regulation in this area. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature, manner and scope of personal data protection under the Malaysian Bill.