US concept wars,civil liberties and the technologies of fortification

The horrific events of September 11, 2001 led to calls for the deployment of state-of-the-art security systems and the creation of an “invisible shield” to protect America. Such proposals immediately triggered debate about the constitutional ethics of surveillance in the United States. While there has been widespread support for the surrender of some cherished civil liberties in the war against terror, surveillance, especially the visual variety, is still seen to be innately un-American. Technologies like biometric face recognition systems, critics argue, are not consistent with the values of an open society and should consequently be considered with great caution. The widespread introduction of such invasive technology, pundits claim, would signal a victory for the terrorists.Many American commentators fail to recognize, however, that the United States, far from being the open society they imagine, has long been characterized by exclusion. Moreover, such exclusion is increasingly enforced by the same high technology of which biometrics is a part. In fact, for at least a decade before the declaration of the war on terror, the United States has been undergoing a multifaceted process of fortification both within its cities and at the US-Mexican frontier. Investigation of this phenomena reveals the central role of the US’s longest running concept war, the war on drugs. This paper argues that within this narrative biometric surveillance and the creation of “an invisible wall” should not be regarded as a break with American traditions but as the next organic phase of an ongoing process of fortifying the United States.     

The future of criminal justice administration and its impact on civil liberties

Criminal justice agencies have the means to increase their efficiency and to bring a larger proportion of the population within their net of surveillance and control. In the next twenty or forty years this form of control over citizens will increase. Simultaneously, growing bureaucratic and legal control mechanisms will prevent such control from becoming tyrannous. Over a longer period, given the possibility of a “no-growth” economy and a decline in the social and economic system that supports traditional civil liberties, there is a threat that an efficient criminal justice system would support tyrannous government. In the future tyranny can be avoided by the conscious policy of limiting the full potential of control over citizens by the criminal justice system.     

Public health and human rights: questions from an epidemic in Prato

This article uses Carlo Cipolla's account of the plague epidemic in Prato in 1630-1631 to identify several key questions in public health. The article goes on to observe that the underlying problems posed for public health by the plague epidemic in Prato are similar, in important respects, to those encountered in addressing contemporary public health concerns. Questions of inequalities in health and socio-economic differentials in mortality; the relationship between economic wellbeing and health; the relevance of access to effective interventions; the significance of knowledge concerning disease aetiology or uncertainty in devising and implementing appropriate interventions; and the role of regulation in controlling public health hazards are as relevant today as in the Renaissance. However, contemporary recognition of the right to the highest attainable standard of health has altered the nature of public health responses. Concern for individuals' and populations' rights to health can be seen to have the potential to inform policies for inequalities in health, for economic development in middle- and low-income countries, for access to health care and essential medicines, and for strategies to regulate and control emerging risks to health.     

Public health and human rights

The editorial introduces the special issue of the journal that incorporates papers originally presented at the "Public Health and Human Rights" conference held at the Monash Prato Centre, Italy, in June 2007. It identifies the intersection between public health and human rights; access to health care services, particularly for marginalised groups such as indigenous peoples and persons with mental illnesses; and the role of international instruments in encouraging states parties to implement and monitor compliance with these rights.     

公共健康和强制许可制度

TRIPS协定将传统的专利保护客体扩大到所有技术领域的任何发明,将医药产品及方法纳入了专利保护的范围,以致受专利保护的药品价格大幅上扬,在一些国家尤其是发展中国家和不发达国家产生健康危机。本文试图在分析《多哈宣言》及其《执行决议》中关于强制许可制度规定的基础上,提出我国可将其作为解决公共健康危机的基本途径。