Extradition on the Two Sides of the Atlantic: The U.S. Model as Blueprint for the European Arrest Warrant?

This article compares the EU’s enhanced extradition model, in the form of the European Arrest Warrant, with the more mature American interstate extradition mechanism. The US Constitution’s Extradition Clause mandates interstate extradition and, after a slow start-up, has led to a smooth and obligatory procedure. In the EU, the European Arrest Warrant, based on the principle of mutual recognition, has made a number of significant changes to traditional extradition and has simplified extradition between EU member states. Yet, it does not operate without problems and the first decade has revealed what the difficulties with extradition on the basis of mutual recognition are. The comparison with the US seeks to draw lessons from the US experience. The main finding is that in a number of areas the US example can direct the EU toward further improving its extradition scheme, while at the same time it is not realistic to expect that the EU will achieve a similar degree of harmony as in the US, required for an obligatory extradition scheme. The article argues that it is important to recognise these limits in order to make the European Arrest Warrant a success.     

Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?

Does understanding how U.S. Supreme Court justices actually decide cases undermine the institutional legitimacy of the nation's highest court? To the extent that ordinary people recognize that the justices are deciding legal disputes on the basis of their own ideological biases and preferences (legal realism and the attitudinal model), the belief that the justices merely “apply” the law (mechanical jurisprudence and the myth of legality) is difficult to sustain. Although it is easy to see how the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the most unaccountable of all American political institutions, is nurtured by the view that judicial decisionmaking is discretionless and mechanical, the sources of institutional legitimacy under legal realism are less obvious. Here, we demonstrate, using a nationally representative sample, that the American people understand judicial decisionmaking in realistic terms, that they extend legitimacy to the Supreme Court, and they do so under the belief that judges exercise their discretion in a principled and sincere fashion. Belief in mechanical jurisprudence is therefore not a necessary underpinning of judicial legitimacy; belief in legal realism is not incompatible with legitimacy.     

Doctors in the executive suite: should the U.S. and U.K. be putting M.D. licensure at risk for shortfalls in institutional quality of care?

As our healthcare system becomes further managed, delivery organizations are reincreasingly relying upon physician executives to administer the delivery of care by other individual providers. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, this has led to instances in which physician disciplinary procedures have been invoked with respect to physicians who are perceived to be responsible for institutional defiiciencies. The author examines and analyzes the contrasting approaches taken in the two countries, and recommends an activist approach for disciplinary agencies faced with these circumstances.     

Assimilation and intermarriage for U.S. immigrant groups, 1880–1990

Marriage outside one's ethnic or racial group constitutes the ultimate test of assimilation. In this research, we offer a new test of theories of assimilation by examining the choice of marriage partners among Mexican Americans, several European immigrant groups, and natives. Data from the 1880 to 1990 Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) are employed, augmented by additional identification procedures developed for the Hispanic population. Assimilation measured by intermarriage rates varies by ethnic origin with striking affinity in historical patterns for Italians and Mexicans. Density and location of ethnic settlement, sex ratios, and generational mix played a role. Continued immigration marks certain groups, such as Mexicans, as structurally distinct.     

Idea generation: the performance of U.S. States 1997–2007

Regional prosperity increasingly depends on a region’s capacity to have command over the production of ideas. Measuring the production of ideas with patents, the objective of this paper is to analyze how the number of utility patents granted to inventors in U.S. States in different technologies changed between 1997 and 2007 and how States took advantage of the new opportunities and adapted to the changing technology landscape. The paper uses shift-share analysis, traditionally used in employment studies, for analyzing change in patents by technology categories developed by the NBER. The shift-share results show that only a few states were able to take advantage of the information technology driven increases in patents. California dominates in patent production and may be providing spillover benefits to neighboring states. The shift-share decompositions are used as variables in a fixed-effect panel-regression model of state economic growth. The regression results show that the shift-share decompositions provide statistically significant information in explaining growth after accounting for a State’s stock of patents, suggesting that States should concentrate on effective ways to boost their stock of knowledge in rapidly growing technologies to improve state economic growth.     

Climate change and the credibility of international commitments: What is necessary for the U.S. to deliver on such commitments?

The engagement of the United States is critical to the success of any international effort against global climate change. Although international climate efforts require long-lasting, credible commitments by participating countries, risk of failure to deliver on such commitments rises with the degree of gap that the domestic institutions permit between the executive and the legislature. The U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol indicated that the Clinton administration’s effort to bring international solutions into the domestic arena before domestic consensus was obtained was counterproductive. The congressional politics over budgetary allocation regarding the Bush administration’s technology policies showed that general preference to a technology-oriented approach to climate change alone did not ensure the credibility of international commitments. These cases revealed that the U.S. climate diplomacy was lacking in domestic institutional mechanisms that bring the executive branch’s deal at international negotiations, and the legislators’ preferences at home, closer together. For the U.S. to take leadership in international climate cooperation, domestic institutional frameworks which reconcile the interests of the two branches are necessary. This paper suggests that such domestic institutional frameworks feature two components: regular channels of communication between the two political branches; and, incentive mechanisms for the two branches to swiftly come to terms with each other.

An agenda for change in U.S. climate policies? Presidential ambitions and congressional powers

The U.S. membership in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) constituted an important element in the Bush administration’s voluntary and non-committing ‘soft-law’ approach to climate change. With the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the U.S. has embarked on a shift in its climate policy towards a legislative, ‘hard-law’ strategy. Obama’s approach implies that the distribution of interests in Congress becomes more significant. In this article, we assess the rules and procedures governing the relationship between the president and the Congress embedded in the U.S. Constitution and explore implications of a stronger congressional involvement in U.S. climate policies for President Obama’s ability to realise his climate policy ambitions at both the domestic and the international levels. We argue that the strong relationship between natural resource dependence (coal and oil) and opposition to climate policies is a constant feature of the U.S. climate policy debate. In order to succeed, Obama must break the enduring gridlock characterising congressional debate in this policy area by designing policies that, through compromise and compensation, can mobilise the support of oil- and coal-state representatives in Congress. The acceptability of an international climate treaty in Congress, moreover, depends inter alia on the resolution of the difficult issue of developing country participation. Success may be enhanced by using the APP and the Major Economies Initiative as informal arenas for negotiation and sector-based cooperation, thus providing a much-needed supplement to the UN-based negotiation process.

Dr. Death? Professionalism,Virtue, and U.S. Physician Participation in the Death Penalty

In the United States at present, the death penalty is a possible sentence in 31 out of 50 states, as well as within the military and for federal cases. In the U.S., numbers of executions are declining, in part due to moratoriums in place and challenges to execution by lethal injection. Participation by physicians in lethal injection executions has been steadfastly viewed by professional medical organizations as contrary to their ethical standards. However, physicians have participated in lethal injection executions, and the morality of the death penalty itself is a matter of intense social and political debate. Medical ethics commentators and professional organizations have typically held that the prohibition on physician participation in the death penalty is independent of the ethical status of the death penalty itself. This article argues that this view is untenable, and that it is tied to a view of professional role virtue that is similarly untenable. At the same time, it argues that, given the morally uncertain status of the death penalty, it is plausible that virtuous physicians may either refuse or choose to participate in some aspects of the death penalty.     

Is Timing Everything? Retirement and Seat Maintenance in the U.S. House of Representatives

Literature on open‐seat elections has focused on the individual attributes of a candidate and/or institutional arrangements. When a seat becomes an open contest could be a significant indicator as to how likely the incumbent party is able to maintain the seat. Examining data on open U.S. House seats from 1996 to 2008, we use OLS regression and logistic regression analysis, finding that time is a significant predictor for incumbent party fund‐raising and seat maintenance. We conclude that political parties have an interest in encouraging members of Congress to announce their retirement early in the election cycle.     

Back to the future? Diabetes, HIV, and the boundaries of public health

The control of infectious diseases has traditionally fallen to public health and the clinical care of chronic diseases to private medicine. In New York City, however, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has recently sought to expand its responsibilities in the oversight and management of chronic-disease care. In December 2005, in an effort to control epidemic rates of diabetes, the DOHMH began implementing a bold new plan for increased disease surveillance through electronic, laboratory-based reporting of A1C test results (a robust measure of blood-sugar levels). The controversy A1C reporting produced was relatively contained, but when Dr. Thomas Frieden, New York City health commissioner, called for the state to begin tracking viral loads and drug resistance among patients with HIV, both the medical community and a wider public took notice and have started to grapple with the meaning of expanded surveillance. In the context of the past century of medical surveillance in America, we analyze the current debates, focusing first on diabetes and then HIV. We identify the points of contention that arise from the city's proposed blend of public health surveillance, disease management, and quality improvement and suggest an approach to balancing the measures' perils and promises.