Interdiction and Indoctrination: The Counter‐Terrorism and Security Act 2015

Lying behind the recent Counter‐Terrorism and Security Act 2015 is the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters which has sparked international and national attention. The 2015 Act deals with many facets of counter terrorism legislation, but its two principal measures are singled out for analysis and critique in this paper. Thus, Part I of the Act seeks to interdict foreign terrorist fighters by preventing suspects from travelling and dealing decisively with those already in the UK who pose a risk. Part V of the Act implements the second, broader aspect, of legislative policy, reflecting the UN emphasis on ‘Countering Violent Extremism’, through the statutory elaboration and enforcement of the ‘Prevent’ element of the long‐established Countering International Terrorism strategy, which aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. These measures are explained in their policy contexts and set against criteria of effectiveness, personal freedom, and accountability.     

Assisted suicide and the inalienable right to life

This article focuses on a topic largely overlooked by both the supporters and opponents of assisted suicide. The legalization of suicide assistance damages the interests of persons who value the law's full and equal protection of their lives by designating them as eligible for help in killing themselves. Measures such as Oregon's Death with Dignity Act regard every person diagnosed as having a terminal condition as a candidate for suicide assistance, as if the protection of life was an alienable interest for this class. Thus all members of the eligible class, including those opposed to assisted suicide, lose the status of being regarded by law as having an inalienable right to the protection of life. This status-based injury should inform the standing and substantive constitutional questions raised by a state's adoption of such a policy.     

Change is the Only Constant: The Evolving Role of Women in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

In the past, women in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were known to serve as homemakers (i.e., wives, mothers). However, in recent times there has been a shift in their roles, as more women are starting to emerge on the front lines as suicide bombers, recruiters, or a part of ISIS's official women police brigade. This article investigates this phenomenon by performing a thematic analysis on open-source material, namely research reports, media reports, and propaganda material produced by ISIS. In doing so, it presents the evolution of the roles of women in ISIS from past to present and highlights key reasons that motivate women to join ISIS, which include ideology, alienation, romance, peer influence, and a sense of security. Implications for research on women in terrorism have also been identified.     

Incapacity,the Labour Market and Social Security: Coercion into ‘Positive’ Citizenship

The article examines the likely evolution of the social security system in the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the Welfare Reform Act 2007. This recent legislation is paradigmatic of the new ideology and modes of thought which currently form the foundation of the modern welfare state, an institution increasingly viewed as a facilitator for individual self‐sufficiency, as opposed to its traditional role of providing temporary financial support in periods of need. In addition, it is likely that the Act has promoted at least some changes in the concept of citizenship, in particular the contemporary emphasis on responsibilities as much as on rights. The article considers whether the Act itself has succeeded in meeting the rhetorical claims made for it by legislators during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill through Parliament. The question of whether the Act contains a punitive or even coercive element is also examined.     

The Housing and Planning Act 2016: Rewarding the Aspiration of Homeownership?

In May 2016 the Housing and Planning Act 2016 became law, the first purely Conservative government intervention on housing in England since the 1990s. This article examines the Act's key provisions pertaining to social housing and the government's stated aim of increasing rates of homeownership. The Act, through the Starter Homes Scheme, extension of the right to buy to housing association tenants and changes to security of tenure in the social sector, has been heralded as a ‘landmark’ piece of legislation. This article scrutinises these policy measures and assesses their effectiveness and likely impact. It is contended that the Act exposes the government's promotion of homeownership above all other housing tenures. The article further explores the deep moralisation at the heart of the homeownership narrative and the intensification in the residualisation of social housing in England which, it is argued, is the inevitable consequence of the reforms.     

The Power of Secrecy and the Secrecy of Power: FACA and the National Energy Policy Development Group

One of President George W. Bush's first official acts was to charter an advisory committee that would make recommendations for a new American energy policy. While the National Energy Policy Development Group was officially made up only of government employees, journalists and watchdogs suspected that the committee was inappropriately meeting with representatives of energy firms. Two citizens' groups brought suit under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) to unveil the secrecy surrounding the National Energy Policy Development Group and its policymaking processes. The ensuing court battle revealed the weaknesses of FACA and its paradoxical use by the Bush Administration in continuing the very same government secrecy that the act is intended to prevent. This article examines a particular case of secrecy in the Bush Administration—the formulation of energy policy by Dick Cheney's energy task force—with an analysis of the known activities of the group and the history of citizen challenges to its secrecy. The article then considers the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of the Federal Advisory Committee Act as a safeguard against government secrecy.     

Universal Credit, ‘Positive Citizenship’, and the Working Poor: Squaring the Eternal Circle?

This article examines the potential effects of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 on the United Kingdom social security system, and on claimants. This legislation illustrates new modes of thought and ideology underlying the British welfare state. The introduction of the ‘Universal Credit’ has the potential to solve the ‘poverty trap’, where claimants are better off in receipt of welfare benefits rather than engaging with employment, and may assist low‐paid individuals into ‘positive’ citizenship. However, the practicalities of implementing Universal Credit might undermine legislators’ ambitions. It may be that the Act attempts too much reform to the social security system, trying to impose legislative uniformity on a highly complex set of socio‐economic circumstances which may be impervious to such rationalisation. This could result in the scheme requiring further reform, or even abolition. The ideological and historical underpinnings of Universal Credit are also examined to understand more clearly its nature and structure.     

Personal budgets in adult social care: the fact and the fiction of the Care Act 2014

ABSTRACT

Personal budgets have been heavily promoted in government policy in England as a means of increasing the personalisation of public services, particularly in the field of adult social care. The Care Act 2014 for the first time creates a statutory requirement for personal budgets to be allocated to all individuals using state funded social care. This article examines how a particular rhetoric has developed in social care policy around personal budgets, which draws freely on the language of the disabled people’s movement and suggests that grassroots ideas are the central purpose for the introduction of personal budgets into policy. It considers whether the promises made in policy are embedded in the 2014 Act and finds that there is a mismatch between claims in social care policy on the one hand and the model of personal budgets created by the 2014 Act on the other. It concludes that the policy rhetoric around personal budgets directly appropriates the language and ideas of the disabled people’s movement while promoting a wholly distinct agenda of public sector marketisation.     

Monopoly in the Marketplace: The Ideological Denial of Visas

The McCarran-Walter Act mandates the exclusion of nonimmigrant aliens from entry into the United States. Hundred of detentions and exclusions occur yearly under the Act, and Latin Americans appear to be disproportionately likely to be excluded.
This article argues that the Act, a Cold War statute, ignores current political reality and American self-interest. The exclusionary subsections provide no more protection from terrorists and other genuine internal security risks than is available from other statutes. But they reduce the exchange of people and ideas, including foreign policy issues; fuel a negative image abroad of America; and impermissibly burden the first amendment and equal protection rights of American citizens. This article proposes that the subsections in question be repealed and replaced with narrower statutes.     

Protecting Free Speech and Academic Freedom in Universities

Restrictions on speaking events in universities have been created both by recent student‐led efforts at ‘no‐platforming’ and by Part 5 of the Counter‐terrorism and Security Act 2015 which placed aspects of the government's Prevent strategy on a statutory basis. The statutory Prevent duty in universities includes, under the accompanying Guidance, curbing or monitoring events that could have an impact in drawing persons into terrorism. This article places the combined impact of Part 5 and student‐led curbs on campus speech in context by juxtaposing pre‐existing restrictions with the various free speech duties of universities. Focusing on speaking events, it evaluates the resulting state of free speech and academic freedom in universities. It finds potential violations of established free speech norms due to the impact of pre‐emptive strikes against some campus‐linked speech articulating non‐mainstream viewpoints. But it also argues that not all such speech has a strong foundation within such norms.     

Recidivism Among Young Males Sentenced to Prison and Youth Custody

In 1999, Sweden introduced a new Act focused on young persons aged 15–17 who commit serious offences. The object of the Act was to replace prison sentences with a new sanction in the form of youth custody, which would involve a placement in a special approved home. This study constitutes a follow-up comparison of criminal recidivism among young males sentenced to prison prior to the introduction of the Youth Custody Act (1991–1998) and young males sentenced to youth custody following the introduction of the Act (1999–2003). The study shows that the sanction has not only been used as a replacement for prison sentences, but has also led to an expansion in custodial sentencing in the form of ‘net-widening’. There has also been a substantial increase in the length of custodial sentences awarded in connection with the new sanction. A comparison with the youth sanction in Denmark raises questions about the consequences of having expanded the group of youths sentenced to a custodial sanction in Sweden, and of the increased length of the custodial sentences to which this group is subjected.     

The Aftermath of 11 September 2001: Liberty vs. Security before the Supreme Court of Canada

The terrorist acts of 11 September 2001 and the war on terrorismthat followed have induced a pervasive sense of insecurity inCanada, as elsewhere, and brought about a shift of public policytowards a confinement of security risks in a global era. Inthe polity, as in the legal sphere, there has been an obviousshift of paradigm, from liberty to security. In December 2001,Canada passed an Anti-Terrorism Act. As far as human rightsand freedoms are concerned, the Anti-Terrorism Act is a farcry from the draconian measures of the American Patriot Act,with its military tribunals, incommunicado confinement, preventivedetention without charge, and potentially expeditious applicationof the death penalty. Nevertheless, the Canadian Anti-TerrorismAct remains, in nature, an emergency legislation. In particular,as will be seen here, there has been a clear change of mind,within the Supreme Court of Canada, regarding the authorityof international human rights law, at least where highly sensitivesecurity matters are involved, such as deportation of politicalrefugees suspected of being linked with terrorist organisations. To emphasize this shift in attitude, an analytical framework,allowing us to distinguish between various types of constitutionalreasoning, is needed. This heuristic device must also be sophisticatedenough to single out the emergency situation from the normalstate of affairs. This may not be apparent in day-to-day life,but, since 11 September, the concept of emergency, and the notionthat an exceptional state of affair exists, have been a majorinfluence on our political world.     

Designing ETPIMs around ECHR Review or Normalisation of ‘Preventive’ Non‐Trial‐Based Executive Measures?

This article considers the transition in 2012 from control orders to more ECHR‐compliant ‘terrorism prevention and investigation measures’ under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011. It argues that the interaction between security and liberty over the post 9/11 years has the appearance of a dialogue between courts and the executive that has resulted in a diminution in the repressive character of non‐trial based preventive measures. But such an impression, it will be contended, is obscuring the recalibration of ECHR rights that has occurred, easing the path to the introduction of the enhanced version of TPIMs, under the Enhanced Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. The proposed ETPIMs exhibit many of the objectionable features of control orders and are currently ready to introduce if the threat level rises.     

Origins of the "Third psychiatric revolution": the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963

In recent decades the community mental health movement has achieved a dramatic reduction in the census of state and county mental hospitals in the United States, and hundreds of federally-funded community mental health centers have been established nationwide. At the same time, national controversy has arisen in response to what in places has seemed the haphazard process of implementing "deinstitutionalization" and the fate of many chronically mentally ill persons who are without needed social services and psychological care. Despite the widespread attention that this contemporary program has received, theoretical analysis of the complex social, scientific, intellectual, and political origins of America's community mental health policy remains deficient. This article examines the background and development of the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, tracing how an important shift in national policy toward the mentally ill grew out of changing perceptions--among policymakers, professional groups, and the general citizenry in the post-World War II era--of the nature of the problem of mental illness.     

Congress,The U.S. Supreme Court And Must-Carry Policy: A Flawed Economic Analysis

The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which requires cable operators to carry the signals of local broadcast television stations, was hailed by supporters as a measure that would preserve the economic viability of the local independent broadcaster by unlocking the anticompetitive grip that the local cable company places on access to its system. In upholding the Act in 1997, the United States Supreme Court seemed to ignore the degree to which the cable and broadcast industries have become vertically integrated. In the end, local independent stations became economically viable not because they were guaranteed carriage on a cable system, but because they represented a practical programming outlet for conglomerate firms with large investments in content production. This article recommends that Congress repeal the Act.     

Balancing Liberty and Security? A Legal Analysis of United Kingdom Anti-Terrorist Legislation

This paper traces developments in Great Britain related to counter-terrorism during the last few years and highlights the challenges to the rule of law raised by it, in particular, for the judiciary. It portrays the British constitutional order finding its feet after the fundamental changes made by the 1998 Human Rights Act, describing the tension arising with the judicial role changing whilst facing controversial measures such as 90-days detention, detention orders, shoot-to-kill policy, etc. An analysis of case law, government action and academic debate ends with a call for a new formula to be found by which security interests can be measured against human rights.     

Principles,patient welfare and the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000

The law surrounding decision-making for adults who lose their capacity varies considerably internationally. In many cases legislation has taken a protective and consequently restrictive role for adults with incapacity and often the issue of capacity assessment within the appropriate legal framework is circumvented. In Scotland, the introduction of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 modernised that nation's approach to incapable adults. This article describes briefly the pre-2000 Act situation in Scotland, discusses the main provisions of the Act, reviews the use of principles in incapacity legislation in Britain, and discusses issues relating to patient welfare. The use of principles to extend patient autonomy into incapacity is demonstrated and compared with the English and Welsh Mental Capacity Act 2005 (the 2005 Act) through a discussion of how the principles in each of those Acts promotes particular ideologies of decision making. Finally, the article examines recent Scottish case law relating to the 2000 Act and discusses how the courts are currently interpreting the principles of the Act.     

Using the Wrong Policy Tools: Education,Charity, and Public Benefit

A recent decision on the application of public benefit under the Charities Act 2006 sidestepped the political debate surrounding the charitable status of independent fee‐charging schools. The broader political context nevertheless underscores the legislative reforms, and this article questions whether the new statutory public benefit requirement has utility as a welfare policy tool in the field of education. It examines the public benefit requirement in charity law against the backdrop of government policy towards education and the broader political agenda for a mixed economy of welfare provision, and argues that the difficulties Labour faced in developing its education policies were replicated in the application of the post‐Act public benefit requirement to fee‐charging schools. As a result, achieving broader policy goals for widening educational opportunity through public benefit was almost impossible given the regulatory framework and the principles upon which charity law is founded.     

美国外资并购国家安全审查制度探析——兼论中国外资并购国家安全审查制度的构建

美国国会2007年通过的美国外国投资与国家安全法扩大了外国投资属于国家安全审查的范围,进一步改进了外国投资领域的国家安全审查制度。在外资并购领域加强国家安全审查制度是美国维护其国家利益的重要措施。为有效维护本国利益,我国也应建立外资并购领域国家安全审查制度。本文在分析美国外资并购领域国家安全审查制度的基础上,提出我国建立国家安全审查制度立法的建议。     

Health care and the homeless: a political parable for our time

The growth in the number of homeless persons is perhaps the most visible indicator of social disintegration in the 1980s, although health and health care are not the central issues of homelessness. This paper, which draws on the author's experience as chairman of the Committee on Health Care for Homeless People of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), describes what is known about the characteristics of homeless persons and the causes of homelessness, and about the health status of homeless persons, which is often not very good (but not significantly worse, it would appear, than that of other low-income persons). The contemporary history of health services targeted to homeless persons begins with the joint initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1985, which became the model for federal support through the Stewart B. McKinney Act of 1987. The McKinney Act, like the IOM report, demonstrates how, in contemporary American politics, there can be widespread political consensus not only about a problem but about solutions, while the resulting policy actions are largely symbolic.