Does Competition Law Influence REACH Consortia?

The new European Union Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals which came into force in June 2007 requires companies to work together on information relating to substances in their products in order to share data and the cost of generating new data, in order to minimise animal testing and reduce the financial burden associated with testing costs. Registrants of the same substance will be allocated to Substance Information Exchange Fora and may even form their own consortia, all with their own potential Competition Law aspects.     

Youth justice conferencing and police referrals: The gatekeeping role of police in Queensland, Australia

Youth justice conferencing in Queensland, Australia relies on the discretionary referral of young offenders by the police. The low rate of police referrals to conferencing is an ongoing concern for conference organizers. The research presented in this study explored Queensland police officers' training, experience, understandings of youth justice conferencing, and their individual discretionary policing style. The impact of these factors on officers' attitudes towards conferencing and their reported likelihood of referring to conference were examined. One hundred eighty-four Queensland police officers stationed in police regions where conferencing was available participated in the study. Of these officers, 15 percent had never heard of conferencing. Of officers who had heard of conferencing, 35 percent had received training, 21 percent had referred a young person to a conference, and 20 percent had attended a conference. Officers' understandings of conferencing were significantly related to their reported likelihood of referring a young person to a conference. The results indicated that to increase police referrals of young people to conferences, police need to be exposed (both through training and attendance) to the philosophy of and procedures involved in conferencing.