Mass Salmonella Poisoning by the Peanut Corporation of America: State-Corporate Crime Involving Food Safety

Animal feces in food causes outbreaks of salmonella poisoning, whose assault on the body results in several days of diarrhea, vomiting and even death. This paper looks at the massive distribution of salmonella-contaminated peanuts in 2008–2009 that caused nine deaths, 11,000–20,000 illnesses and the recall of 4000 products in the US. The Peanut Corporation of America operated filthy, sometimes unregistered, plants and shipped products to major food manufacturers and schools after receiving test results positive for salmonella. This corporate crime was facilitated by substantial weaknesses in regulation, and is thus a state-facilitated corporate crime. This case study is developed by looking at the peanut plant conditions, decisions of executives, regulatory failure, and overall response. The conclusion asks about the puzzle of the state responding to a crime it facilitated, and how to understand the role a corporation victimizing another corporation plays into the response.     

Latency – Time for lawyers to get up to speed?

While latency issues have always existed in IT systems, it is only in recent years that latency has become a significant focal point for both IT suppliers and customers. This paper will provide an overview as to how latency arises in IT systems, why latency is becoming important across a variety of business sectors and then explores some of the prominent legal issues inherent in contracting for low-latency solutions.     

Civil society and the contemporary threat to religious freedom in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Against the international backdrop of rising religious tensions, this article explores contemporary civil society views on religious freedom in Bangladesh. It uses critical frame analysis of the corpus of civil society organizations’ (CSOs) submissions to the United Nations’ third cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 2013–18. It provides a timely assessment of Bangladesh’s fulfilment of international obligations on religious freedom, and shows how the politicization of religion and the resultant conflict between ‘secularism’ and ‘extremism’ have been fuelling inter-communal tensions and religious intolerance. In particular, CSOs’ UPR submissions present powerful accounts of the principal human rights pathology affecting the country today, religious-based violence. This is accompanied by a narrative of police malpractice, judicial failings, discrimination, oppression and incitement. A further key finding is ‘situated knowledge’ or first-hand accounts of legal restrictions and government repression of civil society organizations. Consonant with the classical work of liberal theorists, we argue that unprecedented importance now attaches to safeguarding civil society criticality in order to defend religious freedom and uphold human rights in the Republic.     

Civil service 2000: The coming crisis

The essay provides a comprehensive review of “the coming crisis.” Parts of the contribution not reprinted here provide some focus on appropriate policies for ameliorating what is in our future.     

Market cycles,power politics and the latest North – South energy trade conflict

Energy trade periodically aligns Northern importing – consuming countries against predominantly Southern producing – exporting countries. Conflict appears to follow a cyclical pattern, whereby Northern firms invest in developing Third World hydrocarbon resources to meet consumer demand until market conditions enable unilateral efforts by host sovereigns to augment fiscal take and ownership share and to impose output restrictions, thereby elevating prices and revenues. Although markets eventually correct themselves, major consuming-country governments, to the extent that seller's markets attributable to exporter actions harm short-term consumer welfare and alternative options for restoring buyer's markets are lacking, have varying incentives to support military intervention. Shifting market conditions and power balances suggest six ideal-typical energy trade conflict strategies. Finally, to the extent that exporting states succeed in converting higher hydrocarbon revenues into energy-intensive economic growth, co-operative phases within this conflict pattern could yield to increasingly zero-sum inter-consumer rivalry.