Market Processes, Standardisation, and Tort Law

Private standards play a decisive role in tort law and in administrative law. Although they seem to be a perfect tool to achieve the goal of European integration, they tend to substitute democratic legitimacy with uncontrolled private governance. The loss of democratic control is accentuated by the failure of markets to provide sufficient incentives for standardising organisations to behave in a non-opportunistic manner. The dangers of cartelisation and oligopolistic behaviour are obvious. The approach to overcome these deficits is complex: on the one hand, an institutional governance of private organisations is necessary to incorporate third party interests in the process of enacting private standards; on the other hand, the legal effects of private standards have to be restricted to mere assumptions dependent on the democratic quality of their enacting process. The problem of democratic legitimacy is aggravated by the parallel substitution of state authorities' control by means of private certification organisations which control only the management procedures of firms. As these management systems are difficult to be evaluate, the opportunities for opportunistic behaviour amongst firms and certifiers increases. Moreover, markets themselves fail to discipline certifiers by virtue of a lack of observable factors which might indicate the quality of certification. Tort law, too, cannot fulfil that gap by providing liability for damages caused by undue certifications because tort law suffers from a variety of shortcomings such as missing protection of public goods and difficult assessments of causation linkages. In sum, the author argues for a mixture of market incentives, tort law and administrative law. Each sector must fill in the gaps left by the others.     

Cape Fear– Two Versions and Two Visions Separated by Thirty Years

This essay examines the changes between 1962 and 1991 that occurred in the context within which the two very different versions of Cape Fear appeared. These two versions of the story of a threatened lawyer are emblematic of an altered perspective on law. The essay highlights the tension between art's role as a reflector of society and its values and its role shaping social views. The inference, from the different portrayals of Sam Bowden, that there has been a systematic decline in the lawyer's status and public esteem is not, however, borne out in the cinematic field. The situation has become one of moral ambiguity with the lawyer playing a more ambivalent role in society.     

CJDATS CO-OCCURRING DISORDERS SCREENING INSTRUMENT (CODSI) FOR MENTAL DISORDERS (MD): A Validation Study

Three standardized screening instruments-the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs Short Screener (GSS), the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Modified (MINI-M), and the Mental Health Screening Form (MHSF)-were compared to two shorter instruments, the 6-item Co-Occurring Disorders Screening Instrument for Mental Disorders (CODSI-MD) and the 3-item CODSI for Severe Mental Disorders (CODSI-SMD) for use with offenders in prison substance-abuse treatment programs. Results showed that the CODSI screening instruments were comparable to the longer instruments in overall accuracy and that all of the instruments performed reasonably well. The CODSI instruments showed sufficient value to justify their use in prison substance-abuse treatment programs and to warrant validation testing in other criminal justice populations and settings.     

Psychological Injury and Law: Defining a Field

This article elaborates definitional and conceptual issues relevant to the field of psychological injury and law. It reviews the literature in the major areas that mark the field—law, forensic psychology, disability, and assessment/malingering. To meet admissibility requirements of testimony in court, psychologists and other mental health professionals need to maintain a comprehensive, impartial, and scientifically informed approach to assessments based on a state-of-the-art knowledge, such as made available in this journal.     

Regulating the Trade in Recreational Drugs

This paper examines the market for illegal recreational drugs. Under the present regime of illegality, the law acts as a barrier to entry of other firms. It also restricts the information available to consumers. Both of these effects increase the market power of traders. Other negative consequences of illegality include the use of violence to enforce contracts, poor quality control and the use of illegal activities to finance the purchase of drugs.However, legalizing the trade is likely to lead to greater drug use in the long run. This follows from the addictive nature of recreational drugs. Initial use of the drugs will drastically reduce consumers' price elasticity at any given level of consumption. Firms can increase the extent of the market by using introduction strategies, reducing consumers' price elasticities. Since newly introduced consumers have no brand loyalty, introduction strategies are public goods for firms. Free rider problems will produce oligopoly and collusion. Legalization will lead oligopolistic firms to expand the market.To avoid these problems it is suggested that the recreational drugs industry should be nationalised, not legalised.