Healthy law makes for healthy children: Cattanach v Melchior

When courts are forced to consider issues surrounding birth and the sanctity of life, it is inevitable that divergence of judicial, academic and public opinion will result. However, the issue of whether parents can recover the expenses of rearing a healthy child has long vexed judges and commentators of law, ethics and medicine both in Australia and globally, with considerable disunity. A cogent example is the recent High Court of Australia decision in Cattanach v Melchior (2003) 215 CLR 1, where the court split four to three and handed down no less than six individual judgments. The case involved the birth of a healthy child following an unplanned pregnancy resulting from a failed surgical sterilisation. By allowing parents to recover the reasonable expenses of rearing an unintended child until the age of 18 years, the decision has provided some limited and temporary legal clarity to the issue of wrongful pregnancy in Australia. It is seen by some as a victory for the reproductive freedom of women and the rights of the child. However, with uncertainty remaining on the issue of wrongful life claims in Australia and with legislative changes in Queensland and New South Wales that partly reverse the High Court's decision, there remains doubt about the future of such claims in Australia.     

Natural helpers: a community approach to harm reduction

This paper, by Jennifer Taylor and Theresa Jasperson, looks at a successful harm-reduction initiative developed by Streetworks, a needle exchange program in Edmonton, Alberta. The Natural Helpers initiative provides and enhances the skills, knowledge, resources, and support that people who use injection drugs need in order to take care of others in their community. The evolution of the project, from its inception to the present situation, is described.     

Channeling frustrations: institutions, economic fluctuations, and political behavior

While the literature suggests that clear lines of responsibility lead to greater incumbent dependence on economic conditions for support, little has been said about how electorates channel frustrations in systems characterized by 'fuzzy' lines of responsibility, i.e., the shape and status of parliamentary government in relation to possible choice of electors open to them. The argument presented here is that fuzzy lines of responsibility result in lower incentives to participate in political processes and greater system dissatisfaction given economic circumstances. This decline is greater in systems in which incumbent responsibility is less easily identified by the individual citizen. To test this, data are collected from eight European nations over the period 1975–1992. Split sample and slope intervention models with robust estimation are employed at the individual level. System level aggregates are analyzed using pooled time–series analysis to confirm individual level findings. Finally, election turnout data are also analyzed to obtain election level verification of survey findings. Evidence suggests that participation is more heavily influenced by economic conditions in fuzzy settings. Coupled with existing literature, this suggests that while clear settings encourage punishment of the incumbent unclear settings tend to cause individuals to become more withdrawn and alienated. However, economic conditions are also important to overall system effects. The findings herein suggest that unclear or fuzzy settings increase the role of economic conditions in determination of system affect.     

Taiwan's Foreign Policy and Africa: The limitations of dollar diplomacy

The search for status, or more correctly, the desire to maintain status, lies at the heart of the Republic of China on Taiwan's (ROC) foreign policy. This is particularly so vis-a ¤ -vis its official state-to-state relations. In this regard, the ROC has been constrained by a conscious policy by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to try and marginalize Taiwan on the international stage. Due to objective realities, Taiwan has had to become satisfied with maintaining official state relations with small states only. All, with the exception of the Vatican, are in the developing world, with a number in Africa. This paper examines Taiwanese foreign policy and its diplomatic initiatives, with particular reference to its use of 'dollar diplomacy' in its activities in Africa. The constraints and limitations of such policies are drawn out.     

Preemployment screening and training could reduce excessive force litigation cases

Police officers enter law enforcement with enthusiasm. However, at some point, their idealism dissipates to the point of apathy causing some to become aggressive with the general public. During this period, some officer’s performance declines. This raises concerns for superior officers and management with how these problems could lead to legal liabilities if out-of-control officers engage in excessive force.     

Voters and macroeconomics: Are they forward looking or backward looking?

The political business cycle hypothesis has been criticized on the grounds that it is impossible for governments to generate a vote winning boom because voters judge political candidates by the performance they expect in the future. In this paper, we directly test the hypothesis that voters are forward rather than backward looking. We compare the conventional view that presidential popularity depends on recently observed inflation and unemployment to three alternative models which assume varying forms of forward looking behavior. Non-tested hypothesis tests reject the forward looking models in favor of the one with the recent actual variables.